I am speechless... : ( Long
time ago I walked away from animal corporations.
I only help grassroots groups which truly work for animals,
out of their own pockets, many go hungry to help. This is
indeed heartbreaking and I am emailing all my Chinese animal
angels' list.
From: chris barden
Sent: October 07, 2010
Subject: AAF Broke Our Hearts Today
Animals Asia Foundation partnered with an online dog marketplace (http://aigou.com)
this week for a nationwide photo contest. Everyone's a bit shocked. It's a
nationwide photo contest being run with AAF's image and logo, managed by
aigou.com. aigou.com is a purebreed dog marketplace. ***They even sell
monkeys.***
I wrote to Jill. She said she was unaware of it. Then got back and confirmed
that indeed they did partner with aigou.com
I've written several long emails in Chinese to a bunch of people, including
aigou.com -- the cowards didn't reply of course.
I appreciate AAF's work of course, but this was a major mistake. Jill has
lent her face and logo to one of China's biggest online sellers of dogs, and
a site that is devoted to purebreed dogs. Millions of people have already
seen this campaign -- and now aigou.com's credibility has skyrocketed. They
could have partnered with anyone -- a newspaper, a car maker, a movie! --
but they partnered with a dog seller. This site doesn't even do rescue!
We need to find more ways to fund the small, informal groups -- I think they
are more sustainable, because the people aren't using the money to fund
their lifestyle.
MORE:
Turns out, Aigou has tens of millions of dollars in investment from
Alibaba (40% owned by Yahoo), Japan's Softbank and the American investment
company IDG.
Of these, IDG is the most open to criticism. They own all the
Dummies series books.
"The websites focused on specific area seem to attract more
investments even under the financial crisis. AIGOU.COM, a
pet website, has recently received a joint investment
amounting to tens of millions of USD from SoftBank, IDG and
Alibaba. The predecessor of AIGOU.COM is Dog-Baby.Com,
established by Mr. Chen Jinfei, chairman of Beijing Tongchan
Investment Group in April of 2005. In April of 2006,
DOG-BABY.COM, together with some 30 kennel organizations or
institutions, set up China Kennel Union or CKU, becoming the
only member of the Federation Cynologique internationale or
FCI."
And they're selling little monkeys.  
Fair Use Notice and Disclaimer
Send questions or comments about this web site to Ann Berlin, annxtberlin@gmail.com |
