Live Animal Trinkets-HORRIBLE!
We all feel sad when we read stories about dogs, cats, and bears etc that have been locked in cages for 30 years. We can imagine the suffering that they go through… imagining the tight space, the metal bars, inability to sit, inability to be comfortable, the claustrophobia, the sense of insanity, we understand and emphasize when we see the animals going crazy, rubbing their body against the hard steel bars, shaking the cage etc.
Imagine that same scenario, but 50 times smaller.
There is now a new fad arising in China: live animal key chains.
For less than USD1, anyone can buy a live goldfish, 2 small kingfish or a Brazilian turtle in a 7cm long keychain filled with coloured water!!
According to the vendors, the coloured water is filled with nutrients which will keep the animal alive for a few months. Without oxygen, the animals will naturally (but unnaturally!!) die in a few days… or even hours.
People are buying the key chains for fun, because it’s cute…. and they are said to bring luck too. The sad thing is that there is no animal abuse law for non-wild animals in their country, so people can buy and sell it freely… and they sell FAST.
Having a live animal in a sealed bag is animal abuse and cruelty. What may appear to look like a cute fish or a cute turtle is an animal who is just slowly suffocating to death.
Do read the article below, it is written by the Global Times, an online newspaper based in China. I have added a short video too, just to show that such things really do exist… what do you think? Would you like to carry a mini aquarium?
Tsem Rinpoche
Or view the video on the server at:
https://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/Fish-keychain-in-China.mp4
(Extracted from: http://en.huanqiu.com/beijing/society/2011-03/634155_2.html by Xu Tianran)
As live fish and turtles sealed in small key rings have become an increasingly popular trinket sold at subway entrances and train stations, animal protection groups are advocating an immediate ban, calling the item an example of “pure animal abuse.”
However, there is no existing animal protection law that would prevent their sale, explain animal rights groups.
At the Sihui subway station C entrance, one vendor hawked such rings.
Filled with colored water, each 7cm-long key ring encapsulated either one Brazil turtle or two small kingfish.
“The water in the key ring has ‘nutrients’,” claimed the vendor. “They can live for months inside there.”
Business was looking good Tuesday afternoon as one fish and nine turtle rings sold within five minutes.
“I’ll hang it in my office, it looks nice and brings good luck, ” a man in his 30s said after buying a turtle key ring.
“I bought one to free it. It looks so miserable,” a woman told the Global Times.
According to Mary Peng, cofounder of the International Center for Veterinary Services, fish and turtles wouldn’t survive very long in a sealed plastic bag. “They would run out of oxygen,” Peng said.
Animal protection groups are voicing strong opposition to the key ring sales.
“To put a living thing inside a sealed and confined space for profit is immoral and pure animal abuse,” said Qin Xiaona, director of the NGO Capital Animal Welfare Association.
However, “China only has a Wild Animal Protection Law,” Qin explained. “If the animals are not wild animals they fall outside the law’s scope.”
“If an animal protection law is too much to hope for, we urgently need an anti-animal abuse law,” Qin said, appealing to citizens not to buy such key rings. “If nobody buys it, the market will die,” she added.
Isn’t this so much nicer? Pleasing to the eye and the fishes are happy and well taken-care of…
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Do they really believe it brings a good luck? So stupid.
This is really horrible!
People can really be so creative but if they apply their creativity in benefiting the animals will be more appreciative than creating a torturing environment for them. They can create a spacious, beautiful and purposeful aquarium for them instead of this confine little tiny bag. How if the put this creative person in a clear glass cubical that just fit his body dimension and move this person around just like the water animals in the little bag….how does it feel?
If this creative person says it will go insane so to the fishes. Why create hell for them just for money. I strongly believe if this creative person can think of such an idea, it definitely can think of a more humane creative environment for the lovely water animals. The society today should be more aware and exposed compassion for animals as we are not the only being that life on earth. We are not superior to other animals just because of we able to think better than them. In fact, due to we are able to think better we should be the ones to create our surroundings to be more conducive to live together with all sentient beings.
I strongly urge people to use their creativity to create a better environment for the animals too as they have their right to live like us and let us share our care and love with them. Stop hurting them and start loving them.
Unbelievable just for the sake of making money they did that . Its cruel and un human ……putting live tiny animals in what ever they called as key chains. It seem vendors in China have been selling live animal key chains for years. Small fish, turtles and others are being sold. How could this allow to happen. Hope the authority concerned could ban the sales of such key chain which abusing living thing. The little animals are suspended in brightly coloured liquid, often along with beads and other decorations…….feeling sad and angry with the inventor of such products for sales.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing.
This is really horrible,inhumane and simply cruel. I really cannot imagine myself if i were inside the tight space, the metal bars, inability to sit,inability to be comfortable,the claustrophobia,the sense of insanity.Even if it was just for amusement, what amusement would you have from watching a fish swim in such a tiny, confined, restricted, cage-in space?
Dear Rinpoche ,
It is absolutely terrible and horrible so see how humans are exploiting the animals just for our own selfish needs. These poor animals are practically being sentences to a slow, painful death in a confined space. Imagine the torture they have to go through before they take their last breath.
The killing karma is a very heavy and it will manifest some time in the future. I wish this vendor will realise his unforgivable doings and stop it immediately. This shows the terror of not having dharma in our life. We do things that will make us suffer tremendously without even us knowing. How scary is that?
I wish I will be with dharma in all my future lives and I must act now to plant dharmic seeds for that reason.
Humbly,
Chris chong
What’s the point of buying it when you know that the fishes will die in hours times? What’s the point of making money out of this? There’s no point. Can you imagine yourself trapped, cramped up in a small cage? Fishes are meant to swim around, they cant just stop swimming. I’m very sorry but where have their brains gone?
[…] http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/animals-vegetarianism/live-animals-in-keychains.html […]
If you’re going to ‘invest’ in a pet like this you’d be better off with a Tamagochi! As Melissa Sin says in one of the comments above, ” It’s gonna die pretty soon. What’s the point of buying it? To carry dead fish around? Yuck”. Well, precisely. And buying more of these only encourage sellers to create more of this – to create more death in a bag!
Nobody really gains anything from this – it does nothing for the fish, who doesn’t even really get any oxygen or proper food. All it is, is to satisfy a mere fashion trend? A fad? Even the person who buys it doesn’t get any real benefit from this. Even if it was just for amusement, what amusement would you have from watching a fish swim in such a tiny, confined, restricted, cage-in space?
This is very stupid. just when i thought that animals being caged are bad, there are animals suffering by suffocation. What kind of idiot would by these sort of torture devices? People. When people buy these even to release it is encouraging the market, so in short, don’t buy.
This is so horrible! So small space for the fishes to live. They can’t even live more than 2-3 hours, there’s no oxygen provided. And what the people buy them do is, watch them die slowly. I don’t find it entertaining..what is the advantage of that?? People should stop doing that.
Dear Rinpoche,
I just can’t believe that people in China would do such a thing just to get money! Why would people pack all this poor and innocent fishes and turtles in to a stupid small plastic bag just to be a lame key chain.
Don’t people know that these fishes and turtles have a heart and soul too? Why just put them in a plastic bags for a few months and then let it die?
Why waste its life stuffed in a plastic bag unable to move at all.
Seriously why do we want to keep this animals just for fun?
Don’t they have any Compassion to feel sorry for this animals?
Why isn’t the China Government not taking any action at all?
Do they know it is happening?
If yes then why are they not taking any action?.
If no aren’t you suppose to know what is going on especially when
animal activists are protesting about it?
I feel so sad for the fishes and turtle that is suffocating in a small key chain and those who have died of suffocation. Every time I look at the pictures and videos, I know how they feel inside the small key chain and waiting for death to come. This is extremely cruel to animals, animals should not be treated in this way they should be our friends that we never give up on them. Please stop any kind of cruelty to the animals and treat them with love and care. Thank you for reading
Oh my god, this is terrible. Can believe people would do this to fish. They keep them in such small places and give them away as gifts. I can’t imagine the amount of pain that those fishes are in at the moment. i wish for all of this to stop. If i were there seeing people sell this to others, i would buy all the fish and free them where the belong.
I remember seeing this is China last year and I remembered this post immediately. It is sad that people will do just anything to make money. The fish had become a “product” and not seen as a living being anymore. The people become numb with this sort of business and aren’t able to have any feelings for the fish anymore.
I really hope it will be a passing fad and people start getting bored with it real soon!
We should put the seller in a plastic that can be sealed and put in the nutrients for him to feed off.
How many animals die due to ur ignorance and greed.
sick! a horrible death awaits these innocent creations.
It is so sad so sad to read this article. I cannot imagine how bad it can be to have to live in such a small space swimming in the water that is most likely chemicals rather than nutrients and waiting for my final day.
Because of the sheer size of China, a small amount from a small percentage of its population can bring a big sum of money. Add on to this with the low manufacturing cost and the poverty that citizens there have gone through for many decades, unethical businesses blossom.
We know about this, anything and everything from animals to humans. Everything at all as long as an idea is born and plan looks feasible.
This is really very cruel. I believe that when there is no demand there will be no supply. As long as people show no interests in this trade, it will die off naturally.
how incredible stupid. do you chinese people ever like switch on your brains or something ? oh no , i forgot , its forbidden by your government. you should really get rid of it.
Can we imagine being caged up in small locked cages with hardly any space to sit down, dont say to lie down to sleep. This is what is done to the cute and beautiful little live gold fishes and brazillian turtles, considered as a new fad arising in China. Live animals key chains! This is pure madness and insanity of the people creating them, and satanistic of the people buying them. Would you like or ever think of carrying such a torturing aquariam key-chain, feeling proud to show it around to anyone? Yet, it is said that such a sadistic toy of abuse attracted good sales at train stations and subways in China. Is there any way to stop such abuses? MaryPeng, a co-founder of the International centre for veterinary services in China, has this to say, “To put a living thing inside a sealed and confined space for profit is inmmoral and pure abuse; however, China only has a wild animal’s protection law, if the animals are not wild animals they fall outside the law’s scope.” What a compassionate and “wild” law to protect the weak and tamed in China, as specially the animals who cannot speak out for themselves!!! “OM MANI PADMI HUM.”
Yes, this is a terrible crime against God as He loves this living being.
SEE my blog as it has a recent article I wrote about a bird and how it relates to spirituality.
Peace,
Dave
To make a quick buck, some people go all the way even using defenceless animals as a means. They labeled it as a novelty without even a thought of the animals’ lives as long as there are profits. So sad.
This is insane. The inventor, maker and vendors are so inhuman. If business is good they will make more to sell, so spread the words around so that no one will buy from them.
Too many humans are guilty of abuse of power.
Instead of using their absolutely amazing, extra-ordinary, super duper powers to save lives, bring peace, alleviate sufferings and create causes for a reality free from sufferings, what are the powers used for?
Really, sometimes, the situation look so hopeless, it is depressing!
And I just couldn’t take anyone any more who tells me that they are just fishes…. sighhhh….
Thank you Rinpoche for always being on the front line.
There is always something we can do, raise awarness, blog it, facebook it, tell people again and again that they are not just “fishes”…
I feel so sad for the people involved in this business, they have got to open their eyes and their hearts!
Dear Tsem Kentrul Thubten Lamsang Rinpoche.
Thank You for posting such a good information. I pray to see you one day.
Regards
Tenzin Kenpo
Would you be up front and tell the street vendor not to sell this type of live animal key chains or would you buy all their key chains and immediately release the fishes in the pond?
I think I would do both, tell the street vendor off and buy all the key chains and let him know that I would release the fishes. I know buying key chains from them may encourage them to make more to sell, but these fishes will die anyway in the plastic pouches one day. It is better to save at least a few lives and set them free.
China, China, wake up and stop making your nation looks SO RIDICULOUS and INSANE!
How horrifying! The makers of those items are so inhuman. Lets educate people to behave like real humans – start with the people around us – today! i will start with my Dharma Study Group tonight, then my pupils tomorrow…. then my colleagues….
In yesterday’s papers, I learnt there is such a thing as fake eggs! From China of course. Looks almost the same, maybe a little off taste. How on earth does anyone recreate an egg together with white, yolk and shell I really wonder? You buy your eggs from the mom & pop store only to find that you paid for fakes! What kind of R&D must have gone into building up a fake egg from scratch, with polymer technology perhaps! To go through such lengths to cheat people points to a dearth of moral ethics and an absence of any conscience, to make a fast buck on others for immediate gain. We hear such stories every day, cardboard added to meat, green dye added to yellow grain to make fake green peas, red dye added to bird’s nest to make it look like premium quality…..is it any surprise? We shake our heads in shock, but it’s all in a normal day’s work for them.
Dear Rinpoche
Thank you for highlighting this event. Such cruelty breaks my heart and makes me sick to no end and disturbs me very much. I’ve been thinking how can I change people’s mindsets. Climbing Mt Everest looks like a simpler feat compared to influencing people to not harm animals. It’s going to be quite a journey to educate people..but nevertheless, it is not impossible and everyday is another day of opportunity to do so.
I hate giving so much credit to the people who causes harm.
I’d like to highlight the heroes..in hopes that people will follow their courageous acts. Perhaps, this is one of the ways to help change people’s mindsets….by seeing more and more people doing positive things with their lives. I’d like to believe that every act of cruelty is also an opportunity for a hero to be born.
Qin Xiaona, chief of the Beijing-based Capital Animal Welfare Association, mentioned in this article has done many heroic acts. One of which was back in 2009. He and a few others (people just like anyone else), helped saved 800 cats from dinner table in North China’s Tianjin municipality.
Source of Excerpt below: http://www.tantaonews.com/?p=18818
More than 800 cats, locked up in rows of iron cages in a store in northern China’s Tianjin municipality, would have been transported to Guangzhou, Guangdong province, and slaughtered had it not been for about 30 residents who rallied for nearly 24 hours, negotiating with the trader and police, to free the animals ..
refusing to give up on those who can’t help themselves..
susan
This is really bad! This is a new level of depravity by seeking pleasure in the killing of animals. How can anybody not see that it is a cruel thing to store an animal only to slowly kill it. Why wouldn’t anybody want to buy these cruel keychains. It’s amazing how China has total disregard for animal rights.
It must be the hunger for money and the total wipeout of spirituality and other forms of higher thinking in China during the cultural revolution contributed towards this. I think the Chinese need Dharma or any form of spirituality really bad because money is their only religion right now!
Dear David, you were right is new level of depravity, but somehow I do not see it as China problem, this happen because of people that market the whole world. This happen because we human are compassion toward beings which is right, in accordance with this marketing intelligence have use the point to create this key chain to attract many young people to have compassion and buy this key chain, in the way they can release it. This was the strategy behind all cruelty you see online vid. I know this because I work with an international advertising firm , this idea was base on the olden tamagouchi if you recall. Dear David, not all Chinese people are like that, not sure if you are chinese. But I was born in China and I consider myself as Chinese, I know in China we have no rights for animals, but hence as times goes by we have been educated for what cruelty meant. Hope you don’t get my meaning wrong.
China seems to have this reputation of being a place where really sick things happen.
“I’ll hang it in my office, it looks nice and brings good luck, ” a man in his 30s said after buying a turtle key ring.
There won’t be any good luck, but karma awaits him in his future life.
It is sad that the fish has to suffer a slow death through suffocation without oxygen. It is sadder knowing the potential and imminent sufferings that awaits those people who seek pleasure and profit from animal cruelty.
Om Mani Pad Me Hum
China. leave it to them to make something so sick. again. Like killing dogs isn’t bad enough.
Gosh this is just sick. It’s gonna die pretty soon. What’s the point of buying it? To carry dead fish around? Yuck
OMG… Human has become more in human these days. Many years back i watch a video on how cat are bottle alive. They basicly stuff a kitten in a bottle of any size and then feed them trough a small tube. Anyway I went in a moment ago before posting this an it is said that it was purely a joke. How can it be a joke… Is not funny just like all the fish and turtle that is only confine in a small plastic.
I pray no one buys these key chain.
At some point people should at least have discernment in not harming other beings. This is outrageous, silly trinkets going to the distance killing innocent animals!!!
My prayers to all the animals who affected by this 🙁
and my prayers to make this stop….
Thanks Rinpoche for posting this, this is too much for me.
I can’t call myself an animal lover, but i do feel pain for them. Actually before they meet their death by run out of oxygen, they need to live with fear everyday.
If someone really pin the key chain on their bag, and bring it around, due to the unstable movement/environment , i think all the fishes will feel like facing “earthquake” everyday, every minute their owner on the way to work, to school or to party. Yet the fishes doesn’t even know what happened .
Sometimes thing might look cute/nice to us, but we never think further. If we have little bit more awareness, we can actually stop a lot of problem, and we might able to help someone.
If only one’s creativity can be used in means other than that arising from pure profit and temporary pleasure. It is so sad to see how people choose selfishness over care and concern of other living beings. Because the animal cannot scream, it doesn’t mean that it is not in pain. Because the animal doesn’t talk, it doesn’t mean that it does not feel discomfort. Because the animal cannot harm us, it definitely does not mean that we can show dominance and harm them.
The poor fishes & turtles look utterly terrified and in so much discomfort, as we swing them back and forth and knock on it’s “home”. They barely have enough space to turn around or enough water to swim in. It is scary constantly fighting for air… imagine we were being drowned, our head forced into the water… and we’re fighting to gasp for just one breath of air.. That’s what the turtles and fishes are encountering, every second, of their very short lifespan in the confined area of the keychain.
well, maybe we should put some humans in a bag, and see how long they last, tell them it’s a game show. OH WAIT, I think they already do have shows like that!!! well, that shows the mentality of most humans, when I was 9yrs old went to Florida, got some orange scented cologne and cried because my foster mother wood not let me get a real stuffed baby alligator wearing a hula skrit; she said that was a terrible thing for them to be selling. She knew better 55 years ago. So it’s very important we teach the children early on great compassion for animals,some know this naturally like Tsem Rinpoche even as a child, but others have to learn.
the people should know that carrying the fish even the turtle like that will cause even more suffering to the fish and turtle as the bag sway. human can do anything just to make profit, some even will go to the extend of hurting others. will share this on facebook.
Om Mani Padme Hung……….. How I wish this is not true.
Plain and simple, this is a non biodegradable miniature torture device/execution chamber for marine life. I thought dismembered rabbit appendages were the worst thing I’d see on a key chain. I was very wrong. My ten year old daughter saw the photos above and without even seeing the article she became very alarmed. It’s a shame that the adults producing and buying these can’t understand the horror of this product that is obvious to a ten year old child! Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention Rinpoche. I will share it on FB immediately!
This “invention” is quite boring entertainment for fish tortures. I see nothing special in carrying fish in trinkets. But very sad at the same time, really 🙁