The Cost of Cute in China’s Booming Pet Industry
From pet ownership to exotic pet cafes, abuse is rampant at every stage of the sector
宠物经济兴起的背后，动物权益如何保障？
After an hour on the highway, driver Zhang Huanan (pseudonym) pulls his white sedan into a service station, opens the trunk, and drips bottled water onto four panting Persian kittens. Their fur is matted with sweat, and they claw at the bars of their wire cage in a pathetic bid for freedom. The tissues lining the floor do little to absorb the urine and feces.
Despite Zhang’s encouraging chirruping sounds, the exhausted, oxygen-starved pets give little response. The trunk is slammed shut after five minutes, as Zhang is anxious to be on his way—there’s another two hours to the kittens’ destination, a pet shop in an upscale shopping center in a so-called “fifth-tier” city with a population of 1.3 million in northeastern China.
Driving with animals in the trunk would run afoul of anti-animal cruelty legislation in several countries around the world. But without comprehensive animal protection laws, nor widespread education to encourage compassion toward animals among children or adults, there is little to deter individuals and companies in China from mistreating animals for profit, pleasure, or simply to cut costs.
As far back as 2009, legal experts drafted anti-animal cruelty legislation calling for animal welfare policies like guaranteed “living space” for animals in breeding sites, a ban on surgically altering an animal “for the purpose of viewing or taking pictures,” nationwide education on animal cruelty, and 5,000 RMB fines for acts of cruelty against pets.
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