Currently, the animals protected by specific legislation in China are limited to rare and endangered wild animals, but for other common wild animals or pets, there is no specific legislation to protect them from human behaviors such as mistreatment or abandonment. In fact, dated back in 2009, there are lots of advanced animal conservationists and legal practitioners in China starting to draft the animal protection law and promoting on enactment of such laws and regulations, but until today, relevant legislation has not yet promulgated. In China, the requirement on kindly treating animals remains at the moral level. People spontaneously identify, evaluate and restrain different behaviors of treating animals according to moral principles. However, the moral level will depend on certain material living conditions. Usually, the content of morality will be ultimately determined by economic conditions. The imbalance in economic development makes the moral level of different regions uneven. Considering that China is still a developing country, the country is still vigorously promoting the construction of material civilization, and there are still many social problems to be solved urgently. More social and judicial resources should be allocated to focus on solving the problems existing in the human society. Therefore, at this stage, it would be still far to realize the legislation on anti-animal abuse.
The absence of the specific legislation on anti-animal abuse does not mean that there is no rules or regulations at all in China objecting or punishing the abuse on animals, but such rules and regulations are scattered in different laws and regulations, and relevant detailed or corresponding punishment are in lack. For example, Item 9 of Article 17 of the Provisions of Beijing Municipality on Administration of Dog-Raising states clearly that the dog raiser shall not abuse or abandon the dogs raised, but there is no punishment in such Provisions for any abuse actions performed by any person except for a general rule providing that “For any act of dog-raising in violation of these Provisions, any unit and individual shall have the right to give criticism or persuasion, or bring a complaint to the residents committee or villagers committee, or report it to relevant administrative departments, and the residents committee, villagers committee and relevant administrative departments shall deal with such matter in time.”; According to Article 30 and 38 of the Fisheries Law of the People’s Republic of China, it is forbidden to use Methods of destroying fishery resources, such as killing fish by explosions, with poison or with electricity. Although according to the whole law, such provision is mainly aimed to protect and maintain the management order of the fishery, forbidding such kinds of actions may still actually prevent from harming other aquatic organisms living in the same aquatic environment; the Administrative Measures for Business Activities of Online Performances provides that online performance may not contain any contents involving cruelty to any animal and relevant punishment for any performance in violation of such provision; the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television requires that plot shall cut or revised if it contains any content involving abuse on animals; also according to the Regulations for the Administration of Affairs Concerning Experimental Animals, personnel dealing with experimental animals shall protect these animals and may not play with or maltreat them.
In our daily work and life, many of our staff have participated in publicity activities to promote the protection of animals, and have worked with many charitable organizations and individuals to contribute to the construction of shelters for stray animals. We hope that when the construction of material civilization is enough to promote higher levels of spiritual civilization, animal protection related legislation will be enacted and implemented in the near future.