OSAKA--An animal rights group has filed a criminal complaint of animal cruelty against a YouTuber who showed videos of his pet reptiles devouring live prey, including a rabbit and a hamster.

Legal experts say bringing charges in this case may be difficult.

The Law on Welfare and Management of Animals bans killing or injuring “protected animals,” or mammals, birds and reptiles in the possession of humans, without good reason. It also bans acts of cruelty, including physical abuse, breeding under wretched circumstances and neglect.

But the law has no provision on serving up the animals as live food. The video-uploader from Osaka Prefecture has denied the allegations.

The videos he shared on YouTube began with a warning that said: “The footage covers the moment of death of a live creature. Please stop if you don’t want to see that.”

They showed a hamster, a rabbit, a quail and a guinea pig separately placed in a cage housing a snake or a lizard. The predators then caught and ate the animals. 

In some videos, slow motion was used to emphasize the moment of the attack. In one scene, the man suggested that he “could buy a used Benz” with the earnings from his movies.

The videos, some of which were viewed more than 10,000 times, were deleted by the end of October.

The Nippon Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a Yokohama-based animal welfare advocacy group, filed the criminal complaint with Osaka prefectural police in October, saying the man had repeatedly violated the animal welfare law.

The complaint said that in five of the videos posted between June and August last year, the man inflicted pain and fear on small animals without reason when he fed them to his reptiles.

It said he harmed the bodies of some animals before feeding them to the reptiles and caused them to panic while trying to escape from the predators.

“The man consciously made the scenes into brutal spectacles to arouse the interest of internet users and gain more views,” said Akiko Fujimura, head of the Nippon SPCA.

The man rejected the accusations in an interview with The Asahi Shimbun in November.

“Although the scenes may have appeared brutal to lovers of hamsters and rabbits, I was only giving food,” he said. “There is nothing wrong about that.”

The man said that half of the 30 or so reptiles he keeps will only eat live prey.

“My pets appear to have likings of their own,” he said. “There are times they only eat hamsters, and there are others they only eat guinea pigs.”

He added he also breeds small animals as feed for his reptiles.

“I cut the teeth of a hamster with clippers to prevent it from striking back at my pet,” the man said. “I injured a guinea pig in the cervical vertebrae to euthanize it.”

He denied the allegations of animal cruelty and the motive listed in the written accusation.

“I had no intention to earn more by getting more views,” he said. “I get close to no profit because filming equipment and other necessities are so expensive.”

TOUGHER ANIMAL WELFARE LAW

Opinions vary on whether the act of feeding a live animal to a predator violates the animal welfare law.

“The law contains no provision on the matter, so a similar act does not immediately constitute a violation,” said an Environment Ministry official.

Zoos feed live prey to some of their animals, and live rats are sold openly at pet supply shops.

The law does state that when an animal must be killed due to culling orders or other reasons, “a method that minimizes pain and distress as much as possible shall be used.”

Misako Namiki, a professor of zoo animals with Teikyo University of Science, said zoos typically feed live prey to predators behind closed doors out of consideration for visitors. Live feeding is done openly only for educational purposes, such as deepening visitors’ understanding of the food chain.

“I don’t see any scientific intent behind the man’s videos,” she said. “Care should be exercised for the animals that are preyed upon. There should be efforts to minimize their pain.”

Taro Hayashi, a lawyer with the Tokyo Bar Association who is well-versed on animal welfare issues, said it is not easy to establish acts of animal cruelty.

“Acts that appear reproachable in socially accepted views are not always legally accusable,” he said.

He said he believes the investigation will be “centered on the extent of inevitability” regarding whether the man’s pets needed live prey and whether the feed had to be animals of those species.

According to the National Police Agency, 126 individuals were arrested or were referred to prosecutors in 105 cases of suspected violations of the animal welfare law around Japan in 2019. Both figures are the largest since comparable statistics became available in 2010.

Third-party tipoffs led police to 63 of those cases, or 60 percent of the total, up by 10 from the previous year.

In one case, a man was convicted and fined over videos he posted on social media, including one showing him throwing a parakeet immobilized in a contraceptive.

Penalties under the animal welfare law were strengthened last June as society took an increasingly critical view toward animal cruelty.

Killing or injuring an animal in violation of the law is now punishable with imprisonment with labor for a maximum five years or a fine of up to 5 million yen ($48,200).

The previous maximum penalties were a two-year prison term with labor or a fine of 2 million yen.

For acts of cruelty and abandonment, a maximum one-year prison term with labor was added to the law. Previously, those convicted of the charge only faced a maximum fine of 1 million yen.

(This article was written by Moeno Kunikata and Yuki Chai.)