Updates the Act Needs!Key Points for the Amendment of Animal Welfare and Management Act

Since it’s scheduled to be reviewed in 2025, there has been a series of discussions on the Animal Welfare and Management Act. Together with Japan Anti-Vivisection Association (JAVA) and PEACE(Put an End to Animal Cruelty and Exploitation), the Animal Rights Center Japan compiled requests to further update the law. As we demanded for the revision in 2019, situations for livestock animals have improved significantly, so we’re focusing on what is yet to be realized this time around. In addition, we request the law be properly followed since it has not been strictly enforced lately. Transition to Animal Welfare(福祉)Act from Animal Protection(愛護)Act 1.Clarify animal welfare by changing to “the purpose of…

Should animals be given legal status?

Koichi HOSOKAWA, Professor, Japan Women’s University More and more people consider pets to be family members. The term “companion animal” is also becoming more common. On the other hand, abuse and abandonment of pets and ill-treatment in the pet industry are often in the news.  If you kill or injure someone else’s animal, you can be punished under criminal law for damaging property. However, this provision does not apply if the animal’s owner does the same. It is a crime to destroy someone else’s property, and animals are simply treated as property. The crime of damaging property is punishable by imprisonment of up to 1 year or a fine of…

What’s “unreasonable” in the definition of animal cruelty crime?! To be effective, please define correctly!

Dogs and cats have been subjects of charges with animal cruelty, but other animals continue to be “non-prosecuted” as if they were in a lawless zone.We can say that the attitude of protecting only dogs and cats and not other animals reflect the low maturity of this country. Some may believe that better treatment of dogs and cats will improve situations for other animals, but this theory is unfounded and the gap has instead kept widening. However, the penalties of the Act on Welfare and Management of Animals apply to all protected animals, whether they are kept in test facilities, under experiment, confined in livestock farms, or being killed at…

日本の養豚場
The Environment Ministry and MAFF notified: hanging pigs and abandoning chickens to death are inappropriate, strict measures including accusations will be taken

On 2021/1/21, the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) issued an important notice for farmed animals. “Regarding carrying out proper culling of industrial animals on farms” This notice was issued to correct the existing non-compliance with the law when culling weakened and to-be-killed chickens, pigs, cows, and quails in livestock farms. The content is fairly rigorous. If you read this article, please call attention to livestock farmers around you. That there is a possibility of accusation. The notice is not long so we’d like you to read it for details, but we’d like to explain a few points. Hanging pigs and starving chickens…

Major egg producer Akita Foods alleged to have bribed the Agriculture Minster to protect battery cages in favor of Japan’s poultry industry

Japan’s leading egg producer Akita Foods is alleged to have bribed the Agriculture Minister so that the OIE (World Organization for Animal Health) standard for animal welfare allows for battery cages. Subsequently, Japan submitted an opinion to OIE that chickens do not need dust-bathing litter, nesting area, or perches, and that animal welfare can be achieved even with battery cages. As a result, OIE’s original proposal, which required litter, perches, and nest boxes, changed such that these installations are only “desirable” (moreover Japan is requesting that even “desirable” be omitted). The news that a former representative of a major egg producer “Akita Foods” (Fukuyama City, Hiroshima Prefecture) handed cash to…

The Cruel Last Day of Hens: Being left for a long time at a slaughterhouse

Many hens in Japan have a short miserable life in a battery cage. The result of an investigation conducted by the Animal Rights Center shows their condition is much crueler than the center had expected. ▾MOVIE | ▾Whistle-blowing and Vilification | ▾The Conditions of Hens at Night | ▾Why is this happening? | ▾Violating Global Standards AND Domestic Law | ▾Shift for Change | ▾Get on with improvements! After hens are used as egg-laying machines for one or two years, they are called waste chickens or mature chickens. They are slaughtered for meat. The meat is used for canned meat products, processed food, frozen food, ground meat, chicken extract, and chicken ham. Their big, but unhealthily white-color bent combs are used for…

Setting Better Standards to handle animals other than cats and dogs Stop making distinctions among animals!

The Act on Welfare and Management of Animals was revised in 2020, which added a new chapter to Article 21 to set better standards to handle animals. We thought we would see great improvement in the animal handling businesses.However, according to the information we gathered in August 2020, the Ministry of Environment mentioned they had no intention of applying this to other animals than dogs or cats.Therefore, we, the Animal Rights Center, started to work together with two other groups called Japan Anti-Vivisection Association and PEACE (Put an End to Animal Cruelty and Exploitation) to negotiate with the Ministry.At the same time, we started a campaign called “#animals left behind”…

A Revision of the Act on Welfare and Management of Animals – livestock animals

How we leverage for the movement for livestock animals A revision of the Act on Welfare and Management of Animals came into effect on June 1st 2020. In cooperation with other groups, we had made several suggestions to make this revision more practical. So we’ll walk readers through what has been revised as well as the new obligations for some sectors to this act. However, we will skip the sections in regards to protection of cats and dogs in this article since animal  rights groups often cover this issue. We’ll focus on livestock animals.   So here is the Act: https://www.env.go.jp/nature/dobutsu/aigo/1_law/files/aigo_kanri_1973_105_en.pdf You can also refer to this article that explained the…

Parliamentary League for Animal Welfare Established!

On 2020/2/19, the Parliamentary League for Animal Welfare was established as suprapartisan (including ruling, opposition, and independent parties) led by Constitutional Democratic Party members. The introduction said that the establishment was based on a strong desire to work on animal welfare, livestock animals, and laboratory animals that are left behind in the Animal Protection Law.  Thank you to all the interested members of the Parliament. We strongly hope that we will be able to achieve world-standard animal welfare while involving the industry. One week prior, on February 12, a study session was held for an introduction to animal welfare with the invitation of Tohoku University Emeritus Professor Sosuke Sato.  Introduced…

2019/6/12 Animal Protection Law Amendment Finally Established!

On June 12, 2019, the revised Animal Protection Law was established. ARCJ has partnered with JAVA and PEACE, and for over 2.5 years we’ve been working on a law to protect all animals. Based on the draft plan we created, discussions have continued. The effectiveness of the law, which was lacking in the animal welfare management law so far, and the deficiencies in its operation have greatly improved.The removal of the transitional measures of the 8-week-old regulation of dogs and cats that are being discussed by the public will not actually benefit the animals significantly. This had been treated as symbolic, but in fact the fine revisions that have been…

Farm Animal Welfare and Slaughterhouses Discussed in Parliament

“I must say that animal welfare is not pursued at slaughterhouses” It was Mr. Keiji Horikoshi, a monk, and a member of the House of Representatives, who raised the issue of animal welfare in slaughterhouses, which had not been included in the original discussions of this group. The Environmental Committee had been long held off during the extraordinary diet session. On Dec 5th 2017, the committee finally took place where Mr. Horikoshi from the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan chose animal welfare issues as his first question. “… especially, there is a belief where Buddha exists in every single thing, including mountains, grass, trees, and rivers in relation to importance of lives, which is called “Sansensoumokushikkaijoubutsu.” This…

Can Laws Protect Farm Animals?

The revision of the Act on Welfare and Management of Animals will take place soon. We, the Animal Rights Center, JAVA, and PEACE, have been working together to make suggestions to improve the enforcement of the act for all animals. What does it mean when we say “all” animals. It includes animals to exhibit, animals to breed pets, animals that are kept as pets, animals used for experiments, animals that are considered to be dangerous, and animals for livestock, which tend to be overlooked and rarely discussed. We have been demanding the improvement of law enforcement for livestock animals that are, legally speaking, industry animals. They suffer the most, and…

Long way to Change…Chickens Abandoned for Long Hours

Egg laying hens get slaughtered in a year or two after their egg production slows down. They are used for frozen foods or canned meat. These chickens go through long hours of transportation, then, get abandoned for a long period of time at slaughterhouses. We’ve been working with concerned parties to improve this since 2017 after we investigated this situation. As a result, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishery (MAFF) issued a notification to relevant parties to improve the situation on March 26th 2018. At the same time, the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare (MHLW) gave the notification, and the Ministry of Environment issued an announcement in relation…

Petitions to Protect Animal Welfare for the Tokyo Olympics Submitted to Cabinet Secretariat

We’ve been campaigning to change animal welfare for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics that is currently under threat. Mr. Katsuya Ogawa of the House of Councilors and the Animal Rights Center submitted 11,132 petitions from 36 domestic and international groups regarding the animal welfare for livestock animals to the Headquarters for the Promotion of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games. They stated that the events’ procurement code is actually owned by the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games so the headquarters is not involved. It was also pointed out there is a limitation for cost that is allocated for food, so the committee may not be able…

General Questions about Animal Welfare in the Miyagi Prefecture Assembly

In the Miyagi prefectural assembly held on September 12th 2017, Mr. Tsuneharu Sakai from Miyagi Kenmin no Koe, a member of the assembly, raised 3 general questions about animal welfare. Mr. Sakai has also asked to the governor before about developing a system to find families for dogs and cats to adopt. This time, he asked about transitioning the current systems that use battery cages for egg-laying hens and gestation crates for pigs to systems that take animal welfare into account more. He also requested the prefecture tackle on animal welfare issues more, especially in terms of the current situation for the drinking facility in slaughterhouses and more humane transportation systems…

Study Group held on Animal Welfare issues within the Democratic Party

On June 14th in 2017, Katsuya Ogawa, the first Animal Welfare Study Group was held, which was called by a member of the House of Councilors and Takashi Shinohara, a member of the House of Representatives. In the beginning, Mr. Ogawa pointed out that he had raised the issue of how behind Japan was in terms of animal welfare in the diet, how the discussion with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan had not progressed, and he felt a sense of crisis that we must do something now to move forward to meet standards similar to foreign countries’, towards the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics held in 2020.…