During his trips, he has found endangered animals killed, their bodies tangled in barbed wire over which they had tried to jump.
In the southern province of Guangdong, animal markets, where terrified screaming animals -- from dogs to civet cats and pangolins -- are beaten alive and boiled and skinned in front of customers, have operated for years, feeding the appetite for exotic foods by China's rich.
The markets were only shut down last year when scientists found evidence suggesting the potentially deadly SARS virus might be transmitted from wildlife to humans.
Despite the groundswell of animal rights activities, only days after Beijing newspapers reported the proposed animal protection regulations which would mandate that farm animals be killed with as little pain as possible, the Beijing government removed the draft law off its Web site.
The Beijing Morning Post later quoted an official saying the law would not be passed for at least five years and shouldn't be publicized.
Opponents, including economists, meanwhile argued China is not ready for such laws.
"As soon as you talk about animal rights, you're talking about money. Our farms are small, poorly ventilated buildings. Our slaughterhouses are not modern. How can you expect a farmer in China to copy the West?" said Qiao Xinsheng, a legal expert at Wuhan-based Zhongnan Zhengfa University in east China.
"This is unrealistic. If we want to apply Western standards to China, then many people in China would have no right to raise animals."
"China just barely left the stage when people were wondering where their next meal will come from," Qiao said. "They can't think about animals yet."
RSS