As campaigning for the Oct. 31 general election heats up in Japan, ruling and opposition parties are not just touting their economic and diplomatic policies but also their plans for protecting animals in the hope of attracting broader support among voters.
Amid growing awareness of the tens of thousands of cats and dogs culled in the country annually and the issue of animal hoarding attracting public attention, a cross-party parliamentary group has worked on legal revisions, with the Diet enacting in 2019 a law that boosts penalties for animal abuse and requires that pets be microchipped.
In its election campaign pledges, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) vows to crack down on irresponsible animal dealers and facilitate the adoptions of cats and dogs rescued after being abandoned by their original owners while seeking to reduce the number of euthanized pets to zero.