The Voice of the Two Sessions|A Member of the Committee Suggests Establishing “Companion” Animal Protection Laws and Regulations, and No Abandonment or Maltreatment Shall Be Allowed

As pets enter more and more households, their acceptance and protection have also received increasing attention.

During the Shanghai Two Sessions on January 15th, Chen Yongliang, a member of the municipal political consultation committee and executive deputy director of the Huangpu Central Science and Technology Innovation Zone Construction Office, stated in an interview with The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) that there should be more comprehensive laws and regulations to safeguard key areas such as pet breeding, trading, medical treatment, and abandonment.

Chen Yongliang submitted a proposal on establishing a “companion” animal protection system in the city. He pointed out in the proposal that the current laws and regulations on animal protection in Shanghai are relatively scattered and inadequate. For example, there are no strict punishment measures for animal abandonment, which leads to some irresponsible owners abandoning their pets at will, resulting in an increase in the number of stray animals.

To this end, Chen Yongliang proposed to improve the relevant animal protection laws and regulations system. Firstly, special legislation should be formulated. Led by the Municipal People’s Congress Standing Committee, specialized “companion” animal protection legislation should be formulated to clarify the legal status and rights of animals, and stipulate the rights and obligations of animal owners in detail, including breeding conditions, registration, and no abandonment and torture. The animal trading market should be strictly regulated, all trading activities must be carried out in legitimate places, the health standards and quarantine procedures of traded animals should be clarified, and the penalties for illegal trading activities should be increased to provide a solid guarantee for “companion” animal protection from legal level.

Secondly, regulatory agencies and law enforcement teams should be established. A specialized animal protection regulatory agency should be established to supervise the implementation of laws and regulations, strengthen daily patrols and law enforcement efforts for animal breeding, trading, and abandonment, ensure the effective implementation of various regulations, and safeguard the authority and seriousness of animal protection laws.

In addition to the inadequate laws and regulations, Chen Yongliang also pointed out in the proposal that there are also problems of shortage and irregularity in animal medical resources. On the whole, professional animal medical institutions in Shanghai are unevenly distributed, with relatively centralized locations in central cities and shortages in some suburban areas. At the same time, the industry standards for animal medical treatment are not unified and standardized, and some small pet clinics have problems such as简陋的 medical equipment, uneven qualifications of veterinarians, and irregular drug use.

Chen Yongliang suggested strengthening the construction and standardized management of animal medical resources. Firstly, optimize the layout of medical resources. Planning departments should include animal medical institutions in the layout planning of urban public service facilities, encourage the construction of more standardized and specialized animal hospitals and clinics in suburban areas and concentrated areas of animal breeding through policy guidance and financial support, and realize the balanced distribution of animal medical resources.

Secondly, strengthen industry supervision and standardization construction. Relevant departments such as the Municipal Agriculture and Rural Development Committee and Health Commission should jointly formulate improved industry standards and norms for the animal medical treatment industry, including certification of veterinarians, equipment standards, diagnosis and treatment procedures, and drug use standards, and strengthen supervision and inspection of animal medical institutions. A credit evaluation system for the animal medical treatment industry should be established, and institutions with violations or poor service quality should be publicly disclosed and punished to promote the healthy and orderly development of the industry.

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