Children experience animal cruelty first-hand
An animal activist locked young children in fake cages so they could experience animal cruelty first-hand.
Hong Kong vet Mark Mak pulled the stunt, to simulate the conditions suffered by animals subject to commercial breeding, during a workshop at his clinic.
He placed three children in fake cages at the same time and banned them from making noise.
This, he said, was so they would understand the hardships animals go through to supply the pet market.
Despite the odd demonstration, Mark said he was “relieved” when none of the parents made complaints afterwards.
Posting on his personal Facebook page, Mark wrote:
“I asked the children to form groups of three and climb into the cages.
"At first I was worried parents would complain if they knew their sons and daughters were being put in cages, but after seeing how brave and enthusiastic the children were, I decided to go ahead with the demo.
"Some of the children began complaining after less than five minutes. They said it was stuffy and too small; they said they wanted to come out.
"I told them animals in private breeding farms stay in narrow, dirty cages not for five minutes, but for one, three, or sometimes five years, their only job being to provide offspring for pet shops.
"And when they can’t have any more young, they lose their value and get abandoned in the streets, and they die.”
Mark said that after the demonstration, all of the children promised they would never buy another pet from a shop again; instead, they would adopt cats and dogs from shelters.
Mark added: “I am most grateful for the fact that, even after the children told their parents about the cage experiment, I still didn’t receive any complaints.”
Mark founded his non-profit vet clinic in 2006 with the funding of several other animal activists in Hong Kong, whose aim was to provide an establishment for affordable animal care.
In previous interviews, he’s said he believed both the rich and poor deserved to have animal companions, and so their care should be made cheap and easily accessible to all.
