Yao Ming and his wife Ye Li visited the Animals Asia Foundation China Bear Rescue Center near Chengdu, currently home to approximately 160 rescued moon bears. The bears, also known as Asiatic black bears, were rescued from bear bile farms generally notorious for cramped conditions and cruel treatment. Yao shook paws with one particularly lucky basketball-loving bear, who even received a manicure from the former 9-time All-Star center. more ›

Animal rights groups and over 70 Chinese celebrities are protesting the decision by a company specializing in the extraction of bile from Asiatic black bears raised on their private farm to seek a public listing. The Fujian-based Guizhentang Pharmaceutical Co. is making a second bid to list publicly, after their first attempt was thwarted last year by public criticism last year. more ›

The group of animal activists responsible for the online campaign that successfully shut down the Zhejiang Jinhua Dog Meat Festival earlier this year are back with a new mission. They've issued a human flesh search "warrant" on Sina Weibo for two guys (seen in the below pictures) who apparently chopped off the head of a kitten and posed for pictures with its decapitated head. The post has been shared a whopping 35,000 times and counting, and is one of the top retweeted posts on Sina Weibo today. more ›

On Monday in Shenzhen's Longhua district, an aggrieved building contractor decided to protest for his rights (an act known as weiquan/维权) by unfurling banners from a building rooftop, along with stringing two dogs up by their necks. more ›

After hearing loud cries coming from inside a building, a visitor at the Shanghai Wildlife Park decided to check out what was happening and record what they saw. Inside, one trainer is seen using a metal pipe (it's not entirely clear whether they are using the pipes to beat the cubs or whether they are simply a part of the performance?) as he tugs and kicks a young black bear. The cub is obviously distressed, and the trainer is obviously accustomed to using force. more ›

Jiangmen dog owners, this means you! You officially have until August 25th to figure out what to do with your dogs, as a 'special campaign' on pooches in Pengjiang (蓬江), Jianghai (江海) and Xinhui (新会) districts of Jiangmen city (江门市, a city of 3.8 million 102km [64 miles] south of Guangzhou) begins the following day, on the 26th of August. Afterwards, any dogs roaming in public without a license from their owner will be confiscated and put down. And if past campaigns in China are anything to go by, methods employed could be far from humane. more ›

In a plea to China to stop the importation of seal meat and oil obtained from the annual seal-hunt in Canada, Pamela Anderson has taken it upon herself to send a personal letter to Xu Shaoshi, China's minister of land and resources. In it, she invites him to visit her in Canada and witness the animal cruelty she has been donning tight t-shirts and tweeting up a storm to prevent. From AFP: more ›

"If anyone has seen the horrific and unwatchable footage of the Chinese cat and dog trade - animals skinned alive - then they could not possibly argue in favour of China as a caring nation. There are no animal protection laws in China and this results in the worst animal abuse and cruelty on the planet. It is indefensible." more ›

I guess in a land where people still go hungry, it sometimes seems a little luxurious to care about what happens to the animals - but it's hard not to have a reaction when hearing about the constant and seemingly systematic cruelty to dogs in this country. Recently, an illegal dog slaughterhouse was uncovered in Jilin Province, where about 300 dogs a day were slaughtered and then sold for their meat. more ›

Chinese tourists on National Holiday killed roughly 300 butterflies a day at the Shanghai Botanic Garden - meaning that the destination has lost around 2,400 of the insects over the last eight days. It tried to hire three volunteers to prevent visitors from grabbing at the butterflies to take pictures of themselves with the insects, but three volunteers apparently couldn't do much versus 10,000 visitors. Ginkgo trees, which tourists shook for fruit, were also damaged. Source: Shanghai Daily more ›

By Richard Yu more ›

By Derek Sandhaus more ›

We are all for this whole harmonious society thing, but when someone sent us this link on popular Chinese message board Tianya today, we couldn’t help wonder ... just what exactly is harmonious these days. We didn’t look at the images posted in the thread (we warn you, don't do it if you don't want nightmares), but they were screen captures from a video uploaded to tudou.com on March 25 (after we protested, the site deleted the video today, but you can still see a small captured image on the uploader's profile.) This user, named "fenluodeiren" posted a video named "黑白双杀" (or "killing white and black"), which basically is about how four guys, allegedly from Hunan, skinned one black and one white cat while they were ALIVE! more ›

Late last year, Shanghaiist ran several stories on the abhorrent Animal Olympics event held in Shanghai. Such was the media and public backlash against this event, we didn't expect to see performances of its ilk again in Shanghai. Optimists like us are often proven wrong. Shanghai Wild Animal Park, the organisers of last year's Animal Olympics, appear to be up to their old tricks. more ›

For days, Shanghaiist has been thinking of new and creative ways to curse the high-heeled kitten killer, even though she made an insincere apology, our anger has not ceased. Because no laws against animal cruelty exist in China, the bitch got off scott free. more ›

Shanghaiist is in a fury. No, not because of the freezing weather, but because of a recent thread in a pet website we frequent. more ›