Animal cruelty is one of the major problems worldwide. Many people are doing everything that they can to help give these animals a forever home, but one of the issues is the wild animals. Many of them are being captivated to be sold in the black market. Some of them are turtles and lizards.

There is a cruel trend of selling in China these days. This involves live animals such as baby turtles, snakes, lizards, and even fishes. They are caught and placed inside a tiny plastic bag and are made as keychains and trinkets. This next level of cruelty is worrying about animal rights activists and even animal lovers worldwide.
It is not known how this cruel trend started by PETA suggested that this has been going on since 2008. It all started when China hosted the Olympics!

These poor live animal keychains were sold to tourists for as little as $1.25. This local trade has been going on for over a decade and the illegal market for these poor animals are popular to tourists. The mere sight of these helpless victims trapped in small spaces; given just enough air to survive is strong evidence that this is nothing but pure torture.

They can stomach this cruelty just for the amusement of their buyers knowing that they would discard it after just a little time of having it. What’s worse about this trade is that there are no rules and regulations in this country regarding the protection of these animals. Only the animals in the wild come within the limit of the governments’ rules. And these poor creatures have to suffer because of that.

Qin Xiaona, the director of Capital Animal Welfare Association which is an NGO that works for the animal welfare and their rights confirmed that they are helpless during this kind of situations. He said that selling these animal keychains is still legal because they do not fall under the classification of wild animals.
He said, “China only has a Wild Animal Protection Law. If the animals are not wild animals they fall outside the law’s scope.”

Since the trade of these trinkets became so popular, there were a number of petitions to help stop this practice. One petition said: “the living keychains containing Brazilian turtles or kingfish swimming in colored water are considered good-luck charms by many Chinese, but animal protection groups are outraged and call them a perfect example of “pure animal abuse” This petition received the support of more than 100,000 people.

The co-founder of the International Center for Veterinary Services, Mary Peng, was one of those how signed the petition that said that these creatures will not be able to survive in these sealed bags for a very long time because of the lack of oxygen. Once these trinkets are bought, their lives will depend on the buyer if they will be released back to wild or if they will be left forgotten in the corner and would be left to die where in most cases, they would.

Even though there are plenty of petitions against these trinkets, still, the practice is ongoing and there is little news of what the government is planning to do to stop it.