My heart hurts. I'm angry. I want to DO something... but I feel like I can't.
And I hate that.
I've been working in Japan for a few months now, and there's much that I admire about the country. The streets are kept clean, people are polite, and accessibility for the disabled is taken seriously. What's NOT taken seriously is animal wellfare. The zoos I've visited have been... iffy. Not skin-crawling bad, but not the best, either. Like a bear park along the side of the highway in the US.
But I went to a bird store today and nearly cried walking away.
The conditions were APALLING. Those tiny budgie cages you see at PetSmart stacked floor to ceiling, CRAMMED with conures, parrotlets, lovebirds, finches, grass keets, cockatiels... That was just in the front, though. The back is where they kept the big birds, in those same tiny cages. Amazons, lots of galahs, a pionus, and a single rainbow lorikeet who had a dish of DRY POWDER to eat, but still bopped and danced for me when I walked by. The worst was a huge U2- its shoulders were almost the width of its cage. God, I'm crying now...
None of the birds had anything but a dowel perch, a cup of seed, and dirty water. I'm honestly surprised I didn't find any dead- a few of the cockatiels on the bottom of the stack (in BUG CONTAINERS) looked pretty close, dirty and puffy and still. It was awful. Awful.
I'm so, so mad.
And what can I do about it? Pets in Japan are required to have "food, water, and shelter," and this hellhole arguably provided all of those. I submitted a form on an animal advocacy website with an English interface, but I can't call anyone because my phone doesn't have voice coverage! I left a one-star review of the place on Google, like that's going to do anything. I feel ready to boil over. I'm still crying.
And I hate that.
I've been working in Japan for a few months now, and there's much that I admire about the country. The streets are kept clean, people are polite, and accessibility for the disabled is taken seriously. What's NOT taken seriously is animal wellfare. The zoos I've visited have been... iffy. Not skin-crawling bad, but not the best, either. Like a bear park along the side of the highway in the US.
But I went to a bird store today and nearly cried walking away.
The conditions were APALLING. Those tiny budgie cages you see at PetSmart stacked floor to ceiling, CRAMMED with conures, parrotlets, lovebirds, finches, grass keets, cockatiels... That was just in the front, though. The back is where they kept the big birds, in those same tiny cages. Amazons, lots of galahs, a pionus, and a single rainbow lorikeet who had a dish of DRY POWDER to eat, but still bopped and danced for me when I walked by. The worst was a huge U2- its shoulders were almost the width of its cage. God, I'm crying now...
None of the birds had anything but a dowel perch, a cup of seed, and dirty water. I'm honestly surprised I didn't find any dead- a few of the cockatiels on the bottom of the stack (in BUG CONTAINERS) looked pretty close, dirty and puffy and still. It was awful. Awful.
I'm so, so mad.
And what can I do about it? Pets in Japan are required to have "food, water, and shelter," and this hellhole arguably provided all of those. I submitted a form on an animal advocacy website with an English interface, but I can't call anyone because my phone doesn't have voice coverage! I left a one-star review of the place on Google, like that's going to do anything. I feel ready to boil over. I'm still crying.
