Chinanews.com, Nanning, April 5th, title: How to deal with pets' "following matters"
Reporter Zhang Guangquan
The pet cat "Milk Tea" of Huang Yan (a pseudonym) in Nanning, Guangxi, died recently due to ineffective medical treatment. Huang Yan was worried when he was dealing with its "future".
She originally planned to bury it on a wasteland near the community, but a friend reminded her that this would cause pollution.
Later, she was contacted by a pet farm that provides funeral services for pets.
"You have to drive dozens of kilometers to get there. The minimum charge for cremation is 300 yuan (RMB, the same below). You will have to pay at least another 2,000 yuan for a cemetery that is less than 0.06 square meters to collect the ashes. I can't accept it." In desperation, Huang Yan finally chose "The next move"-she took the wrapped "milk tea" corpse to a nearby garbage transfer center for disposal.
"After raising for more than a year, I have feelings. Now that I think about it, I feel very uncomfortable and feel guilty."
Huang Yan's experience raised the issue of "pet funeral and interment urgently need to be regulated".
Li Chengzong and his wife Zhu Jihong jointly run a pet farm in Nanning.
Photo by Yu Jing
According to data from the "White Paper on China's Pet Industry in 2020" (Consumption Report), the number of pet dogs and cats in China's urban areas will exceed 100 million in 2020, and the consumer market will reach 206.5 billion yuan.
How to deal with pets "behind the matter" has become the focus of attention from the outside world.
Hu Changmin, an associate professor in the Department of Clinical Veterinary Medicine of Huazhong Agricultural University, said that pet carcasses contain a variety of pathogens. Disposing or burying them at will can easily spread the pathogens, leading to the spread of zoonotic diseases.
In addition, after the pet carcass is buried, certain pathogens can survive in the bone marrow of the carcass for one year, and the spores can survive in the soil for several years. This is a threat to the environment and is particularly prone to pollute water sources.
According to the relevant provisions of the Animal Epidemic Prevention Law of the People’s Republic of China, no unit or individual is allowed to buy, sell, process, or dispose of diseased animals and diseased animal products at will, and shall do a good job in the harmless treatment of diseased animals and diseased animal products, or entrust animals and animals. The product is treated in a harmless treatment place.
"For the germs, viruses and parasites carried by pets, cremation is the most thorough disinfection method." Hu Changmin said.
The reporter visited many organizations engaged in pet funerals in Nanning and found that there are many kinds of services for pet funerals in the market, including picking up dead bodies, holding farewell ceremonies, cremation, selecting burial grounds, making life souvenirs, and worshipping ashes in Buddhist temples. The cost can be as high as thousands of yuan to tens of thousands of yuan.
The picture shows Zhu Jihong taking care of the ashes of pets in the Buddhist hall.
Photo by Yu Jing
"At present, there are still very few pet carcasses cremation. In addition to the high price, another important reason is that people do not have the concept of harmless disposal of animal carcasses." Professor Xie Hui of Nanning Normal University pointed out that it is recommended that relevant departments strengthen the pet funeral market Supervision, guides its standardized and standardized development, develops in a direction that charges reasonable fees and is beneficial to the ecology, and puts an end to market chaos.
Li Chengzong from Taipei and his wife Zhu Jihong run a pet farm in Nanning. They have helped countless pets die since 2015.
Li Chengzong believes that a healthy city should promote pet funerals into the field of public welfare, and set up special pet funerals and funerals through the combined model of "government appropriation + social fundraising + personal payment".
"Only by introducing relevant policies and regulations for pet funerals, improving the pet carcass disposal and reporting system, and tracking the final whereabouts of pet carcasses and legal constraints, can we give the pet funeral industry a legal market." said Xu Huihao, Ph.D., School of Veterinary Medicine, Southwest University. .
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