On May 19, 2007, a meeting concerning a national standard for slaughtering animals was held in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. Language concerning animal welfare was written into the Sanitation Operation Procedures for Fresh Meat, a government publication for butchers, for the first time in China.

CALL FOR ATTENTION: A volunteer gives a show explaining animal welfare issues using a cartoon cow costume on the street in Chongqing on World Animal Day

As put forth in the document, animal welfare aims to help animals live healthier and happier lives and to provide people with healthy food. Its principles include giving animals freedom from thirst and hunger, letting them live in comfort, remaining free from injuries and suffering, and living neither in fear nor sorrow.

"It's time for people to ask themselves some questions," said He Zhengming, Vice Secretary General of the China Experimental Animals Society. "For a long time, people neglected to give animals enough concerns. But animals are also living bodies. We should regard them as our friends and treat them in a humane way."

He said some of those questions came to light during the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak and the 2004 bird flu scare, which served as alarms to many people.

Punishment from nature

Unfortunately, there are many examples of cruel and abusive behavior being meted out to animals across China. Farmers often give cattle or pigs hormone shots to make them grow bigger and fatter, according to reports. They breed them in small pens to reduce costs.

In some parts of the country, wild animals have become popular sources of food for people, which has led to their mass slaughter. In sad irony, wild animal meat exposes people to a bevy of unusual, and sometimes deadly, infectious diseases.

He said that breeding animals in cruel ways and eating wild animals were both against the rules of nature, which could bring disaster to people. SARS originated from civet cat, which is a popular wild dish in south China's Guangdong, and bird flu originated in the close-packed breeding and hormone-injection abuse of fowl operations, he said.

Animals and human beings depend on each other and are constrained by certain natural rules. But today, human beings only think of their own welfare, continuously diminishing animal living spaces and abusing the most hi-tech methods to breed and kill them. These practices, He said, bring new and dangerous viruses to the world of human beings.

Scientific investigations have shown that more than 100 kinds of diseases affecting humans originated in animals, including AIDS, ebola, epizootic aphthae, mad cow disease and anthracnose.

Press for laws

"Animal welfare should be legislated," said He. "It's time for us to regard the welfare and rights of animals and laws in this respect are needed."

According to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), a non-governmental organization, more than 100 countries have adopted laws against abusing animals. In May 2008, India created a special law to protect elephants, strictly regulating the intensity and time they work and even the time and methods of bathing and examining them. But China still has yet to create any law governing animal welfare.

"China has to legislate to ensure animal welfare if the country's livestock husbandry industry wants to follow international practices," IFAW said.

According to the WTO rules, China will see a decrease in the export of its animal products if animal rights are not protected as they are raised, transported and slaughtered.

In fact, China's Law on the Protection of Wildlife, which was enacted in 1989, has some articles prohibiting the mass slaughtering of wild animals but they do not set rules for animal welfare.

In May 2004, the Beijing Municipal Legal Affairs Office announced it had drafted legislation on animal welfare. But the draft was withdrawn from consideration on May 17; the overriding opinion was that it was impractical and premature.

In the following years, there was scant talk about drafting new laws and revising old ones to safeguard animal welfare in China, but none of those attempts came into being because some experts thought it was an inopportune time to confront the issue.

IFAW disagrees with those who believe that, saying that the state of China's economy has advanced enough to allow for the international rules of animal welfare to be placed into effect. Today, with the situation becoming worse, laws are needed more urgently.

According to World Health Organization (WHO) data, bird flu outbreaks have brought disaster to 16 countries and regions, including 256 human deaths globally. Twenty-two of those fatalities happened in China. At the same time, at least 847,000 birds and poultry have been infected, nearly 463,000 have died, and more than 140 million have been slaughtered. The resulting economic and social losses are complex and yet to be calculated.

"Animal welfare is no longer just a conceptual issue. It is the inevitable result of social and economic development at a certain stage, and touches on many aspects of society and the economy," said He. "If we do not launch the necessary laws, we will suffer more from these disasters."

Besides He, many other Chinese experts and members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference are also appealing for the drafting of laws on animal welfare as soon as possible.