What happens if a companion animal becomes lost or unwanted in Japan ?
Lydia Tanabe: What happens with the lost animals depends on the owner as well as on the species of the lost one. In Japan there’s a very big problem with theft of fashionable animals. SASA has found stolen animals in petshops or with breeders. We presume, although we don’t have any evidence yet, that stolen animals are also being brought to vivisection laboratories. For us, the biggest problem are the unwanted animals. Companion animals are subjects of fashion and when fashion changes there are a lot of owners who want the latest whim in “fashionable” companion animalship. Some owners bring the animals secretly to kindergartens or schools to show them off. Also there are people who send animals back through the post to animal groups or other persons if they don’t want them any more. A very big problem in Japan is there are many homeless people who are not contributing financially to the social structure of Japan . Last year we detected that there are many people bringing their unwanted
