Agence France-Press 5/13/05: Chinese TV show's cat slinging act draws fire from pet lovers

[Guest guest]

Agence France-Presse Friday May 13, 2005 1:22 PM ET

 

Chinese TV show's cat slinging act draws fire from pet lovers

 

A Chinese television channel was reportedly forced to apologize after

receiving complaints from pet lovers about a programme in which a cat was

thrown out of a four-storey building.

 

The Travel Channel broadcast a feature on May 4 showing how a cat can safely

survive even when dropped from great height, Beijing Times said.

 

In the programme, a white cat was dropped from a four-storey building while

a narrator said: " Miao Miao (the cat) quickly turns around, adjusts its four

limbs, straightens its tail and goes down.

 

" Let's look at how it's doing ... it is okay! "

 

Angry pet lovers posted petitions on several websites and lodged complaints

with the state broadcasting authorities and the television channel, saying

the act could cause bone fractures or damage the animal's internal organs.

 

The Travel Channel apologised and promised it would not repeat the

experiment, the report said.

 

During the heyday of communist ethics, China banned pets as frivolous and

bourgeois but pet ownership has become a new vogue among the country's newly

rich amid its robust market economic reforms.

 

 

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