A lot of the animals die within a week because of the cruel treatment during transit. They are subjected to extreme heat and harsh weather. Some starve, suffocate, or get bitten to death by other animals in the same crate.
CHERYL TEH: Animal “mystery boxes” prompted outrage in China after some 160 distressed and dying puppies and kittens were found in the back of a Chinese delivery truck. According to the Weibo account of the Chinese animal-rescue group Chengdu Aizhijia Animal Rescue Center, volunteers intercepted a delivery truck in Chengdu, a city in the southwestern Sichuan province, and found about 160 crates containing dogs and cats.
Footage from the scene showed crates full of squealing puppies and yowling kittens piled on top of one another in tightly covered boxes. The center believes that the boxes of animals were on their way to customers who had purchased kitten and puppy “mystery boxes” for a special promotion price of 9.90 yuan, or $1.50. “This is cruelty. The pets are barely breathing,” a volunteer in a video said.
The center said in a Weibo post that the crates did not contain food or water and that several animals had died in transit. The organization also estimated that most of the dogs and cats recovered in the operation were 1 to 3 months old and barely weaned…
the Chengdu Aizhijia Animal Rescue Center said it had transported most of the animals back to its home base, where it says it will find suitable homes for the animals. The group also announced that about 38 animals were sent to vets for medical treatment, as volunteers suspect they may have contracted diseases or been injured in transit…
An animal-rights group in Beijing called Protecting the Voices of Asian Animals told Insider it had noted an uptick this year in listings for animal mystery boxes on e-commerce platforms. “It started with mystery boxes for things like shampoo and beauty products, but animal breeders started employing it as a way to sell more animals for cheap,” the group’s representative, Liu Zexin, told Insider.
Lin said that it was impossible to estimate the total number of sellers who were peddling the mystery boxes online. “China is a big country,” Liu added. “If you shut one down, another will pop up under another name. The craze will not stop until the e-commerce platforms step in, or if people boycott the boxes. I am not optimistic, as the appeal of buying a cute animal for such a low price is irresistible to some customers”…
The discovery in Sichuan led to widespread anger on Weibo (the Chinese version of Twitter). Weibo users called for the Chinese government to put an end to the sale of live animals on shopping platforms and for customers to boycott the boxes. In a post that was re-blogged about 60,000 times, one Weibo user pointed out that the trade of live animals in mystery boxes was not new.
“People have been buying this on Taobao for 9.90 CNY to 19.99 CNY for a while. A lot of the animals get there, and die within a week because of the cruel treatment during transit,” the Weibo user Lingshihshaonv wrote – providing multiple screenshots of animals the user said arrived dead or seriously ill. “They are not humanely transported – they are subjected to extreme heat and harsh weather. Some pets also starve, suffocate, or even get bitten to death by other animals in the same crate,” the user added”…
But trades continue despite Taobao clampdown… all listings of “live creatures” or “live animal mystery boxes” had been pulled from Taobao, but screenshots of listings from earlier this week showed a wide range of animals were being sold… In screenshots of conversations seen by Insider, a seller based in Jiangsu province in China messaged his customers this week outlining caveats and disclaimers that said he could not guarantee that certain animals would “get there alive.” SOURCE…
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