hankyoreh

The place was an animal cafe in downtown Seoul on Apr. 27. One of the animals on view was a male joey wallaby, a type of kangaroo. An arctic fox tried to bite the wallaby on the scruff of the neck, forcing a cafe employee to intervene.

“Zoos have to adjust their numbers of animals. We got the wallaby because we know someone at a zoo,” a cafe staff explained.

Inside the cafe, animals like raccoons and civet cats roam freely between the patrons’ feet in a space measuring around 230 square meters. A few of them constantly pace around the room - a suggestion of stereotypy, or repeated patterns of behavior by caged animals due to stress.

Another animal cafe in central Seoul houses a capybara, the largest of the rodents.

“We brought the capybara in about a month ago from a zoo in the provinces after paying a fee for it,” a cafe staff said. Also visible were three raccoons.

Animal cafes, where patrons can pet animals or take pictures and drink tea with them, are a growing presence in South Korea. The establishments are more or less equivalent to petting zoos in their operation - but exist in a legal blind spot where they are not subject to animal industry laws. An amended to the Animal Protection Act scheduled to go into effect in Mar. 2018 requires legal staffing and facility standards to be met for establishments showing six kinds of animals: dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, and ferrets. But the law does not extend to the display of other wild animals such as wallabies or raccoons.

The cafes are also able to sidestep provisions of the Act on Management of Zoos and Aquariums, including requirements regarding the provision of suitable habitats and record-keeping when animals are brought in or taken out. Most fail to meet the act’s standard of at least 50 animals of 10 different kinds. The buying and selling of wallabies, Arctic foxes, sheep, capybaras, and meerkats is not illegal either. As long as the animal is not an endangered species subject to bans on international trading or a Natural Monument according to domestic law, it is not subject to the terms of the Wildlife Protection and Management Act.

As registered “recreation and eating establishments,” the management standards applied to animal cafes are those of food hygiene-related laws.

“As long as you take care of hygiene issues by making sure the animals don’t go into the kitchen, you’re fine,” said a source at a public health center in Seoul.

To be sure, many cafe managers take pains in caring for their animals. But many problems also exist with animal welfare and patron safety. Animals are exposed to bright lighting until the establishments close late at night. They are also constantly fed. Attacks by fanged animals against other animals or humans are another threat. One cafe wall bore only a message reading, “The cafe takes no responsibility for injuries.”

Animal cafe proprietors argued that they do adjust the amount of food, and that exposure to bright light is not a problem because “these were animals raised at home.”

“The ‘we do not take responsibility’ message was written to urge customers not to be careless about touching the animals,” one explained.

Action for Animals representative Jeon Chae-eun said the animals cafes are “just another form of indoor zoo, but without any regulatory safeguards.”

Korean Animal Welfare Association representative Cho Hee-kyung said, “We should be concerned about ecosystem disruption and the potential for zoonotic diseases.”

By Choi Woo-ri, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]