Japan is rife with cuteness. We all know it. We can’t deny
it. We all want it. That’s why people flock to animal cafes in Japan, which are
also becoming increasingly popular in other parts of the world. Japan, I’m
pretty sure, is the birthplace of the cat café and the subsequent various
animal cafes that came later. This makes sense; People living in big cities
like Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka are living in tiny little boxes of apartments
and have no space for pets. Let alone time. Let alone money. Therefore, it’s a
clever idea to have a place where people can pay to pet animals for 30 minutes to
an hour and then go home. All the benefits of a pet and none of the
responsibility or costs associated.
Pets are particularly expensive in Japan. If you go to a pet
shop, you can look at all the cute little puppies and kittens; just don’t look
at the price. A little French bull dog will cost you 500,000 yen, or $5,000.
That cute calico kitten? 300,000 yen. Say you suck it up and pay the price for
your desired pet. Then you have to get the finest food, electrolyte water for
those hot summer months, pee pads, butt wipes, fancy collars, clothes, grooming,
nail cutting, stroller, bed, etc. Then you have to pay a pet damage deposit for
your pet (2 months’ rent? 100,000 – 200,000 yen). When you go on vacation or a
business trip, who will take care of the pet? No one, so you have to use a pet
hotel. I don’t know how much they cost, but they probably aren’t cheap. So as
you can see, why buy a pet if you can just go to a café? It’s much cheaper and
easier.
These days, animal cafes are not limited to cats. There are
cafes for owls, hedgehogs, goats, dogs, rabbits, monkeys, penguins, reptiles,
parrots, hawks, falcons, finches and other small birds, lizards, snakes and
goldfish. I’m sure there are more that I haven’t listed. If you go to one of
these cafes, the general flow is pay for the amount of time you want in the café,
look at the animals, pet the animals, buy a drink and food, eat and drink, buy
food or outfits for the animals, feed them or dress them, leave. Of course the
order of business changes for each café. In some cafes, like owl cafes, you are not allowed to touch the animals. However, in cat cafes, you can touch them all you
want.
Remember when I said everyone was flocking to these cafes?
Well, I’m not. I just can’t accept this notion of animal cafes. It feels wrong,
predatory, unsanitary, and bad for the animals. There are some cafes where the welfare of the animals comes first, and perhaps they are rescue animals, but for
the overwhelming majority, I’m sure this is not the case. Japan already has a
big problem with stray cats and rabbits. Some islands are overrun with them.
Yet, rather than find a solution to all these feral animals, animal cafes
profit off their animals like a zoo, but with less regulation. That being said,
with the explosion of animal café popularity, the government is trying to
regulate the industry, but it seems it is mostly just regulating the hours of
operation of these cafes.
Another problem I have with these cafes is that they are
using wild animals: birds, predators, owls, penguins, reptiles, monkeys, etc.
These are not domesticated animals like cats and dogs. They should not be
cooped up and put on display in a café. The environment for these animals is
troubling. At least in zoos, habitats are made to be realistic, but in animal
cafes, it is far from their natural habitat. Since you are allowed to touch the
animals (not in all cases), travelling to multiple cafes and touching multiple
animals is risky for the health of the patron, as well as the health of the
animals. Diseases can be spread from café to café, from animal to person to
animal, and from animal to person. This is a big public safety concern,
especially in a densely populated metropolis like Tokyo.
I am completely against animal cafes, the concept makes me
very uncomfortable. I do however recognise the benefit that interaction with
these animals can have on busy, stressed people. Pets are wonderful; they
reduce stress and make people happy. But these animals are not pets. These
cafes take attention from the real problems that Japan has with animals. If
anything, they add to the problem of stray animals in Japan because fewer
animals are rescued or adopted, and perhaps more are abandoned as a result of
split second decisions to buy a cat (influenced by visiting a cat café) and then
regretting the decision later, when there is no time or money to take care of
the cat or it turns out to be jerk.
If animal cafes are going to exist, they must have a greater
purpose. They must work for the animals. They must work towards solving Japan’s
nasty abandoned pet problem and educate their customers about animal issues,
proper treatment and care of animals, and they must advocate for adoption of
animals and creation of shelters, rather than purchasing “new” pets from the
pet mills. Pet mills are another huge problem in Japan that will probably never
be addressed. *sigh*
I don’t mean to rant (well actually… yes I do), but I just
can’t support animal cafes, especially those toting animals like penguins,
owls, or reptiles and keeping them in inappropriate habitats.
In Japan, anything can be turned into a café. Why? It’s
weird.
