Growing awareness levels

Despite the occurrence of such incidents, members of the community generally feel that the awareness of animal welfare in China has greatly improved over the years.

Renata, an animal rescuer from Shenzhen in Guangdong province, points out that there has been an increasing number of rescuers, vets and officials getting involved with controlling the stray population through TNR in the city.

"I also like the fact that there's now an official requirement for dogs to get their rabies vaccination and be registered. These are both free and quite easy to obtain in Shenzhen," she says, who is one of the contributing authors of the Pawsome pet guide.

"The awareness level is much higher than five years ago when I arrived in China. The truly amazing thing is that the city opened its first pet park where dog owners can walk their dogs freely."

Zhou says the same is happening in Shanghai. When he first started Blue Ribbon seven years ago, he only had four other volunteers who went around the city with him performing TNR.

Today, his organization has 45 volunteers, one third of whom are professionals such as vets, pet photographers and pet trainers. Blue Ribbon has been sterilizing more than 1,000 stray cats since 2016.

The number of animal welfare communities has increased, too. According to Zhou, there are currently 15 such communities in the city, up from just one in 2015.

"Based on my personal experience, the living conditions of stray animals are gradually improving. Moving forward, it would be good if the government can take the lead in addressing the issues related to strays and pet ownership," he says.