Regular readers will know all about my constant struggle to feed my kids’ enthusiasm for animals without supporting cruel or unethical organizations. Last year I wrote about a rather dowdy zoo in Laos that was being transformed into a wildlife rescue center. In Cambodia we came across another such place, in a promising sign that a significant shift is taking place in views on animal welfare in the region.

The Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center is sometimes known as Phnom Penh Zoo, even though it’s not in Phnom Penh and it’s not a zoo. We hired a car through our hotel to take us there, which cost us USD 60; more expensive than most, but we believed that booking through the hotel would give us some recourse if there was a problem (wrongly, as a future post will recount.)

Nothing to see here. Just a monkey riding on a deer.

As with the Lao WRC, the smaller and less charismatic animals are clustered round the entrance. Deer wander freely around, as do wild macaques. We were pursued by a woman trying to sell us fruit to feed the monkeys, to whom I couldn’t explain that I think feeding wild monkeys is a terrible idea, particularly after our encounters with the aggressive macaques of Malaysia, one of which attacked my son. In the end she started calling the monkeys over to us, and I had to say “No!” quite forcefully to get her to leave us alone.

The otters were cute, but clearly associated humans with food

There’s a wide variety of animals, from monkeys and lorises to lizards and crocodiles. Only a few showed signs of distress, but many obviously associated humans with food, such as the smooth-coated otters which came running and tumbling towards us when they saw us pass. This is why these animals cannot be released into the wild; they may be unable to feed themselves, and would be easy prey for poachers.

Lunch, Khmer style, was a joy

We happily spent a couple of hours wandering around this section, then went for lunch Khmer style: on a carpet on a raised platform. We lounged in hammocks drinking cooling coconut milk while our food was prepared, then feasted on fresh grilled fish and what may well have been the best chicken I have ever eaten.

After lunch we got back in the car, and I thought our driver was taking us to the next part of the sprawling site. We were nearly at the exit before we realized, and had to tell him we hadn’t seen the tiger or the elephants yet. He was a little reluctant to turn back, perhaps because we’d given him the leftover chicken and it was a warm day.

However, had we left then, we would have missed two unforgettable experiences. One was hearing the tiger’s roar ringing round the trees, an utterly awe-inspiring sound which touched on primal terrors. It is a beautiful beast, though clearly unhappy as it paced the perimeter of its enclosure.

The other came after we had found the elephants, fed them sugar cane, and wandered off in search of our driver. By chance we came across a keeper leading one of the elephants, a female called Lucky, on her daily walk around the center. We stroked her, fed her, and blew up her trunk, which we were assured is the elephant equivalent of a kiss. It’s always risky to ascribe human emotions to animals, but I was certain that she was loving all the attention.

Meeting Lucky the elephant was an unexpected but unforgettable experience

If you’re visiting Phnom Penh with kids, then Phnom Tamao should unquestionably be on your itinerary. Children can have close encounters with extraordinary wildlife, and you can be confident that your money is going to support the ongoing battle against the poachers and smugglers who threaten these animals’ very existence.

Photos: Andrew Killeen

The puppies that were found on a Beijing building site on Monday have been given emergency care and shelter. But with a potentially deadly virus spreading among the tiny pups, the rescue operation urgently needs volunteers and financial donations to save the little ones.

A few of the puppies are lucky enough to already be with loving foster homes

38 puppies and eight adult dogs were discovered on the construction site in southeast Beijing, and have been the focus of a joint effort between local rescuers and the international community. Sadly, however, several of the pups have tested positive for parvovirus, a canine illness easily treatable with the proper medicine but highly infectious and dangerous if not dealt with.

Many of the puppies are still very young and vulnerable

Some of the pups that have been cleared have been placed with foster carers, and are proving to be affectionate and easily house trained. As they are so young they are best fostered in pairs at least, so they can socialize with each other. Loving temporary homes for these little ones are very much needed.

The animals which have been already fostered have been found to be very affectionate and easily trained

Right now though, with the medical bills mounting, perhaps the more urgent need is for financial support. RMB 120 will provide a single pup with a potentially life-saving vaccination, while RMB 360 will pay for a whole day of urgent veterinary treatment. You can make a donation right now by scanning the QR code below, and know that every penny raised is going directly to the immediate treatment of the animals.

Another urgent need is for drivers to move the animals around between the rescue center, the veterinary hospital, and potential carers. Anyone with a car and a Beijing license who can help is urged to contact Alex Cukor at Lost Puppies of Beijing, via the QR code below.

Local businesses are joining in the fundraising effort. Mexican food favorite Pebbles is offering the chance to win a RMB 100 voucher with every donation.

And popular bar and Moroccan restaurant Caravan is making the campaign part of the celebrations of their fourth anniversary, with a “Live Disco 4 Doggies” on Friday March 22.

If driving, disco, or even donations aren’t for you, but you can help in some other way, please get in touch with Lost Puppies of Beijing. The pups need you!

Even the youngest pups, with love and care, are beginning to eat independently. How can you help?

Photos: courtesy of Lost Puppies of Beijing

Whenever we travel with our kids, a crucial question for them has become what wildlife we will see. Their eyes roll when I suggest visiting a temple or museum, but they both love animals, and it’s those memories which are often the most vivid for them: wild horses in Mongolia, macaws and macaques in Malaysia, and most recently swimming with turtles on the Philippine island of Cebu (although being attacked by a feral dog in Vientiane is a less pleasant recollection).

One of Cebu’s major attractions is the whale sharks at Oslob, so naturally we planned to make that part of our experience. However, when we visited a tour organizer, he was oddly unenthusiastic about taking our money.

“Look,” he said, “I’d have to charge you 5,000 pesos each [nearly USD 100]. You can get there much more cheaply just by booking a driver. But you’ll have to set off in the middle of the night to get there for dawn.”

My experience of the Philippines up to that point was that everyone was very keen to make money from tourists, so I found his attitude intriguing. We went back to our accommodation and did some research.

The whale sharks, the world’s largest fish, have for centuries passed by Oslob, at the southern tip of Cebu island, as part of their annual migration. Although they are true sharks (not whales), they present no risk to humans, but feed on plankton and small fish. Their presence only became a problem with Cebu’s growing population and the increasing industrialization of fishing, when they started eating the shrimp the fishermen used as bait.

The locals got in the habit of feeding them shrimp to lure them away from their fishing grounds. However an enterprising local hotelier saw an opportunity, and arranged for his guests to swim with the sharks. And so an industry was born.

Now tourists head out for Oslob by the busload. They are ferried out in strictly controlled numbers, take their turn with sharks, and come back again. The tourists are happy, the locals are prospering, the fish are fed. What, you may ask, is the problem?

The problem is that the whale sharks now stay at Oslob all year round, instead of following their natural migratory patterns. They are now wholly dependent on the industry for their survival. As my colleague Andy Penafuerte wrote, the practice is defended on the grounds that some of the money raised goes back to protecting the marine environment. However most conservationists view that as a fig leaf for a situation which is bad for the whale sharks and bad for the ecosystem.

However, I have to be honest with myself, and admit that our reasons for not going to Oslob were emotional rather than rational. As frequent flyers, we can hardly climb on any environmental high horses. But one blog I read about Oslob described it as a “circus”, and that was enough to put me off.

I’ve written before about the ethical questions involved in traveling in Asia with animal-mad children. For every responsibly-run rescue center, there’s a depressing aquarium or zoo where the animals are inadequately cared for or made to perform. I can’t pretend that there’s any consistency or rational coherence to the choices we make as a family, but on this occasion, we decided to stay away.

Photo: I Travel Philippines

As a parent of animal-loving kids, I’ve written before about feeling conflicted when it comes to zoos. My children love to see and learn about wildlife; but I have serious concerns about the standards of animal welfare in many zoos, particularly (it must be said) in Asia.

So it’s a pleasure to be able to report on a zoo with ethics and care for animals at its heart. Having exhausted the pleasures of Vientiane inside a day or so, I stumbled across the Laos Wildlife Rescue Centre (LWRC) via an online search. Getting there proved to be a little trickier though. It didn’t seem to be on any of the tour itineraries, and in the end we had to hire a minibus and driver to take us there. At a cost of USD 120 this was extravagant for a family of four, but we justified it to ourselves on the basis that everything else in Laos was so cheap.

However I was glad that we made the effort, though I was concerned at first. The people behind the Wildlife Rescue Centre are working in partnership with the Lao Zoo, and at the entrance it appeared to be a rather downbeat and old-fashioned place, with deer and turtles as the first animals you encounter.

However it’s a huge site, and the deeper you explore the more you discover the scope and potential of the project. The owners are working to improve conditions for all the animals, and training the staff to provide better care. And behind the older buildings are larger enclosures where the rescued animals are looked after.

The bears at the LWRC are contented and curious

Many of these are bears. Tragically the Asian black bear is hunted and bred for use in Traditional Chinese Medicine, often being caged with its bile tapped via a tube. The Wildlife Centre has a policy of “rescue, rehabilitate, and release”, and most of the animals we saw – contented in big, varied spaces, and showing no signs of distress – are destined to return to the wild.

Sadly some of the zoo’s inhabitants are too damaged by their treatment at the hands of human beings that they can never be released. We could only imagine what had happened to the mandrill which paced in tiny circles in its cage, and my children voiced their disgust aloud at the visitors who were teasing it to get it to “perform” for them.

Not all the primates were distressed. The elegant lar gibbons showed off for us their skill at swinging from branch to branch, in a natural expression of their territorial rights. The volunteer that we met talked about them by name, enthusiastically describing their different personalities.

A lar gibbon poses, elegant as a dancer

My boys were also delighted by the binturongs. This beautiful animal is known as a “bearcat”, though it is neither bear nor cat, but actually a species of civet. Among other highlights for us were the impossibly cute lorises, and a large collection of crocodiles.

Crocodiles laze in the sun

The zoo is still a work in progress, but an impressive amount has been achieved in the short time since the LWRC was established. If you are visiting Vientiane or Vang Vieng, then I would urge you to get to the Centre (it’s roughly halfway in between), and support the important work they do in preserving endangered species and rescuing vulnerable animals from cruel captivity.

To find out more about how you can support the Laos Wildlife Rescue Centre, visit their website: www.laoswildliferescuecentre.com

Photos: Andrew Killeen

Home of Strays

“Oh, those giant pandas are cute!”
“What a cuddly cat, I want to hug him!”
“That dog is so intelligent! I’d like to have the same…”
…and more of those praises when we see animals, probably from friends or colleagues on WeChat Moments or someone else’s Facebook wall. It’s not unusual to get a euphoric feeling when we see animals, though they may be as massive and feral as bears or as tiny and harmless as butterflies.

People take in animals as pets for companionship or protection. But nowadays, saying that pet-keeping is just as akin to commodifying animals, that is, they are “products” that can be easily bought and then disregarded, is quite a contentious issue. It is a sad reality, though, that we often see abandoned animals on the street, or people posting social media messages like these:

“Please help me find a new home for my cute dog. *sad face emoji*”

“Heaven is looking for new parents as we’re moving out of Beijing next month…”

Beloved pets they truly are.

When no one responds, either the pets end up on the street or, when they’re lucky enough, rescued by animal shelters. Ripley Frances, who launched a new shelter called Cat-Kind in Shuangjing in Chaoyang District, believes it is unacceptable for locals and expats going back to their home countries to just leave their pets dying.

When Frances arrived in Shanghai in 2015, she was welcomed by an unexpected family at the door of her flat – a mother cat and her three kittens. Rather than expelling the felines, Ripley found herself feeding them every day.

“I was calling up people, asking what do I do.  Then I found online a few places that said, ‘We do animal rescue,’ but it was only for their own group members, they wouldn’t just take animals.” Frances, who has always been interested in animal rights, adopted the kittens instead.

Back in the UK, Frances had worked for a human rights organization that focused on asylum seekers. She went to Shanghai to tutor students in law and debating. But after finding a new family with the felines, Frances decided to stay in China and go to Beijing to launch Cat-Kind. The shelter, named in honor of the cats Frances rescued, also accepts stray puppies and dogs.

As a millennial, Frances utilizes the power of social media, and in this case, WeChat, to make her shelter known for people who want to rescue strays. “That’s when I realized this is working and it got a lot popular than I expected. It was just in Beijing at first and there were people going like, ‘Oh do we have something like this in Shanghai?’ So I made one. ’Do we have this in Shenzhen?’ Well there is now!”

The volunteer network in those three cities soon grew to more than 70, half of which are from Beijing. Frances describes the tasks done by her and the other volunteers as stressful but meaningful. “There’s this sense of fulfillment when animals find new homes. After the rescue, after they’ve been to the shelter, after they get adopted, then just seeing them in their new home and the impact that they’ve made on a life, I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m proud to have been a part.’”

She said that Cat-Kind, like any other shelters, is a community that finds solutions for the welfare of abandoned animals. Big cities like Beijing, Frances says, have a lot of strays but also have a high rate of adoptions. It’s not merely about adoption, though, as she says by doing so, people provide a sense of care for another living being.

“When you made a choice to adopt a pet, you will view more of it as a family member whereas if someone buys a pet, then it will be more likely viewed as a commodity – something that, ‘Okay, I’m leaving. Why would I want to bring this with me?’ Or more so, ‘That looks cute, I’m going to buy one.” Frances is concerned most about the type of buying where they didn’t do any research, and, when unhappy with their purchase, they just abandon the pet.

Though it will be a hard thing for most people to rescue strays, and Frances describing it to be a “problem” for many, it’s wise to seek help from authorities and call shelters. “A lot of people just leave an animal on the streets just simply because they don’t know what resources are available,” she said.

There’s a lot of work to do for the welfare of animals in cities, and it’s not mainly one community network heading the effort. Just as animals tell us how amazing nature is, and pets providing that much-needed companionship, it’s time for people to appreciate these creatures as an indistinguishable part of daily living.

Photos: Courtesy of Ripley Frances

Meet Other Beijing Community Pillars

While I was looking for adopters of the three lovely puppies that I accidentally found, most people simply replied “We love dogs but we cannot take one home.” One lady referred me to someone who might be able to help me find a potential forever home. I contacted her, hoping she might adopt the three puppies or help me find somebody.Upon contacting the potential adopter, she told me that, “I have more than 120 dogs, what about I give you a few?” Immediately I wondered “How can one person have more than 120 dogs?” ! I know a lot of people in Beijing helping more than one dog, buying food for them with their own limited salary and taking care of their medical or health needs. Owning 120 dogs in any capacity though seemed completely impossible. I interviewed the young lady to find out how she managed such a task. She has a day time job in finance and takes care of all these dogs in the evening after work. Her boyfriend helps her a lot with the daily running of the dog’s shelter. She prefers to be called April.1. How did this start and when did you get the first stray dog?

It was a white female dog I found during the day in my neighborhood. She looked helpless and remained there until the evening. Since at the time I had my own pet dog, I instantly sympathized with and cared about this new dog. The security guard said that she was abandoned by her owner who lived in the basement. The owner had another dog which they sold since it was considered to be a better breed. This one was a common one so dumped in the neighborhood. So I left her at my friend’s pet center and later at my nearest dogs shelter.

2. During the many years of taking care of dogs, did you ever have struggles or concerns?

Sure. My income is very limited. How can I feed them and take care of them? These questions always bothered me. However, I didn’t have too many struggles. When see those life-seeking and helpless eyes, see the desperation of dogs to be sold by owners to become food, you wouldn’t struggle too much. You only think about ways to rescue them, how to feed them, and how to find a trustworthy owner for them.3. How did the number of dogs increase from 1 to more than 120?

The number of dogs increased very quickly. In China, there exists a minimal awareness of proper pet culture and animal welfare. Abuse is often not a crime but simply done for fun. The cost of moral reproach or crime against animals is very low. Abusing, ill-purposed reproduction, stealing, and illegal dog meat are all what we fight against. Many stray dogs are extremely sick while some are deserted on purpose. These dogs are the ones we aim to help. I hope to use my strength to win kinder treatment for a greater number of animals. Over time, more and more dogs came to my place. My limit has been constantly extended.4. What’s your daily life like?

As I have to go to work day time, I care for the dogs and cats after work. For example, visiting families who will potentially adopt, taking the dogs to get vaccinated, and checking on animals who have been hospitalized for treatment. During the weekend time I usually clean up the shelter, trim the dogs’ nails and brush their hair, etc. Sometimes we get volunteers come to improve the shelter’s conditions. Since there are too many dogs, facilities are often quickly damaged, needing constant repair or replacement. Winter mats need to be sunned every week or replaced. There are no rest days. Being together with them and seeing their smiling faces are my most cherished rewards.

5. What are the challenges?

Too many challenges! Money is not the first thing. It is people. Very few people can do this for a long time. Some came with dogs they rescued, but then left the dogs here with me. A lack of human resources is the greatest issue. I need to work in order to cover all the expenses, but because I am constantly working I cannot set up a full-time staff to work on adoption, visitation, cleaning up, publicity and management. I am the one doing all the work right now. We need people to be willing to sacrifice their time and resources. The next challenge is funding. Every new dog brings with it a new host of financial responsibilities. These financial impacts include annual vaccinations, medicine, treatment, and utilities. The third challenge is social recognition. Many people consider it a waste of money and time to care for these dogs. They think participating in other charities would be much more worthwhile. I don’t want to lecture here, but just think, if I can save a life just by reaching out my hands, how could it be a wasting of time? If one cannot extend kindness to a reachable life, how could it be possible to do greater charity? Kindness does not differentiate between size or species!6. Did you ever think about giving up?

Yes, I did think about what their lives would be like without me. It was only a thought, nonetheless. I cannot give it up. When you see their lives changed because of you, from being afraid of human beings to wanting to be close to human beings, and from being paper-thin to being big and heavy, you could not possibly give it up. Such achievement and satisfaction cannot be reached by buying a LV bag. I will not give up. Surely one day I will be too tired to do it, but I will first find ways for them to be well taken care of.

7. What new perspectives have you obtained while helping all these dogs?

Dogs are animals with great feelings. Once a dog was hit by a car on an express way, lying there covered in its own blood. There was another dog as well that never left the afflicted dog’s side. Eventually both of them were saved and lived at my shelter. They ate together and always stayed together. Unfortunately one of them died due to sickness this year after having lived here for four years. The other dog then never left their den, nearly always lying there. Seeing this I realized that the feelings of these dogs are sometimes on par with or even greater than that of human beings. They know everything that is happening but simply cannot express themselves with words!8. What kind of help would you need?

Hopefully more families will be willing to adopt these dogs, giving them a forever home, regardless of what breed they might be, and treat them as a family member. I also hope that more people will pay attention to homeless animals, giving them help if they see them in trouble. Even if you may not like them please don’t harm them! They have the right to a peaceful life! Hopefully, more people will say no to animal performances and animal products. Helping them doesn’t have to mean giving money. Passing the message around also counts.April loves all her sheltered dogs and has strict requirements for adoption. Her dog shelter is in Changping District. They currently have limited helpers and are looking for committed volunteers. April speaks English and can be reached at the following WeChat account: