It's far better to just panic than to think reasonably. From Fox News:
South Korea plans to kill cats and dogs to try to prevent the spread of bird flu after an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus at a chicken farm last week, officials said Monday.Animal health experts, however, suggested it was "a bit of an extreme measure" when there was no scientific evidence to suggest that cats or dogs could pass the virus to humans.
Quarantine officials have already killed 125,000 chickens within a 1,650-foot radius of the outbreak site in Iksan, about 155 miles south of Seoul, the Agriculture Ministry said. Officials began slaughtering poultry on Sunday, a day after they confirmed that the outbreak was caused by the H5N1 strain.
They plan to slaughter a total of 236,000 poultry, as well as other animals, including pigs, and all dogs and cats in the area by Thursday, the ministry said. About 6 million eggs also will be destroyed, it said. The ministry did not say how many dogs, cats and other animals would be killed.