Notes

Hello, my name is Danica Setka, I'm 16, and I'm currently a junior at Yokota High School in Fussa, Japan.
One of the pressing issues in Japan is its lack of animal welfare programs or awareness. According to a report from 2012, 77% of animals that entered animal shelters here were euthanized. That means hundreds of thousands of cats and dogs are being put down annually. During the early 1900s, Japan had widespread epidemics of rabies, which is potentially lethal to humans infected with it.
One of the ways the government decided to combat this was by legally obligating animal shelters to accept any animal surrendered to them or captured to quarantine it and prevent it from spreading rabies. However, irresponsible pet owners were able to take advantage of this because shelters were required to take in their pets, even if there was no reason except a lack of responsibility. This caused extreme overpopulation in the already very small shelters here, and the shelters turned to euthanasia to fix the problem. The most common way to put down animals is by CO2 gas chambers because it's a cheap way to perform mass euthanasia.
Thanks to the eradication of rabies in the 1950s, shelters are no longer required to take in every single animal, but they still face overpopulation. A more modern reason for this is the trendiness of animals in Japan. They're treated as a fashion item, meaning the ugly, old, or unpopular breeds aren't being adopted. Only about 35% of homes in Japan currently have a household pet.
Before I moved here, I lived in Oklahoma City, another area that has a large population of stray animals and overpopulated shelters. I volunteered a lot of my time at an animal welfare shelter and saw first hand what overpopulation looks like and how it can be solved. One of the easiest ways to reduce it is trap-and-release programs, where stray animals are caught, neutered, and rereleased. This prevents them from having exponentially growing litters of puppies or kittens. Another big way to combat this issue is education. People should be aware of animal shelters and encouraged to adopt instead of purchasing animals from breeders or puppy mills. Animal shelters can not only help with reducing the number of stray animals in Japan but can also educate on the benefits of responsible pet ownership and the importance of having your animals neutered or spayed. Thank you.