Finland's new Animal Welfare Act prohibits unspayed female cats roaming freely outdoors

Finland has introduced a new Animal Welfare Act which deals with a number of problematic areas including what the Finnish call 'population cats' aka community cats or stray cats or feral cats. Here are some details about this new law...See below image for details.

The new Animal Welfare Act in Finland introduced measures to prevent uncontrolled reproduction, especially in cats. The law emphasizes that the reproduction of mammals, including cats, must be controlled by their owners. This means that letting unspayed female cats roam freely outdoors is not permitted, as it risks unregulated breeding and contributes to the feral cat population. The new rules aim to tackle the issue of abandoned and stray cats, which is a significant problem in Finland​.

In addition, there are strict regulations requiring cat owners to supervise their pets to prevent them from wandering freely. Cats left unsupervised outside of their owner’s property can be considered abandoned, which is against Finnish law​.

Further, Finland's new Animal Welfare Act, which came into force in 2024, represents a significant update to the country's approach to general animal protection. This comprehensive legislation strengthens protections for various animals, from pets to farm animals, and introduces several new measures aimed at improving their welfare.

Key Features of the Act:

1. Breeding and Pets: The Act includes strict rules on breeding, particularly for pets. It prohibits breeding practices likely to produce offspring with serious health issues or those that would cause harm to the animals. For instance, animals with hereditary defects that impair their well-being can no longer be bred.

2. Restrictions on Animal Use: The use of wild animals in circuses and traveling exhibitions is now banned. This includes prohibitions on keeping animals like sea lions in circuses, effectively ending the practice in Finland.

3. Care Requirements: The Act mandates that all mammals and birds should have continuous access to drinking water, although certain exceptions are allowed for species like reindeer and sled dogs under specific conditions. The law also imposes stricter requirements on the care of pets, ensuring they have proper opportunities for physical exercise, rest, and social interactions.

4. Ban on Certain Practices: The sale and use of electric and spiked collars have been banned, although electric cattle prods for farm animals are still allowed. Additionally, cosmetic surgeries like ear cropping and tail docking for dogs are prohibited.

5. Farm Animal Protections: The construction of new tie stalls for cattle has been banned, though existing ones can still be used. There are also enhanced requirements for the outdoor exercise of dairy cows, extending the mandatory walking period.

6. Fur Farming: Despite public pressure, fur farming was not banned, but the Act did not introduce new restrictions on this practice. This remains a controversial issue, with many advocating for a complete ban.

While the new Act introduces significant improvements, it has faced criticism for not going far enough in some areas, such as fur farming and the long transitional periods for certain practices. Nonetheless, it is a step forward in enhancing animal welfare standards in Finland.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

Closure of cat meat restaurant, Vietnam. For an animal advocate this is a great Christmas present.

NEWS AND OPINION. THIS IS AN OP-ED. I VOICE MY OPINION: For an animal advocate like myself and there are many millions of others the news that the Vietnamese restaurant that killed 300 cats a month to make cats soup has closed for good is the best Christmas present they could have. 

This restaurant was a blot on the animal welfare landscape. They drowned 300 cats a month to make cat soup and presumably other cat meat meals. Can you imagine that? Drowning 300 cats a month? Every act an act of gross cruelty multiplied by 300 in a 30 day period which is 10 acts of gross cruelty every day against innocent animals.

And the people who did it had no qualms about it at all. Not an inkling of conscience. Nothing, nada, zero. The brain was dead. Or perhaps I am wrong and they did grow a conscience (see below).

Education

Actually, I think this is about education. I think the owner of this restaurant learned through the Internet and through the Humane Society that stealing people's pets and cruelly killing them and then eating them was immoral, wrong and entirely inhumane. It's about education ultimately. If you want to stop the cat meat trade then you need to educate people.

Pham Quoc Doanh, the restaurant owner tears down the signage on the closure of his cat meat restaurant. Image: Daily Mail.

Internet and sites like this and news media educate

This restaurant has been in the news quite a lot recently and I'm delighted that the news media are picking up on cat meat stories from Asia. I know this is a cultural thing and I know that we have to be sensitive about cultural differences and I try to be. We have to be sensitive and I understand that but when a culture fosters animal cruelty I think it becomes a universal issue and I also think under those circumstances we have a right to criticise.

I believe that anybody anywhere should do their best to stop animal cruelty by anybody anywhere.

This was the Gia Bảo restaurant in Thai Nguyen city, in the country's northeast. It was a profitable enterprise. Where did the cats come from? The Daily Mail says that they were "likely including stolen pets". They were drowned in a bucket one after another the newspaper says. Horrendous. Don't dwell on that thought.

The business was run by a 37-year-old man called Pham Quoc Doanh who took to this horrendous business because she was struggling to feed his family selling "other normal food and drinks". He's the man in the picture above.

He discovered that there was no other restaurant in the area where he lived selling cat meat so he decided on that type of business. No issue in his mind about animal cruelty by the way? And I am sensitive to the fact that he was struggling to survive. That is one aspect of the cat meat business. He had to find a way to feed his family and sometimes we have to give up on principles. 

However, putting criticism aside, he appears to have changed his mind because he reached out to the Humane Society International which has been campaigning for some time to stop the cat meat trade in Vietnam. The Humane Society offered him a one-off grant to change businesses to a grocery store. Perhaps he had seen the negative publicity and experienced falling trade?

He took up the offer and the picture you see on this page is him symbolically tearing down the signage outside his restaurant to begin a new business and a new way of life.

He said that he became upset with the cat meat business. These are his words:

"For a while now I have felt a genuine desire to leave the cruel cat meat business and switch to something else as soon as possible. When I think of all the thousands of cats I've slaughtered and served up here over the years, it's upsetting."

He added: 'Cat theft is so common in Vietnam that I know many of the cats sold here were someone's loved family companion, and I feel very sorry about that.'

Well, those words warm my heart in one way - his change of heart but he has committed horrendous crimes for a long time. And my eternal thanks to the Humane Society International which is doing such great work. It must have been a real struggle to encourage this man to do, what I would regard to be, the right thing.

The Daily Mail says that about 1 million cats are killed annually for their meat in Vietnam. I think you'll find that about 10 times that number is killed in China for the same purpose.

Vietnamese no longer believe in the cat meat business

Remarkably, the newspaper tells us that 71% of Vietnamese people living in Vietnam are in favour of a ban of cat meat. So perhaps his business was beginning to lose trade anyway. He found a way out.

We know that many domestic animals i.e. people's pets including stray cats are stolen for the cat meat trade. The same, by the way, applies to dogs in China and other Asian countries.

Education about superstitions

And you might know this but you might not: people who eat cat meat believe that it carries health benefits such as alleviating arthritis or that it has aphrodisiac properties. Sadly, I have to say that no science supports these views. It is all superstition; a superstition which results in mass cruelty against millions of companion animals. It is simply intolerable to any decent-minded person.

Massive amount of theft

The newspaper also tells us that 87% of people in Vietnam have had their pets stolen for the cat meat business or know of somebody who's pet was stolen.

That's another topic: the theft of domestic cats. The cat meat business is not only causing mass animal cruelty but mass criminality. Clearly nobody has been prosecuted for theft even though it happens up to a million times a year. This points to a lack of enforcement of criminal legislation in Vietnam because theft must be a crime in Vietnam. It begs the question as to whether animal cruelty is a crime in Vietnam. I would have thought that it was but once again there is a lack of enforcement.

The cats that were at the restaurant have been rescued. They were traumatised and they have been vaccinated and checked over for health issues and treated by veterinarians after which they will be put up for adoption and rehomed.

The companion animals and engagement programme manager of Humane Society International in Vietnam said:

"We are thrilled to be closing down our first cat meat trade business in Viet Nam, and hope it will be the first of many as more people like Mr. Doanh turn away from this cruel trade."

A big pat on the back to this man or woman. Let's hope that this cat meat business closure becomes a catalyst for similar events across Vietnam and in the wider region.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Animal Armageddon in China when 1000 cats were destined to be slaughtered and sold as pork or mutton

NEWS AND OPINION: I have used the phrase "animal Armageddon" for a good reason because that is what it looks like to me, an outsider, looking in at both the cat and dog meat market in China. In this story - and it is not exceptional - we have Chinese police aided by animal activists rescuing about 1,000 cats from a truck en route to a slaughterhouse (reports CNN).

Image in public domain.

If the slaughter of these cats had taken place - and it is likely that some were feral/stray and some were domestic cats (pets) - their meat would have been marketed as pork and/or mutton in order to maximise the profit margins that these unscrupulous traders hoped to have achieved in this obscene business.

There appears to be a massive amount of illicit trade in cats and dogs for their meat and fur in China. There is simply no way to control or monitor it properly particularly as there are no general animal welfare laws in China. There simply isn't. There's no desire or motivation to protect animals in China in a general sense by the local authorities. 

This rescue is probably an exception and thanks to animal activists. They are brave and committed. This is a fairly new and welcome trend by the way. For many years there was no concern for these animals.

After a tipoff by the activists, a lorry containing 1,000 cats was intercepted by the police from Zhangjiagang, in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu.

The animals were destined to be taken south which is the area where, to my knowledge, most cat and dog meat markets are situated. There'd be slaughtered in the south to be served up on skewers as pork and lamb as well as in sausages.

The rescued cats have been taken to a nearby shelter. It is estimated that the fraud would have netted as much as $20,000 for the unscrupulous traders.

We don't know if any arrests have been made. The activists first noticed nailed wooden boxes with many cats inside near a cemetery. The activists then patrolled the streets for several days and noticed that a truck arrived to ferry the cats to a slaughterhouse. They intervened and called the police.

An animal activist in China said that the traders in cat meat can sell a pound of cat meat for around four dollars by passing them offers pork or mutton.

The seizure of trucks by animal activists destined for the South in the cat and dog meat markets is not uncommon. You will see videos and pictures online of brave animal activists stopping and offloading trucks carrying a large number of cats or dogs in rusty old crates or boxes. The animals are rescued but the illicit trade continues in Guangdong, a southern Chinese province, and, to the best of my knowledge, the home of the cat and dog meat market.

There is a complete lack of will by the Chinese government to do anything about the obscene and barbaric dog and cat meat markets in the south. They are left alone by the authorities because they are regarded as a cultural phenomenon and not to be disturbed as I understand the situation. President Xi Jinping supports this animal cruelty. 

There is no recognition by the Chinese authorities of the cruelty that occurs in these marketplaces. It appears to be incidental and of no importance.

For people who support the cat and dog meat markets in China because they don't see any difference in these meat markets to the abattoirs and slaughterhouses in the West, I would like to inform them that cats and dogs are not killed under regulated conditions, relatively humanely, but there are simply bludgeoned to death or thrust into boiling water alive. They are skinned alive. The whole thing is something out of Dante's Inferno. It is remarkable that it still happens today in a country which has the second largest economy in the world.

I have always stated that the time has come for international intervention to stop this in China. China will argue that they should be left alone to do as they please because it's an internal matter. I disagree because when animal cruelty is on this scale, it becomes an international problem. The world cannot just look on and rub their hands and say it looks horrible. I want to see America and other countries adopt sanctions against China until they introduce animal welfare laws of a high quality and enforce those laws while simultaneously shutting down all the cat and dog meat markets and cat and dog fur trade in China. The whole lot should stop ASAP.

To animal advocates, and anyone with an ounce of sensitivity, the dog and cat meat markets of China are horrendous and obscene places which should have been banned decades if not centuries ago.

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P.S. please forgive any typos. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Texans convicted of animal cruelty will be banned from owning animals for five years

NEWS AND COMMENT: A pleasing new animal welfare law has been enacted in the American state of Texas. Those miscreants who have been successfully convicted of animal cruelty will be barred from owning animals for five years. Animal cruelty includes dogfighting. And the law applies to those who been convicted of animal cruelty for the first time. This is a much-needed step I would argue but I am an animal advocate and not everybody will be with me on this topic.

Shelter dog. Image in public domain.

But clearly, Texas' politicians i.e. the lawmakers of that state have decided to make it harder for people who want to be cruel to animals to own and possess them. And this surely must be correct.

The legislation, House Bill 598, successfully passed through the legislature. It was sponsored by state Rep Matt Shaheen, R-Plamo. It also covers people who have unjustifiably injured an assistant animal or who have been cruel to non-livestock animals. The law came into effect Friday.

Although, surprisingly, I'm told by the Texas Tribune that convicted offenders will still be able to live in the same household as animals. Isn't that peculiar? The idea of banning ownership of animals by convicted criminals is to prevent them being around animals. To prevent them being cruel again to animals. If they can live in the same home as animals that are possessed and owned by somebody else, they have the opportunity to be cruel again, don't they?

The law apparently also applies to people who've lived with assistance animals. If that person is then cruel to an animal and is convicted of animal cruelty they will lose their assistance animal under this legislation, as I understand it.

And if an order banning a person from owning an animal for five years under this legislation is then found to have an animal during that period, they could be charged with a Class C misdemeanour and be fined $500. And if they repeatedly breach the order, they could be charged with a Class B misdemeanour with an increased fine of $2000 and a possible jail term of 180 days.

The new legislation is one of 774 bills passed by the Texas Legislature during this season. This addition to the animal protection laws of Texas will be more effective in protecting animals. Simply punishing people by fining them or imprisoning them is arguably less effective at protecting animals than banning them from owning animals.

Animal cruelty is often a precursor to violence against people. This is a known phenomenon and therefore animal cruelty should be dealt with severely. An example would be the Uvalde school shooter. That person had committed animal cruelty and posted it on social media.

There is one last point to make and that is people who are inclined to be cruel to animals probably need psychological treatment of some sort. They need help as well as punishment. My personal theory is that they are often very angry people. They want to hurt somebody or something because they have been hurt themselves. It is the vulnerable domestic animals of this world who become the victims.

Oregon has done three things which improves animal welfare in the state

Pet shop sales

The American state of Oregon has become the latest to ban the sale of commercially-bred dogs and cats in pet stores. This development follows California, New York state, Maryland, Maine and Illinois together with hundreds of cities and counties nationwide.

This sort of law is critical because it does three things to improve animal welfare namely:

1. Encourage people to adopt/rescue;
2. Educate the community about dog and cat (and rabbit) abuse in getting them puppy mills and
3. Stop the abuse.

Nathan Winograd tells us that because of these sorts of laws preventing pet stores generally getting their animals from commercial breeding enterprises, the number of commercial breeders in the US has declined by 30%.

The Nebraska Department of Agriculture records show that half of the state's commercial dog and cat breeders have left the business according to Nathan Winograd's report to me in an email.

Commercial Breeding Enterprises (CBEs) engage, according to Nathan Winograd, in "systematic neglect and abuse of animals, leaving severe emotional and physical scars on the victims. One in four former breeding dogs have significant health problems, more likely to suffer from aggression, and are psychologically and emotionally shut down, compulsively staring at nothing."

Ban on animal testing for cosmetics

The second good thing that Oregon has done very recently is that the governor of that state has signed into law legislation which "bans the sale of cosmetics that have been subjected to new animal testing". This puts Oregon in line with more than 30 countries and 10 states in America namely California, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New York and Virginia.

Domestic abuse shelters

And finally, Oregon are going will provide $1 million to "support pet-friendly homeless and domestic violence shelters, removing obstacles to safe refuge and supplying vital resources for people in need who have pets."

It's a well-known problem that domestic violence shelters do not often provide accommodation for women with pets which prevents them taking refuge in the shelters which put them back into the family home where they may continue to be abused by a bullying partner. So, this is an advancement both to women and to their pets. Often, as I understand it, women do not leave the family home despite abuse because they won't leave their companion dog or cat.

On that topic, by the way, it is not uncommon for the abusive partner to abuse the family's companion animal as well and use the animal to threaten the partner which may lead to animals death.

Photo of street cat in China should leave us feeling concerned

This is a straight forward photograph of a street cat in China, somewhere. It should not worry us but it concerns me because I've just been reading and writing about a monstrous individual who likes to torture and kill street cats in China. You can read about this man if you want to buy on this link but it's unpleasant although there are no photographs which might harm you psychologically.

Street cat in China. Image: What's on Weibo.

The picture that you see on this page accompanies an article written about 3 years ago which tells the story of a Chinese security guard pouring scalding water over a pregnant cat. another psychopathic individual who gets kicks from extreme violence against cats. 

The story went viral on social media and there was a call for animal welfare legislation in China which trended on Weibo.com.

It takes extreme animal cruelty to provoke Chinese citizens to demand animal welfare laws which should be entirely acceptable and which should have been in place donkey's years ago.

China is out on a limb in respect of animal welfare. All abandoned or homeless animals - almost always cats and dogs - are highly vulnerable to becoming the victim of extreme torture or turned into a meal in China.

There is no value in street cats or sensitivity towards their sentience in China. They are garbage. Rubbish. Trash. You can do what you like with them.

Although there must be many Chinese who love cats and care for them well. It's just that there are far too many who are the opposite. And no protection for them under the law.

Chinese citizens bravely protest to improve animal welfare in China

This page shows two separate incidents of Chinese citizens protesting about the lack of animal welfare in China. The first photos shows leaflets which were thrown from a high building (a tower block in an urban area). The report says that the person who did it lived in the block and as they walked down the stairs, they threw the pamphlets out of the window. 

Here is a better image:

We don't know exactly what the pamphlets say but they are to do with a desire to improve animal welfare in China. They may be concerned with the cat meat business in China which occurs in the south. I'm not sure but we do know that there are almost no animal welfare laws in China so it is fair to presume that the leaflets are demanding an improvement to the law.

In the second protest you can see a rather poor-quality video which was taken direct from my computer screen because I could not embed the video from Twitter (subsequently I was able to carry out the embed - see tweet below). It shows very brave women protesting about the lack of animal welfare laws in China as I understand it.

I say that they are brave because China is a democratic dictatorship of some sort. I'm not sure quite what it is but in effect it is a dictatorship. A one-party state. And I sense that it is difficult to protest about anything in China which concerns criticising the government. I suspect that they are always vulnerable to being arrested on a false pretext or some drummed up pretext in order to silence them. Any dissent by citizens is normally squashed pretty quickly in China as I understand it.

For me and I hope many others this is welcome news. These are well motivated people taking a risk on their health and welfare to help animals whose health and welfare is always at risk in China. The Yulin dog meat festival comes to mind as one example. There are many others. 

How can the 10-day dog meat market in Yulin be called a FESTIVAL!?

It is an international scandal that China refuses to introduce proper animal welfare laws as have been in existence for decades in the West.

#Beijing, China 🇨🇳 May 14th 2023

These Chinese activists are amazing 👏 👏👏

Thank you for speaking up for the #animals. So happy about this. Thank you very much. Animal protection law now!!#stopanimalcruelty #stopanimalabuse #cowcat #blendercat #animalprotectionlaw #China pic.twitter.com/K6bpOP98Jl

— We Are Not Food (@WeAreNotFood) May 15, 2023

The Communist Party don't want animal welfare laws as they go against the general attitude in China that animals are to be used. The government doesn't want to upset the citizens I guess and in any case the government agrees that animals are to be used and don't want interfering animal welfare laws and they don't care about how it looks to Westerners.

There is a horrendous couple of photos of a crucified cat being burned from I believe China. I am surprised Twitter allows them. I can't publish them here. I am appalled. 

Petition making it a legal requirement for drivers to stop and report collisions with cats will fail

A petition on the UK government website has 102,436 signatures. It was open for 6 months. Its demand is to "Make it a legal requirement for drivers to stop & report collisions with cats". This is a campaign that has been going on for a long time (since at least 2014). It is a good campaign. Drivers have to stop and report accidents with other animals including horses, cattle, asses, mules, sheep, pigs, goats or dogs, but not cats or wild animals. 

Image: MikeB

Because it reached over 100k signatures it has to be debated in the House of Commons. It will be next week. But it is a waste of time because the government will not enact new legislation to comply with the petition. Their reason?

Here is the Department of Transport response on the petition website:

"The Government has no plans to make it an offence to drive off after hitting a cat. A focus for this Government is to make roads safer for all users, which will in turn reduce the risk to all animals. 

Under section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, a driver is required to stop and report an accident involving specified animals including horses, cattle, asses, mules, sheep, pigs, goats or dogs, but not cats or wild animals. This requirement arises from their status as working animals rather than as domestic pets. To introduce such a measure within the provision of section 170 would require primary legislation. 

Having a law making it a requirement to report road accidents involving cats would be very difficult to enforce and we have reservations about the difference it would make to the behaviour of drivers, who are aware that they have run over a cat and do not report it. 

Although there is no obligation to report all animal deaths on roads, Rule 286 of The Highway Code advises drivers to report any accident involving an animal to the police, and if possible, they should make enquiries to ascertain the owner of domestic animals and advise them of the situation. 

The Government recognises how distressing it can be for someone to lose a pet, especially without knowing what has happened. We committed in our Manifesto, and reaffirmed in our Action Plan for Animal Welfare, to introducing compulsory cat microchipping and plan to introduce the necessary legislation this year. We understand that the vast majority of local authorities now have arrangements in place to scan dead cats and dogs found by them and we will continue working with them and other stakeholders to develop and promote best practice in this area. " - Department for Transport.

That was a massive campaign by some great women to plug a loophole in UK legislation which is unfair on domestic cats. 

The underlying reason why the government won't make new law on this is because they are too busy trying to fix so many profound problems in what many people believe is a broken Britain.

Carole Baskin sums up the advantages of the Big Cat Public Safety Act, now US law

 I am one of those people who admire Carole Baskin tremendously. She has spent 30 years of her life ensuring that this new law, the Big Cat Public Safety Act, comes into force. In the video she tells us that it passed Congress but since then it's been signed off by President Joe Biden and therefore it is now law in the USA.

Note: Come on guys and ladies 😒😢. Judging by the very small number of views of this page almost no one is interested in this and yet it is of major importance in animal welfare in the US. It is huge and a great achievement by Carole Baskin and the others who pushed this law through the legislature.

It tackles two major aspects of big cat ownership. Firstly, it prevents big cat ownership falling into the hands of private individuals where the cats are often mistreated and abused. Carole Baskin in another video says that countries like the UK banned this form of big cat ownership in 1970. She is upset that America has taken until now, 50 years later, to do the same thing.

And secondly, it stops the abuse of big cat cubs in photo sessions and other uses. There are two aspects to be cub abuse. They are torn from their mothers and we don't know the back story to this and how many cubs die in the process et cetera. And secondly when they grow up and become adults they are shipped off to private individuals where they become pets and where they can be mistreated.

"This became the last chance. If it hadn't passed this year I don't think it would have passed with the kind of Congress we have set up for next year. I really think this is the first step to saving the tiger in the wild. And when I say the tiger, I mean the lions, the leopards and everybody because they're all critically endangered." - Baskin

She says that in 20 years' time there will be no big cats in private ownership in the US. It will take that long because the law does not force existing big cat owners to give up their cats. The cats will have to die out. And there will be a while during which the country will have to adjust to enforcing the Big Cat Public Safety Act.

That's going to be a big issue as to how it is enforced and Carole Baskin states that there will need to be a registration process. I presume this applies to existing owners so that they can be tracked and monitored to prevent them adopting and buying further big cats against the law.

There are so many big cats in private ownership in the US that it is going to be difficult to enforce the law. These are backyard private zoos where the animals are often effectively mistreated and treated as "pets".

On so many occasions the police, the first responders, have had to deal with escaped big cats where they've terrorised the public and on occasions they've been shot. This need not happen and going forward it won't happen in the US. The new law protects the public and the cats.

It's been a long time coming. Carole Baskin has many enemies and they are all in the business of abusing big cats for profit. Such is the hatred of her enemies of her that one of them, Joe Exotic, planned to kill her. For that crime he is now serving a life term prison sentence.

Single-handedly it seems she totally unpicked and demolished this objectionable and extensive big cat abuse business in the US. Big cats are vulnerable to abuse because they are very popular. Because they are popular abusers want to breed them to exploit them.

That, over time, will entirely come to an end thanks to the 30 year effort of Carole Baskin. She is the founder and owner of Big Cat Rescue. There are still people who hate her. She is not easily intimidated.

She speaks very eloquently about protecting the wild cats. This new law will also help protect the wild cats living in the wild. She makes the point that today, in the USA, if a person has a piece of jewellery containing a tiger tooth, they can't be stopped and arrested because that tooth may have come from a pet tiger in a private zoo.

But in the future a person carrying such an ornament will be arrested hopefully because it will have come from the wild and to trade in wild tiger body parts has been illegal for many years. That, by the way, is another story because the enforcement of laws preventing the trading of wild species body parts is appalling.

It's critical that the Big Cat Public Safety Act is enforced effectively. A good law without proper enforcement is a bad law.

China is developing a western-style relationship with their pets. Time for animal welfare laws.

It is reported that there has been a 30% increase over recent years in the number of pet funeral-related enterprises in China. In other words, more and more citizens of China are deciding to cremate their companion animal on their passing. This clearly indicates a close relationship between human caregiver and animal.

Chinese woman and black cat. Photo: Adobe Stock.

For example, at Zhongqiao village in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province, there is a white building which is a pet crematorium. It's reported that more than 3,000 companion animals have been cremated there over the past three years.

The owner of the crematorium says that prices are scaled according to the size of the animal and they range from 800-2000 Yuan per cremation. This is US$125.8-US$314.4.

The prices seem quite high. In the UK, you can get an individual companion animal cremation for around a similar price. And I'm going to presume that the prices quoted in China relate to non-individual cremations. 

I much prefer individual cremations because when you receive the ashes you know that they are absolutely the ashes of your companion animal although, you probably know, that in a proper cremation there is no DNA left of the animal in the ashes.

I'm also told that there are now 6,900 pet funeral and cremation businesses in China. This comes from Tianyancha, an enterprise big data service provider.

All the more reason, therefore, for the Chinese authorities to introduce, as a matter of urgency, proper, general animal welfare laws that protect all animals as has been the case in the West for many, many years. 

RELATED: Pet ownership surging in China but still no general animal welfare law!

They simply have to adopt an existing piece of legislation in the West such as the Animal Welfare Act 2006 in the UK. This is an excellent act which not only protects animals but also sets out the basic requirements of animal welfare.

Is it such a mountain to climb to the Chinese authorities to integrate this sort of legislation into their society?

The lack of animal protection laws in China results in state-sanctioned animal cruelty as recently evidenced in Shanghai - read this story by clicking here.

Cats shot with darts - Kentucky, the worst state for animal protection

NEWS AND COMMENT - Jessamine County, Kentucky, USA: The video explains this sad story. It seems that some maniac has devised a new way to kill cats. Great, well-done. There's a guy on YouTube who commented on the video below. He said the cat killing was justified if the cat scratched a car! A mean: pathetic or what?

RELATED: Best and worst US states for animals.

He's suggesting that it is okay to commit a crime and animal cruelty if a cat scratches a car. This is bad thinking. And in any case, it is not the cat's fault as cats behave naturally and instinctively. If a cat scratches a car and the car owner wants to blame someone, they must blame the cat's owner for letting their cat roam freely in an area where there are maniacs; not the cat. Obvious really.

The police officer in the video says that the animal welfare laws of Kentucky are too soft. He believes that killing a cat with a dart should be a felony. It is nice to hear that from a police officer.

He also said that the dart was made from a golf tee peg. Looking at the video, I am not sure that he is correct unless this is a novel new kind of golf tee peg.  I stopped playing golf years ago so I may be wrong myself.

According to the annual U.S. Animal Protection Laws Rankings Report published by the Animal Legal Defense Fund, the nation’s preeminent legal advocacy organization for animals, Kentucky ranks the worst state of all for animal protection laws. This indicates that the legislature of Kentucky has the least concern for animal welfare of all 50 state legislatures. Not a great endorsement of their competence.

You know what they say (the wise among us): the quality of a human society is reflected in their animal welfare laws. The poorer the laws the poorer the society. This is because in the best societies the vulnerable are protected the most effectively. A sign of a sophisticated society.

This is the male cat who behaved a bit like a puppy:

Screenshot.