The Dark Line Behind Live Pet Trading
Breeding · Selling · Delivering · Suffering
With the booming development of the Chinese e-shopping and pet business in recent years, selling and buying live pets on e-commerce platforms have been a new trend. Customers can also buy the animal blind boxes online, which means they will not know what kind of pet is in the box until they receive it. However, the lack of clear laws and regulation make this gray-area supply chain run rampant. The pets, including kitties and puppies, are usually sold at a lower price on e-commerce platforms compared with offline pet shops. Most of them are found born from abnormal propagation activity, then shipped through illegal low-cost mail-order courier operations or poor truck delivery. Some of them may have diseases, and vulnerable ones may even die in a few weeks.
Along the chain of selling dogs online, the low price and cost attract lots of buyers. The average price of dogs online is about 170 yuan, which is far lower than buying dogs in physical stores (at least 1000 yuan ).
“Some dog breeders are using hormones to stimulate their mass reproduction,” said Mrs Shen, a volunteer from Shenzhen who has been consistently doing stray animal rescuing for over 10 years. "The unnatural propagation is at a low cost but can produce a large number of crossbreed," she added. These dog breeding farms are the first accountable party that starts this grey production chain.
According to the breeding application conditions rules in Wuhan, Hubei province, Whoever wants open dog breed farms need to make an application to Wuan Municipal Public Security Bureau. “For those who fulfilled the requirements, Certificate of Conformity for Animal Epidemic Control Conditions, Dog Breeding License and Business License will be issued.” said the documents.
In the reality, dog breeding needs to face more problems. Xia Zhaofei, director of Clinical Department of China Agricultural University, said in 2014, “Though the technology today can achieve canine group breeding, it still difficult with high technology requirements.” Once there is a mistake, there will be a large number of deaths within the farm.
The investigative team made contact with two customer service staff in two different stores. Both stores claim their dogs come from professional certificated breeding farms, and the store on Xianyu has a corresponding physical store in Shenzhen that said they have their own family breeding base. However, even after long negotiation, both stores failed to provide any relevant certificates issued from authorities nor any photo taken to prove the existence of their farm.
These unqualified stores cut costs by providing lower quality feeds and selling without pets vaccination. And most online trades are on puppies who have little immunity. Unqualified breeding, said China Pet Breeding and Live Trading Industry Overview 2019, are largely likely to result in the death of young pets in the second segment of the chain: Transporting of pets.
Breeding Farm: Invisible in regulation
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In the reality, dog breeding needs to face more problems. Xia Zhaofei, director of Clinical Department of China Agricultural University, said in 2014, “Though the technology today can achieve canine group breeding, it still difficult with high technology requirements.” Once there is a mistake, there will be a large number of deaths within the farm.
The investigate team make contact with two customer service staff in two different stores. Both stores claim their dogs come from professional certificated breeding farms, and the store on Xianyu has a corresponding physical store in Shenzhen said they have their own family breeding base. However, even after long negotiation, both stores failed to provide any relevant certificates issued from authorities nor any photo taken to prove the existence of their farm.
These unqualified stores cut costs by providing lower quality feeds and selling without pets vaccination. And most online trades are on puppies who have little immunity. Unqualified breeding, said China Pet Breeding and Live Trading Industry Overview 2019, are largely likely to result in the death of young pets in the second segment of the chain: Transporting of pets.
Tricks of sellers under slack supervision
Unlike some places that have special regulations targeting animal trade, such as Hong Kong, where an Animal Trader License is required for such business, there is no particular law but the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Wildlife helping to manage the industry in Mainland China. Experts have drafted a proposal about the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, but it wasn’t launched legislatively. Moreover, the rapidly developing e-commerce also regards pet trade as common businesses without additional regulations according to the E-commerce Law of the People's Republic of China.
Along such a broad legislative direction, the e-platforms also put little effort on its pet trade regulation.
First of all, due to the rectification after the blind pet box, the platforms should put restrictions on “live pet” this kind of search words with no research result. However, were people to search it, they can still get what they want by the recommendations forwarded by the search engine.
Search “live pets” on Pinduoduo and Xianyu, no direct results came out but related recommendations shown.
Besides the search, the platform supervision is also full of loopholes. The investigative team focused on Pinduoduo and Xianyu, these two e-platforms because of their business type. Pinduoduo is an e-platform for B2C trades while Xianyu is for C2C transactions. For Pinduoduo, it claimed that they had a systematic checking process when registering to be a seller.The customer servants also said that all stores on the platform were qualified with business license and quarantine certificate of conformity checked.
However, after trying to set up a shop on Pinduoduo, the investigative team found out that individual sellers only need to verify the identity and face authentication to open a store through the app of seller version.
To register via the website, both the identity and license are required for checking during the application while only identity verification is needed through their app designed for sellers. Several seconds after the applicants finish the instructions, the application will succeed and the commodity launching page will show up. This was contradictory with the platform servant’s sayings about license checking.
Our investigative team tried to set up a shop on Pinduoduo and easily succeeded without uploading the business license.
The entry standard of Xianyu is even lower than Pinduoduo, which only requests to log in by Alipay or Taobao account.
The slack requirements above give birth to the mess of sellers on the platforms.
Looking at the qualification of the sellers, some of them on Pinduoduo have no certificate or qualification while those on Xianyu play more tricks than this. There are merchants on Xianyu who pretend to be normal users, among which one disguised as a person who raises pets but has to give them out because his parents don’t allow it. Nevertheless, once clicking into the personal page, the investigative team realized that this is a trick player, a professional seller, since there were many posts of trading out various cats and dogs with similar wordings.
Further than quality, the format of selling rather attracts attention. Besides text and picture posts, live streaming is popular for trading. People interested can call in talking to the sellers and then make an order following the instructions. During one live streaming, pets shown seemed not vivid staying still together. Each time an audience asked about one, the puppy would be dragged up for closer watching by the seller without much mercy and then put back shrinking in fear. The seller will feed them absently just to prove that they are active for eating.
A seller on Pinduoduo was on live-streaming for dog selling. Buyers could make a call to talk with the seller through the platform and pick the pets they want.
After choosing a preferred one, the audience planned to buy the dog. However, the price changed. The tag shown was 230 RMB but the seller asked for 400 RMB claiming that the higher difference was because of the distance for transporting.
Problems occurred more than the price. Some people said the dog they received was sick and some commented that it didn’t match the advertising. One said that after days growing, the puppy became different from its original appearance. “It’s cheating.”
Some captures of customer comments blaming the unmatching pets with advertisements and the disappeared customer servant after-sale.
Fighting for rights after sale could be hard for the buyers. Some comments on Pinduoduo blaming that the seller disappeared after purchase and no one responds for the cheated puppy commodities. What’s more, Xianyu says in its rules that they will not support after-sales maintenance rights once the deal is successful.
Hidden dangers behind illegal pet delivery system
On Pinduoduo, many sellers of pet blind boxes deliver live animals through the postal system. The animals were caged, packed, and stacked like goods in trucks, dying. Many pets were even prohibited from eating the day before they were packed for fear that they will defecate on the way.
Poor animals were caged, packed, and stacked like goods in trucks. credit@Chengdu Love Home Animal Rescuing Centre
However, China in 2011 has already banned the transport of live dogs and cats across provinces without a health certificate signed by a government-approved veterinarian at the animal’s place of origin.
According to the Rules for the Implementation of the Postal Law of the People's Republic of China, live animals are prohibited from sending through the postal system.
Live animal transportation service products are available by air, rail, and road in China.
Moreover, to ensure health and safety, the Animal Epidemic Prevention Law of the People's Republic of China stipulated that shippers need to provide proof of immunization and animal quarantine certificates from local animal and plant quarantine departments, and fill out certificates of live animal transportation consignments, etc.
"Quarantine certificates are only valid for less than a week, so it's almost impossible for many sellers with large orders to issue quarantine certificates for every pet shipped," said Zhou Xing, former staff at Fengjie Animal Health Inspection Institute.
Currently, live animals are allowed to be transported by qualified logistics companies or by train or air in China.
"The transport of live animals has strict requirements and regulations, and costs are high," said Mr Zhou, a volunteer from the Chengdu Love Home Animal Rescuing Centre, which is a private civil organization for rescuing stray animals. "Many e-commerce sellers choose unqualified delivery companies to save money, and these companies illegally undertake the business in order to make more money."
We tried to contact a number of pet sellers in Pinduoduo, many of which said they would use Rhyme Express to deliver pets. The seller from Mengchong Pet e-store in Pinduoduo platform even promised that they would deliver the puppy using Yunda Express “special pet delivery line” to ensure the safety and health of the delivery process.
Contacting as a potential buyer with e-shops on Pinduoduo.
They claimed to use Yunda Express for pet delivery.
However, when contacting three customer service officers from Yunda Express, they all rejected our request to mail live animals considering the company's regulation. In addition, they all said that the “special pet delivery line” claimed by the Pinduoduo seller never exists.
The customer service officer from Yunda Express said there was no “special pet delivery line”.
The customer service officer from ZTO Express rejected the request to delivery live animals.
The illegal pet delivery system might bring many dangers. During long-distance transportation, the lack of fresh air, water, and food makes many pets sick or even die. Moreover, public health may be threatened.
"Live animals that fail quarantine may carry a large number of bacteria and viruses, increasing the risk of disease transmission," said Mr Zhou Xing. "If live pets are infected and transported with other deliveries, there is a high risk of contaminating those deliveries as well."
Consumers and pets suffer
A lot of negative reviews can be found in the commenting system of many online pet blind box stores. Some buyers complained they had received dogs with illnesses, while others said their dogs died shortly after arrival.
Mr Du bought a newborn puppy on Pinduoduo last year. However, after spending three days in the narrow pet cage carrier placed in a bouncing truck, the 1-month puppy lay in the bed of the veterinary hospital before it could enjoy the warmth of the new home.
"When I first received it, it was weak and wouldn't eat or drink," Mr Du said. "Newborn dogs are fragile, and after a long ride, they get sick easily."
After completing one week of inpatient treatment, the recovered puppy was allowed to be taken home after his owner paid a 5,000 yuan veterinary bill.
Since consumers do not know what is in the pet blind boxes before they receive them, many sellers advertise them as expensive pets but replace them with cheap hybrid pets.
"It's a profitable way for some breeders and sellers," said Mrs Shen. "There are even cases where sick or disabled pets are deliberately placed in blind boxes, which is undoubtedly a breach of consumer rights."
In addition, it has also led to many irresponsible consumers throwing away pets that were sick or they disliked, resulting in the increase of stray animals.
Rossi, a user of Xiaohongshu in Xi 'an, picked up an abandoned kitten near a delivery station in August this year. "The kitten kept mewing sadly,” said Rossi. “It hasn't eaten all day and has spent the whole day in 30-degree weather."
The abandoned kitten near a delivery station in Xi'an. credit@Rossi@Xiaohongshu
Out of sympathy, she took the kitten home to take care of it and has been actively contacting buyers and sellers. "After buying on Pinduoduo, the buyer didn't want the kitten and couldn't contact the seller, so he refused to accept the delivery,” said Rossi. “Live animal delivery is so cruel and must be stopped!"
In China, the responsibilities of both sides of the pet trade, quarantine rules, and modes of transport are scattered in different laws, and there are no very clear provisions.
"There needs to be clearer laws and regulations on how to raise and transport animals legally, otherwise the chaos of the industry cannot be effectively controlled," said Zhou Xing. "After all, the law is a safeguard to protect the bottom line of morality."