[Campaign Closed] A Plea for Compassion: Protect Chained Dogs from Burning Alive in South Korean Wildfires (Friendship City: Asan & Palm Springs, California)

posted by KoreanDogs.org team on November 22,2025 in Uncategorized

Campaign Update – 11/24/2025: Closing This Campaign

Thank you to everyone who participated in our campaign urging Palm Springs to speak out for the dogs suffering in Asan, South Korea. We have now received confirmation that Asan is not currently recognized as a Friendship City of Palm Springs. Our campaign was originally based on the Friendship Agreement signed in 2010, and in 2017, a previous campaign regarding the dog meat industry in Asan resulted in meaningful support from former Mayor Robert Moon and the City Council.

Although Palm Springs no longer maintains a Friendship City relationship with Asan, we hope the Mayor and City Council might still consider sending a brief letter to Asan officials acknowledging our concerns. As demonstrated in 2017, even a simple expression of concern from a respected U.S. city can have a powerful and positive impact.

Based on this clarification, we will be closing this campaign specifically for Palm Springs. We are deeply grateful for your voices, compassion, and willingness to take action. Your efforts help keep attention on the suffering of tethered and isolated dogs in South Korea, and together we will continue working toward meaningful change through new campaigns, outreach, and advocacy.

Thank you for standing with us—and with the animals who cannot speak for themselves.

Photos: Charles, a dog who miraculously escaped a wildfire after being severely burned across his entire body, including inside his mouth, is now receiving intensive care and showing remarkable resilience despite his horrific injuries. Tragically, Charles witnessed his friend, tied next to him, burn to death. https://koreandogs.org/charles/

Despite the 2023 revision of South Korea’s Animal Protection Act—which set a two-meter minimum tether length—lifelong tethering remains legal, widespread, and profoundly inhumane. A two-meter chain offers no real freedom or dignity. Across the country, dogs endure short chains, filth, harsh weather, and utter neglect. Treated as tools or property, their suffering is normalized, hidden, and ignored.

The devastating wildfires of March 2025 once again exposed the full horror of this systemic neglect. Countless dogs, permanently chained or caged, were abandoned during evacuations—left to burn alive in agony. This was not just a failure of disaster response—it was a moral and ethical failure of society as a whole.

In response, South Korea’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs (MAFRA) issued the “Manual for the Rescue and Protection of Companion Animals During Natural Disasters” in May 2025. We recognize and commend this step as an important milestone: the manual acknowledges companion animals as family members, outlines roles for government agencies, and promotes local emergency planning and public awareness. However, the manual is non-binding. It does not mandate the evacuation of animals, nor does it address or prohibit the practice of lifelong tethering.

Even more alarmingly, countless dogs are kept in isolation—chained at fields, orchards, factories, or warehouses, far from human care. Labeled as tools, not pets, they are denied legal protection and left exposed to extreme weather and deadly disasters, unable to escape. This is not mere neglect—it’s institutionalized cruelty. If people won’t protect them, the law must.

As KoreanDogs.org and many allied organizations have emphasized, true protection requires more than suggestions. Real change requires legally enforceable action and accountability.

We therefore call on the South Korean government to enact urgent and meaningful reforms:

• Ban lifelong tethering nationwide. This cruel and outdated practice causes ongoing physical and psychological suffering and must end.
• Ban the remote, solitary confinement of dogs—isolated from human residences, care, and companionship. No dog should be forced to live out its life alone and unprotected, treated as a disposable tool.
• Mandate companion animal evacuation by law during all declared emergencies. No animal should ever be left behind to burn, drown, starve, or freeze.
• Prosecute abandonment and cruelty with severe, consistent penalties, especially during disasters when the consequences are often fatal.
• Require local governments to develop and implement enforceable animal disaster plans, with oversight and accountability.

We also urge Sister and Friendship Cities around the world to take a principled stand. These partnerships must not overlook the suffering and destruction caused by inadequate animal protection laws in South Korea. We ask global partners to raise their voices: urge your counterparts in South Korea to legislate lasting reforms, including a ban on tethering, isolated keeping, and mandatory evacuation protocols for all companion animals.

This is a pivotal moment. The world is watching. South Korea can choose compassion and leadership, or remain complicit in avoidable cruelty.
Let us demand change—together.

In a devastating display of cruelty during the South Korean wildfire, tethered and abandoned dogs perished. This tragedy underscores the urgent need for a fundamental shift towards compassion within South Korean society. CARE.

✍🏼 Sign the Petition

Call for Action

👉 📧 Send emails using the Suggested Message (below) to all listed officials—both U.S. and Korean.

Palm Springs City Council:
[DELETED]

Asan City Council:
[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];

👉 📬 Mail the letter.

City of Palm Springs
3200 E. Tahquitz Canyon Way
Palm Springs, CA 92262
USA

📬 Send a copy of your letter to Asan:

Mayor Oh Sae-Hyeon
Asan City Hall
(31512) 456 Simin-ro, Asan, Chungcheongnam-do
South Korea

Asan City Council
(31512) 456 Simin-ro, Asan, Chungcheongnam-do
South Korea

📬 Asan addresses in Korean:

Mayor Oh Sae-Hyeon (Asan City Hall)
오세현 아산시장님
아산시청
(31512) 충청남도 아산시 시민로 456
South Korea

Asan City Council
아산시의회
(31512) 충남 아산시 시민로 456
South Korea

📝 Suggested message

Urgent Appeal to Palm Springs: Help End Tethering and Remote Solitary Confinement of Dogs in Friendship City Asan, South Korea

Dear Mayor Ron deHarte and Esteemed Representatives of Palm Springs,

I write with deep urgency and a heartfelt plea for your compassionate leadership. In Asan, South Korea—your Friendship City—countless dogs are suffering in silence due to the systemic cruelty of lifelong tethering and remote, solitary confinement.

Across South Korea, dogs—often called “field dogs”—are chained alone in remote fields, orchards, warehouses, and even fish farms at sea. Labeled as “guard dogs,” they are in reality powerless to protect anything—not even themselves. Bound by short chains with little to no shelter or care, they endure scorching heat, bitter cold, hunger, and fear. When fires, floods, or other disasters strike, these animals are left to die horrific deaths, unable to escape. This is not a cultural tradition—it is cruelty that has been tolerated and overlooked for far too long.

These “field dogs” are not treated as living beings in need of protection, but as disposable property. This is not merely neglect—it is institutionalized cruelty, enabled by a legal loophole that allows owners to deny animals basic protection simply by asserting they are not “companion animals.”

Although South Korea recently issued a Manual for the Rescue and Protection of Companion Animals During Natural Disasters (May 2025), it carries no legal force. Lifelong tethering is still legal, and there are no enforceable requirements mandating that animals be evacuated or protected during emergencies.

This is a moral crisis—and it is unfolding in your Friendship City.

We have joined a growing national campaign urging the South Korean government to ban the remote confinement and tethering of dogs. It is time to end the abandonment of animals in places far from human care. If people cannot be their guardians, then the law must become their protector.

As a global city with a meaningful relationship with Asan, Palm Springs has a rare opportunity to influence real change. I respectfully urge you to take the following actions:

1. Publicly denounce the cruelty of lifelong tethering and the abandonment of animals during disasters. Silence allows systemic suffering to continue.

2. Contact your counterparts in Asan and urge them to support national legislation banning the remote confinement of dogs and mandating animal evacuation protocols.

3. Advocate for comprehensive reforms in South Korea including:

A complete ban on lifelong tethering and remote confinement
Legally binding evacuation and protection measures for animals during emergencies
Real penalties for abandonment and neglect
Public education campaigns promoting empathy and responsible care

4. Extend Palm Springs’s hand in partnership by offering support through humane disaster planning, policy exchange, and public messaging that elevates the meaning of international friendship.

Please take a moment to see the faces behind this tragedy (warning: deeply disturbing content):

Legal reform is the only true path to ending this cruelty. While South Korea’s recent efforts are a step forward, only strong, enforceable laws can save countless lives and demonstrate true compassion. As leaders of Asan’s Friendship City, your voice matters more than you know. Please use it to speak for these forgotten animals. A global petition is growing: https://c.org/df7QNS76HD. Let this be the moment when Palm Springs’s relationship with Asan becomes a force for meaningful change—not only for people, but for the loyal animals who suffer unseen, tethered and forgotten.

With deep respect, urgency, and hope for your leadership,

[Your name, city, country]

👉 Post on X and Bluesky.

A Plea for Compassion: Protect Chained Dogs from Burning Alive in #SouthKorean #Wildfires Friendship City #Asan #PalmSprings #BanDogTethering #EndDogChainingKorea #AnimalWelfareKorea✍️https://c.org/df7QNS76HD✊https://koreandogs.org/a-plea-for-compassion-Asan-PalmSprings/✊https://koreandogs.org/a-plea-for-compassion-sister-city-us/ 👉🏽FB https://www.facebook.com/BanTether/

👉 Join the effort! Click HERE and HERE for more ways you can help.

Video: Left chained to farm equipment as a wildfire engulfed her village in South Korea, Bbibbi, a year-old puppy, was found barely alive with severe burns after her owner abandoned her, highlighting a critical lack of empathy and inadequate animal protection laws. https://koreandogs.org/bbibbi/

Video: Daan spent three agonizing years tied to a tree, enduring harsh weather, malnutrition, and blindness with no love or shelter, until he was finally rescued—too late to regain his health but given a chance to experience kindness. Despite medical care and a brief time in a safe space, he passed away, leaving behind a heartbreaking reminder of the cruelty animals endure and a plea for compassion toward all sentient beings. To learn more, click 👉 HERE, HERE, HERE.

Video: 💔 CARE’s Grim Discovery: Agony in the Ashes - Burned Dogs Found

Video: Amidst the devastating South Korean wildfires that killed many and destroyed homes, junior dogs who escaped a burning dog farm were found by CARE, demonstrating incredible loyalty by staying together despite severe burns and starvation, highlighting the tragic abandonment of countless animals and the urgent need for improved animal welfare.
Amidst the Inferno: Junior Dogs Found and Rescued, Clinging to Each Other.🐾🐾 CARE

Categories: Uncategorized