“Peter J. Li’s pathbreaking new book, Animal Welfare in China, is timely and valuable.” ANTHROZOÖS The plight of animals in China has attracted intense interest in recent times. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, speculation about the origins of the virus have sparked global curiosity Speculation about the origins of COVID-19 has sparked curiosity about how animals are treated, traded and consumed in China today. In Animal Welfare in China, Peter Li explores the key animal welfare challenges facing China now, including animal agriculture, bear farming, and the trade and consumption of exotic wildlife, dog meat, and other controversial products. He considers how Chinese policymakers have approached these issues and speaks with activists from China’s growing animal rights movement. Li also offers an overview of the history of animal welfare in China, from ancient times through the enormous changes of the 20th and 21st centuries. Some practices that are today described as “traditional,” he argues, are in fact quite recent developments, reflecting the contemporary pursuit of economic growth rather than long-standing cultural traditions. Based on years of fieldwork and analysis, Animal Welfare in China makes a compelling case for a more nuanced and evidence-based approach to these complex issues.

The plight of animals in China has attracted intense interest in recent times. Speculation about the origins of COVID-19 has sparked curiosity about how animals are treated, traded and consumed in China today. In Animal Welfare in China, Peter Li explores the key animal welfare challenges facing China now, including animal agriculture, bear farming, and the trade and consumption of exotic wildlife, dog meat, and other controversial products. He considers how Chinese policymakers have approached these issues and speaks with activists from China's growing animal rights movement Li also offers an overview of the history of animal welfare in China, from ancient times through the enormous changes of the 20th and 21st centuries. Some practices that are today described as 'traditional', he argues, are in fact quite recent developments, reflecting the contemporary pursuit of economic growth rather than long-standing cultural traditions .Based on years of fieldwork and analysis, this book makes a case for a more nuanced and evidence-based approach to these complex issues.--

This book focuses on animal laws and animal welfare in major jurisdictions in the world, including the more developed legal regimes for animal protection of the US, UK, Australia, the EU and Israel, and the regulatory regimes still developing in China, South Africa, and Brazil. It offers in-depth analyses and discussions of topical and important issues in animal laws and animal welfare, and provides a comprehensive and comparative snapshot of some of the most important countries in the world in terms of animal population and worsening animal cruelty. Among the issues discussed are international law topics that relate to animals, including the latest WTO ruling on seal products and the EU ban, the Blackfish story and US law for cetaceans, the wildlife trafficking and crimes related to Africa and China, and historical and current animal protection laws in the UK and Australia. Bringing together the disciplines of animal law and animal welfare science as well as ethics and criminology with contributions from some of the most prominent animal welfare scientists and animal law scholars in the world, the book considers the strengths and failings of existing animal protection law in different parts of the world. In doing so it draws more attention to animal protection as a moral and legal imperative and to crimes against animals as a serious crime.

Controversy over the medicinal uses of wild animals in China has erupted around the ethics and efficacy of animal-based drugs, the devastating effect of animal farming on wildlife conservation, and the propensity of these practices to foster zoonotic diseases. In Mao's Bestiary, Liz P. Y. Chee traces the history of the use of medicinal animals in modern China. While animal parts and tissue have been used in Chinese medicine for centuries, Chee demonstrates that the early Communist state expanded and systematized their production and use to compensate for drug shortages, generate foreign investment in high-end animal medicines, and facilitate an ideological shift toward legitimating folk medicines. Among other topics, Chee investigates the craze for chicken blood therapy during the Cultural Revolution, the origins of deer antler farming under Mao and bear bile farming under Deng, and the crucial influence of the Soviet Union and North Korea on Chinese zootherapies. In the process, Chee shows Chinese medicine to be a realm of change rather than a timeless tradition, a hopeful conclusion given current efforts to reform its use of animals.

The issue of animal welfare has attracted much attention in Australia in recent decades. Activists and welfare organisations have become increasingly vigorous in promoting a new ethical relationship between humans and animals, and in challenging practices they identify as inhumane. In 2011 this agitation culminated in the temporary suspension of cattle live exports, with significant economic and political implications for Australia. Similar campaigns have focused on domestic food production systems and the use of animals in entertainment. Yet despite this increased interest, the policy process remains poorly understood. Animal Welfare in Australia is the first Australian book to examine the topic in a systematic manner. Without taking a specific ethical position, Chen draws on a wide range of sources – including activists, industry representatives and policy makers – to explain how policy is made and implemented. He explores the history of animal welfare in Australia, examines public opinion and media coverage of key issues, and comprehensively maps the policy domain. He shows how diverse social, ethical and economic interests interact to produce a complex and unpredictable climate. Animal Welfare in Australia will be of interest to scholars and practitioners of public policy, those interested in issues of animal welfare, and anyone wishing to understand how competing interests interact in the contemporary Australian policy landscape.

Just as China is called the world factory for manufactured goods, it is also a world factory for manufactured animal cruelty in a new phenomenon of globalized animal cruelty. Animals in China examines animal protection in China in its legal, social and cultural contexts.

Just as China is called the world factory for manufactured goods, it is also a world factory for manufactured animal cruelty in a new phenomenon of globalized animal cruelty. Animals in China examines animal protection in China in its legal, social and cultural contexts.

Modern urban life cuts us off from direct connection with the animal world, yet daily the lives of millions of animals are affected by what we consume and wear and what we trade in. The use of animals for food, labour and pleasure pursuits has long been justified with the assumption that unlike humans, animals aren't fully sentient beings. In recent years, however, science has revealed an astonishing array of complex animal behaviour, and scientists and policy makers now accept that the animals we make use of are indeed conscious, with preferences and intentions. The implications for our culture of factory farming, fast food and rainforest liquidation are staggering. In this powerful book, internationally renowned experts on animal behaviour and agriculture such as Jane Goodall, Tim Lang and Vandana Shiva are brought together with ethicists, religious scholars, international industry and regulators for the first time to debate these critical issues and tackle the profound implications of animal sentience. The first sections discuss scientific and ethical perspectives on the consciousness, emotions and mental abilities of animals. Later sections address how human activities such as science, law, religion, farming, food production, trade, development and education respect or ignore animals' sentience and welfare, and review the options for changes in our policies, our practices and our thinking. The result is nothing less than a stark and necessary look into the heart of humanity and the ethics that govern our animal powered society.

This innovative collection opens a door into the rich history of animals in China. This title is also available as Open Access.

In a world reeling from a global pandemic, never has a treatise on veganism—from our foremost philosopher on animal rights—been more relevant or necessary. “Peter Singer may be the most controversial philosopher alive; he is certainly among the most influential.” —The New Yorker Even before the publication of his seminal Animal Liberation in 1975, Peter Singer, one of the greatest moral philosophers of our time, unflinchingly challenged the ethics of eating animals. Now, in Why Vegan?, Singer brings together the most consequential essays of his career to make this devastating case against our failure to confront what we are doing to animals, to public health, and to our planet. From his 1973 manifesto for Animal Liberation to his personal account of becoming a vegetarian in “The Oxford Vegetarians” and to investigating the impact of meat on global warming, Singer traces the historical arc of the animal rights, vegetarian, and vegan movements from their embryonic days to today, when climate change and global pandemics threaten the very existence of humans and animals alike. In his introduction and in “The Two Dark Sides of COVID-19,” cowritten with Paola Cavalieri, Singer excoriates the appalling health hazards of Chinese wet markets—where thousands of animals endure almost endless brutality and suffering—but also reminds westerners that they cannot blame China alone without also acknowledging the perils of our own factory farms, where unimaginably overcrowded sheds create the ideal environment for viruses to mutate and multiply. Spanning more than five decades of writing on the systemic mistreatment of animals, Why Vegan? features a topical new introduction, along with nine other essays, including: • “An Ethical Way of Treating Chickens?,” which opens our eyes to the lives of the birds who end up on so many plates—and to the lives of their parents; • “If Fish Could Scream,” an essay exposing the utter indifference of commercial fishing practices to the experiences of the sentient beings they scoop from the oceans in such unimaginably vast numbers; • “The Case for Going Vegan,” in which Singer assembles his most powerful case for boycotting the animal production industry; • And most recently, in the introduction to this book and in “The Two Dark Sides of COVID-19,” Singer points to a new reason for avoiding meat: the role eating animals has played, and will play, in pandemics past, present, and future. Written in Singer’s pellucid prose, Why Vegan? asserts that human tyranny over animals is a wrong comparable to racism and sexism. The book ultimately becomes an urgent call to reframe our lives in order to redeem ourselves and alter the calamitous trajectory of our imperiled planet.