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China is making progress on animal issues.© Peter Brandt/iStock.com |
By Peter Li
It is no surprise that China presents challenges to animal welfare activists in just about every area. But with these challenges comes hope. Chinese organizations are gaining ground in reducing the suffering of animals around the country, from wildlife conservation to street animal welfare.
China is a country pivotal to the building of a humane world for all nonhuman animals. Each year, China sustains the greatest number of disasters, natural or man-made, and humans are not the only victims. China has the world's biggest livestock industry, impacting more farm animals than any other country. And China's culture of wildlife consumption threatens wildlife species around the world.
Any accomplishment in China, however small, is sure to have significance of global scale. Humane Society International (HSI) has been involved in China-related animal advocacy efforts since the 1990s with the hope of facilitating qualitative changes in the fortunes of this country's animals.
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| Kittens being transported out of the quake zone.© Hong Kong SPCA |
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Earthquake in Sichuan
HSI's China operations in the past year reflected the severity of animal suffering in this rapidly transforming nation.
In May, HSI was one of the first international NGOs to respond to the earthquake, which killed more than 70,000 people and 13 million animals. Collaborating with Animals Asia Foundation and two other local organizations, HSI spearheaded China's first ever rescue mission aimed at the traumatized nonhuman quake victims.
With HSI's financial help, the rescue team pulled emaciated dogs from basements of collapsed buildings and rescuers bravely retrieved dogs and cats trapped for days on the damaged balconies of the collapsing apartment buildings. Also with HSI's help, a local shelter was renovated and expanded to accommodate pets whose human family members could not keep them in government emergency shelters.
The significance of this international response to the distress calls went beyond the goals of the rescue mission. Collaboration with the Chinese authorities and the work of the rescuers sent a strong message to China that no disaster rescue plan can exclude nonhuman victims, particularly pets. The rescue mission demonstrated to the Chinese authorities that civic groups could be an asset rather than nuisance in times of disaster relief.
As a result, a local animal protection group has taken the initiative to create a "national disaster animal rescue network" for coordinating future emergency rescue operations like the one HSI and Animals Asia Foundation conducted in Sichuan.
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| A demand for soup is endangering sharks.© istock |
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Confronting Cruelty
As in other countries, animal cruelty comes in different forms in China. The growing demand for meat from wildlife in the Greater China region represents a major threat to species around the world. In 2008, HSI engaged millions of consumers, especially those in the Chinese population, asking them to not consume shark fin soup. HSI also educated businesses about the cruelty and environmental destruction caused by shark finning and some, including Taiwan's prestigious National Palace Museum, pledged to never serve shark fin again.
China has a 5,000-year-old wildlife eating culinary sub-culture. Cultural change takes time. By educating the public and raising awareness, HSI's goal is to accelerate the rise of a new and humane culinary culture in East Asia.
Meanwhile, no sooner had the Beijing Olympics ended did media reports on cat trafficking begin to catch worldwide attention. In one story, a shipment of 1,500 cats was intercepted by Chinese activists. These erstwhile urban strays or household pets were being transported from the Shanghai region to Guangzhou, China's capital of exotic eating and some 2,000 kilometers to the south.
HSI announced its opposition to cat eating and the associated cruelty of cat trafficking across long-distance in China. In the statement, HSI praised the efforts of Chinese animal protection groups and expressed hope for improved effectiveness of these vitally important voices at the forefront of anti-cruelty campaigns in China.
Since HSI published the statement, Chinese animal protection groups have increased their efforts to expose the cruelty of cat trafficking and eating to the general public. In mid-December, well-coordinated public protests took place in Beijing and Guangzhou against cat eating and cat smuggling. Several groups leading these protests are members of the "Animal Protection Network" that had participated in an HSI-cosponsored event in Guangzhou one year earlier.
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Caged hens can't even spread their wings. |
Spreading the Message
With an estimated population of 1.3 billion people, China is the world's most populous country. Billions of animals are raised there for food each year and China's per-capita meat consumption has increased rapidly in recent years. Some experts estimate it has doubled in the past two decades.
The use of factory farms is increasing at an alarming rate and the intensification and expansion of animal agriculture in China raises a host of animal welfare, animal health, human health and environmental concerns. HSI is working to provide policy makers and opinion leaders in China with the information they need to improve farm animal welfare.
As one way of accomplishing this, HSI created a farm animal welfare resource center in both simplified and traditional Chinese. This includes papers addressing diverse topics, including the role of factory farming in the spread of disease such as avian influenza (bird flu) and animal agriculture's contribution to climate change.
In March, 2008, HSI co-sponsored a historic farm animal welfare conference that brought together roughly 150 Chinese government officials, academics, journalists, and agricultural producers. This well-received event was sponsored by a Chinese government agency (The Chinese Economists' Society for the Forestry, Livestock & Fisheries Industries, affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences—Rural Development Institute). The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, World Society for the Protection of Animals, and Compassion in World Farming were also co-sponsors and the European Commission provided additional support.
In November, HSI presented a talk on the use of antibiotic use in animal agriculture at the Second Chinese Zoonotic Disease Prevention and Control Conference. The presentation, which included a discussion of the impacts on human health as well as animal welfare, reached a prestigious audience of Chinese government officials, researchers, and experts in the field. Miyun Park, Humane Society of the United States (The HSUS) Vice President of Farm Animal Welfare, delivered the presentation and noted:
The conference was an absolutely wonderful and meaningful opportunity for us to talk about animal welfare to such an accomplished and influential audience. It was clear to me that most if not all of the attendees had not considered farm animal welfare in the ways that we do, so it was fantastic to be able to participate and take the animals' message to the scientific experts.
HSI has also taken other proactive approaches to spread humane messages to China. An article based on a field survey of China's two biggest tiger farms was published in The HSUS publication All Animals to inform the public of the adverse conservation and welfare consequences of China's controversial tiger farming.
Finally, an article entitled "Exponential Growth, Animal Welfare, Environmental and Food Safety Impact: The Case of China's Livestock Production", drawing data from an HSI sponsored research project, will be published in the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics. Through this article, the welfare problems of modern factory farms and their impact on China's sustainable development are presented to the academic community.
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| Beijing has more than 500,000 stray cats. © iStock.com |
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Spay/Neuter Assistance
Animal shelters in China are, without exception, overcrowded with abandoned animals. Already financially strapped, these shelters spend most of their resources on the essentials such as food and medicine. Sterilization is almost never carried out before the animals are re-homed.
In April, HSI offered a donation to help Animal Rescue Branch (ARB), a local shelter in Beijing, in its efforts to neuter and spay the remaining 16 intact dogs. As a result of HSI's collaboration with ARB, they intend to launch a local campaign to persuade dog owners to neuter or spay their dogs in the coming year.
In December, HSI assisted two other Chinese groups in their sterilization efforts.
Taishan Animal Protection Group in Jinan, Shandong Province has 300 abandoned dogs and more than 200 cats. HSI assistance was specifically supplied for its sterilization program. Shandong Province is one of the two main regions producing dog meat.
Beautiful New World is a group following a Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) model. This volunteer driven group is devoted to sterilizing stray cats and returning them back to neighborhood and public parks with a consistent food supply provided by caretakers. Beijing reportedly has between 500,000 to 700,000 stray and feral cats. Sterilization is the only means of curbing the growth of the stray population in the nation's capital.
To engage more Chinese animal protection groups, HSI has entered into a partnership with ACTAsia, a UK-based advocacy group, to conduct training and workshops in two Chinese cities to help Chinese NGO capacity building. One workshop was held in June and another is scheduled for March 2009. Topics of discussion include animal welfare, shelter management, veterinary medicine, spay/neuter, and outreach strategies.
Looking to 2009
HSI's China-related efforts in the past year set a new benchmark for its work. HSI has also laid important groundwork for continued change in China. HSI conducted a field study of China's tiger farms to gauge the magnitude of the controversial farming operation. HSI members met with officials of Animals Asia Foundation at its Chengdu Bear Sanctuary in China's Sichuan Province to explore areas of future collaboration. Significantly, HSI also met Chinese government officials on issues related to wildlife conservation, welfare of institutionalized wild animals, and urban animal management. HSI is now in a better position to pursue operations on the Chinese mainland.
China is the most rapidly changing society and Humane Society International is determined to make animal welfare part of this momentous transformation.
Updated Feb. 19, 2009
