Cllctv ("collective")

Written by Nell Alk. Photos #1 and 2 by Jo-Anne McArthur of Animals Asia Foundation.

Those in the know know that Western culture has a tremendously long way to go regarding the way we treat other species. We also know that the animal protection movement is a global one, not to be constrained to praising or criticizing the practices of any one region in particular.

Still, when Western animal advocates think about China, we generally think of the world’s most merciless environment of animal abuse. Even cursory protection laws there seem either non-existent or unenforced, and, culturally, there seem to be no “sacred cows.” We think about dogs and cats routinely factory farmed; insane folk traditions about ingesting tigers’ testicles or rhinos’ horns to enhance sexual performance; stray dogs (and sometimes domesticated ones) being bludgeoned to death on the street by government authorities; the world’s highest consumption of fur products, the world’s largest exports of finished fur products, and the world’s least regulated fur farming industry, relentlessly torturing and then skinning animals, often while still alive; unchecked industrial pollution extinguishing local species such as the baiji; and bile farms where native Moon Bears are kept in immobilizing “crush cages” for up to thirty years in order to painfully milk their bile for its inessential medicinal value via open-wound catheters. All this is in addition to practicing the familiar animal exploitations we know too well in the West but with even less regulation or political pressure to meet minimal standards of care.

That’s a long rap sheet. Yet news of local resistance—a dramatic citizen rescue of dogs on their way to slaughter, or the establishment of a new Moon Bear sanctuary—is peeking optimistically through, and if you’ve heard of those bear sanctuaries, you’ve heard about the work of a singular and determined organization: Animals Asia. Begun by Jill Robinson in 1998, the nonprofit is devoted to the protection of both wild and urban animals in Asia. As part of a measured yet ambitious campaign to end bear farming, Animals Asia has established several sanctuaries, providing safe havens for abused bears and logistical solutions for what do with the bears whenever the organization manages to close such a farm. That’s happened an impressive 43 times, by the way. Read More…