Another hopeful sign of how moral progress and animal advocacy continues in the 21st century version of the “cultural revolution” in contemporary China.
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MSN News, May 22
Courtesy of Peter Li. In China, bears are kept in tight cages and farmed for their bile.
More and more Chinese, especially young people, are calling out cruel practices, such as bear bile farming, in China.
Bile extracted from caged bears. Stray animals abused and neglected. Sharks‘ fins lopped off for soup.
Most people’s perception of China’s animal rights record is as grim as the fates of some of the animals living there. But a movement has quietly risen to challenge that.
“‘Animal welfare’ was a foreign term,” Peter Li, who works in China for Humane Society International, told MSN News in an e-mail. “It is now a well-known concept in China.”
In February, China Daily reported that the China Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine said at a press conference that “the process of extracting bear bile was as easy, natural and painless as turning on a tap. After the operation was done, bears went out to play happily.”
Bear bile is used in cosmetics and for medicinal purposes, such as preventing gallstones, but experts disagree over whether it works.
Courtesy of Peter Li. Young people in China have been particularly active in protesting animal cruelty.
After the association’s comments, a video went viral in China showing a much less sunny version of the bile extraction process. Animals Asia says the practice is cruel and invasive.
“Over the years, the campaign against bear bile farming has often been a sensitive one, but today it is clear that the issue is finally mainstream and even schools are engaged and involved, with support and numbers growing all the time,” Animals Asia Founder and CEO Jill Robinson said in a statement.
That response is one sign of a larger animal-welfare movement in China, Li believes. He said the country has “changed beyond recognition.”
According to Li, ordinary people in China, especially young people, are pressuring the government for anti-cruelty legislation. Even pet ownership has changed. Li said that regulations on pet ownership have softened and that dog culling has abated.
“The movement is strong and will grow stronger,” he wrote.
It’s not just young people motivating the changes. Animal rights in China has been endorsed by some of the country’s best-known celebrities.
“Jackie Chan . . . has been speaking for tiger protection and against cruelty to farm bears,” Li wrote. “Yao Ming . . . is a towering moral figure. He calls on the Chinese people to stay away from shark fin soup, from ivory products and bear bile products.”
Courtesy of Peter Li. Stray animals are often abused in China, but that is changing now.
Groups like Humane Society International and Animals Asia are still pushing, however.
“The explosion of newspaper, TV, radio and Internet stories in China about bear bile farming has seen a massive online outcry demanding justice for the bears,” Robinson said. She said in the statement that when Animals Asia was working on its campaign against bear bile farming, the group was “inundated by people who wanted to take part.”
But Li sees a lot more work ahead if things like bear bile farms and the hunting of endangered species is going to end.
“A lot needs to be done, admittedly,” he said. “But, today, it causes a strong reaction when animal abuse is exposed.”
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Reblogged this on The Monsters Among Us.
Peter Li has an excellent and very informative chapter in Marc Bekoff’s new book. It is critical that he is writing about the possibility for change in a society which has its own unique cultural basis for animal instrumentality. It is extremely refreshing to get both a critical analysis and a boots on the ground analysis of Chna’s animal reform movement. In site of this, the PRC government is moving its farmed animals toward a CAFO model and acting to facilitate the cultivation and price subsidy of meat in order to enable more meat consumption. The PRC has a long way to go and Li’s work is as important in critiquing cultural stereotypes and changing consciousness as in critiquing the lack of meaningful reform and expanding economic basis of animal use.
Yes John, I have long maintained China is highly ambiguous: as animal activists, especially regarding cats and and dogs targeted for food consumption, has spiked dramatically, the population of China continues to swell, rapidly modernize, and consume, including dramatic rises in CAFO production and Western-style meat consumption, as the latter dynamic is overtaking India and Indonesia two, the second and fourth most populated countries in the world respectively.
Oh what wonderful news indeed !! there are so many awful news that a few or ONE GOOD makes your day………..thank you very much Steve!
I sincerely hope that the animal cruelty in China does start to decline. Well done to the Chinese people who are speaking out for those who don’t have a voice !!!
Great to see!! Our world is finally changing for the better!
Reblogged this on My Blog spiritandanimal.wordpress.com and commented:
A wonderul sign that all our efforts are not without consequences!
Thank you for reblogging that interesting article!
Glad to see that there are individuals in China that recognize the harm and wrong for what it truly is. No surprise though that those industries who continue collecting bile use the same verbal placebos and platitudes that we’ve become so accustomed to regarding farmed animals. Just like the hens who “give” eggs, the cows who “give” milk and the pigs who “give” bacon – Who knew that bears had a “tap” that simply needed to be turned on? 😦