Benefits of pet education

The first issue that Pawsome wants to raise awareness about is the effectiveness of TNR in controlling the numbers of stray animals in the city. Wile there are no official statistics regarding the stray population in the city, many of those familiar with the situation believe that numbers have been growing.

Zhou Lei, the founder of Blue Ribbon, points out several factors that are behind the growth in stray animal numbers: the rise in spending power, people getting influenced by foreign movies and television dramas, and the desire for a companion to help cope with the growing pressures of city life.

Legal studies researcher He Hairen from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences had in a 2018 interview with China Daily also connected the rise of pet ownership to the growing problem of abandonment, which in turn exacerbates the stray animal situation.

Last year, the China Pet Products Association reported that pet ownership in China was growing by 15 percent a year. Online pet forum Goumin.com also published a white paper on the pet industry stating that the nation's dog and cat pet market had exceeded 170 billion yuan in value, and that pet owners were expected to spend more than 5,000 yuan per pet, a 15 percent increase from the year before.

According to Zhou, controlling the number of stray cats through TNR would reduce the spread of diseases and the amount of noise generated when animals mate. This in turn keeps both the human and animal communities safer.

"There is also a food safety issue involved. TNR reduces the stray cat population and this lessens the risk of unscrupulous food vendors using the animals as food," he says.