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SASAN Japan The suffering of animals in Japan |
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The other side of the high-tech-nation Japan
The suffering of animals is without limits – our fight against this suffering has to be limitless, too!
Announcement
The public finally has to become informed about the living situation of our animal friends in High-Tec-Japan. There have been several reports about whale-hunting and dolphin massacres for many years. However, not only whales and dolphins suffer and die, slaughtered by humans, but also many other species. They haven’t been taken into account yet by the international animal welfare organizations or animal rights associations, because outside of Japan none or only very few facts about their sad destiny are known by the people.
Therefore I will report through small announcements (multilingual) on the situation of animals as well as the activities of SASA Japan. I will elucidate animal friends all over the world, supported by A.K.T.E. (ArbeitskreisTierrechte & Ethik = association for animal rights & ethics), about extensively unknown grievances in pet husbandry and the handling of animals in general in Japan.
Lydia Tanabe / Speaker SASA Japan (Small Animals Support Association)
A.K.T.E. - Member / Ressort Asia
REPORT 1 / 04.10.2005
The State-Run Gas Chambers
Annually about 400.000 to 600.000 cats and dogs are being gassed state-aided in Japan. Two thirds of the gassed animals are cats and again ninety –five percent of which never even reach the age of six months.The animals mostly come from pet-shops that can not or don’t want to dispose of their animals or from families who want to get rid of their pets that have become annoying or out of fashion.
Those who are responsible for the gas chambers are the so-called "helpdesks for the love of animals and animal welfare" (Doubutsu Aigo Soudan Senta). Prefects or municipal governments are directly responsible for these helpdesks, so that the time limit for the assassinations differs depending on the respective prefect. While some prefects gas their animals even on the day of delivery and others - due to manpower shortages - keep the poor creatures in callow rooms without thermal protection or insulation for cold and without adequate food supplies, in most cases the time limit for dogs is seven to fourteen days and for cats it is between one day or one week, to be adopted, if applicable. The helpdesks also provide research laboratories with a part of the animals for testing purposes.
As many animals as possible are being penned up in the gas chambers on the day of gasification. The gas chamber fills up with gas at the push of a button – the animals fight and scream for their lives for about ten minutes. When the screaming stops the gas chamber is being transported automatically over a pit full of dead bodies. The bottom of the chamber opens up and the bodies fall into the pit, from where they’re being transported again automatically over an assembly line to be burnt. A part of the animals, primarily very young kittens, survive the gas and will be burnt alive.
According to a survey one third of the Japanese population believes the gas chambers are right, as animals are legally viewed as things, which can be disposed of arbitrarily. About one third of the population feels sorry for the animals, but can not think of an alternative. The last third is against the gasification of dogs and cats.
Lydia Tanabe / Speaker - SASA Japan (Small Animals Support Association)
/ 04.10.2005
A.K.T.E. - Member / Ressort Asia
REPORT 2 / 28.10.2005
Do We Treat Animals Like TV-Sets?
If you want to buy a TV-set you scarcely go directly to the manufacturer but to a special merchant or a store, which in turn receives the TV from a wholesaler. In dealing with animals most of Europe skips the wholesaler.
In Japan the business with animals is almost as well defined as the business with electronic devices or other goods. Hardly anyone directly goes to the breeder to pick up his new pet, but most of the animals – especially the smaller animals, birds and reptiles – are being brought, by the breeder himself, into an "animate center" (seitai senta) and are being delivered to various pet-shops where they are being sold.
Cats and dogs are being delivered to the pet-shops partly by the breeder, but also very often are being sold directly by the "animate centers". Transport and delivery looks like this: the living creatures are being packed and stuffed into boxes like TVs and even would be arranged in a pile according to size. As we are talking about living creatures they of course unlike TVs tend to move around, so they get tied up. Most of the time they also get shipped without water therefore the death rate while being transported is very high, which of course leads to high selling prices in the pet-shops.
The average Japanese usually buys his pet at a very high price except when it concerns a dead article which is about to be disposed and now is being sold at a bargain price. In Japan there are two kinds of pet-shops: old downtown pet-shops and ultra-modern luxury pet-shops. Both kinds sell animals like piled-up TV-sets.
Another problem is that nearly all of the hundred thousands of Japanese pet-shops don’t provide the animals continuously with water, because if an animal drinks a lot of water it urinates more frequently which would definitely lead to smell nuisance and of course higher costs of cleaning. Therefore the animals are only provided with small amounts of water and this only every second or third day.
It is hardly necessary to mention that neither feeding nor husbandry are even approximately appropriate to the species.
In the downtown pet-shops most of the time the animals get stuffed into birdcages, it doesn’t matter which species they’re of. Not rarely you can see turtles, stag beetles, dogs, cats, rabbits or guinea pigs locked in bird cages. The animals are being fed with birdseed and especially rabbits or conies won’t survive this treatment very long. The carnivorous animals get their recently deceased animal friends for dinner.
Unlike that the animals in the luxury pet-shops are living in showcases made from glass so that customers can take good looks at them. Many of those new pet-shops are open 24 hours so that animals who usually sleep in the daytime are constantly exposed to bright lights and never really find the possibility to sleep. The showcases also have the disadvantage that they heat up very strongly in the hot summers in Japan and so the animals often die of heat strokes. The ultra-modern luxury pet-shops are very popular, because they mostly sell young animals. Two to three weeks old kittens, puppies or conies, that actually only long for the warmth of their mothers, sit there motionless and afraid in those sterile showcases. The inappropriate living conditions and feeding as well as the missing water supplies and the extreme thermal fluctuation in these pet-shops, but also the early break away from their mothers inevitably lead to illnesses. If the animal gets fatally ill in the luxury pet-shops it will be packed up in a box and will be frozen alive or put down somewhere in a backyard where it will be abandoned to his fate, if not by accident saved by us.
In the downtown pet-shops sick animals die in their cages to be used, as mentioned above, as food for the other animals in the shop.
However, if a customer buys these sick animals the pet-shop seller is as happy as the seller, who just sold a TV-set with a guarantee of only one month, because if the TV breaks down after expiration of the guarantee the customer will come back eventually. And even the pet-shop customer will return in most cases, if his puppy-dog died of distemper or his kitten died of peritonitis.
Lydia Tanabe / Speaker SASA Japan (Small Animals Support Association)
/ 28.10.2005
A.K.T.E. - Member / Ressort Asia
REPORT 3 / 29.12.2005
Types Of Breeders In Japan
If breeding pets was ethically justifiable, we could still question how to treat these bred individuals.
Throughout the world breeding animals has not been called into question yet, except breeding human beings. At least the treatment of bred animals is slightly regulated by law in many countries. In Japan, however, everyone can be a breeder without any legal restrictions.
There are two kinds of breeders:
One of them exhibits animals to win prizes. For that reason he merely breeds one or two races of one species. He only takes care of a few species of animals. Those who don't correspond with the eugenic standards of their race are mostly killed at the state-run gas-chambers or sold to downtown pet-shops for a cheap price. Some of these creature also end up in laboratories or as toys in a pet-zoo.
Above all, the second type of breeder wants to earn money. It is well-known that serious breeding can never be lucrative. Yet as soon as you are sparing with personnel and food, specializing in fashionable pets, denying the necessary socialization of the animals and taking them away from their mothers as early as possible, breeders can earn a fast the "big-yen". No public authority is interested in breeding activities anyway.
The majority of the animals in pet-shops comes from such breeders. In most cases the breeding places are surrounded by barbed wire or high walls. Visitors are not allowed to enter. Nevertheless, one dog breeder succeeded in looking behind the walls. And ... pictures say more than words.
Lydia Tanabe / Speaker SASA Japan (Small Animals Support Association)
/ 29.12.2005
A.K.T.E. - Member / Ressort Asia
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