Naturally a huge market developed to keep pace with people's demand for pets. They weren't merely satisfied with ordinary pets like cats and dogs, they wanted exotic pets too. Japan is one of the most lucrative markets for exotic pets. There is a pet shop in Osaka city, squashed into a street, surrounded by pachinko parlours, bars, nightclubs, restaurants, sleaze of every description, where you can walk in and buy almost any animal from a pony, to a civet cat to a pig, to wallabies, to rare reptiles and birds (eagles, owls, cockatoos) to varieties of monkeys. You name it, they've got or can get it. The owner of this shop was actually prosecuted for selling smuggled baby orangutangs, which the police confiscated and which were sent back to Indonesia. Although the owner was given a warning and fined a paltry amount of money, the shop continued its business as brazenly as ever. The animals already stressed by the deafening noise of the street are then poked and handled by drunken salary workers on their way home. Once purchased and when these animals are no longer fun or become unmanageable, they are dumped in the countryside; crocodiles, Mississippi turtles, raccoons, mongooses become pests often damaging the environment and attacking indigenous Japanese species. The Japanese talk about the menace of these creatures invading the countryside but nobody seems to think of stopping the problem at the source; i.e controlling or banning the sale of these animals in pet shops in the first place. Once the animals have been smuggled into the country there is no authority or laws to prevent them being sold. There are no guidelines or controls to stop anyone purchasing them.
 |
