The public

Public criticism of how animals are treated isn't new. At least three waves of it developed in the case of Gao and the 90-episode epic TV drama he directed, Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

This file photo of 2010 shows a rooster fighting at a local sports games in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. [Photo/for China Daily]

In August 2009, Gao told Sanlian Life Week magazine that six horses died and eight were "driven crazy" during the filming of the war scenes. "Even horses couldn't bear it. You can imagine what kind of war scene it's like," he said.

Lu Di, founder of Beijing-based China Small Animal Protection Association, decried the way Gao and his team treated the horses. Gao then denied his earlier statement, saying, "They were all sick. We tried our best but couldn't save them."

Later, after the show was broadcast, the horses' injuries and deaths again were a hot topic. Gao Xixi said then that just one horse had died after catching a cold, according to Shanghai Morning Post.

In 2008, film director Yao Shougang described his filming the movie Dog King 15 years earlier in an interview with CCTV. "In order to make it more real," he said, "we tied a well-trained dog to a real bomb. It was blown to pieces in front of the camera. The soldier who spent years training the dog was crying loudly when he saw the film."

Then there are crush fetish videos in which animals are killed and the videos posted online. Angry Chinese Internet posters in October demanded to know the identity of a young woman in such a video with a rabbit. She later came forward and apologized.

The lobbyists

Without legal weapons, the animal protection campaigners admitted that when most animal abuse cases occur, they can resort to emotional appeals.

The country unveiled the draft of its first animal welfare legislation, the China Animal Protection Law, in September 2009. Drafted by a law professor from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the proposed bill criminalizes abuse, abandonment of pets and inhumane slaughter of animals.

The document was hailed by Chinese animal lovers as a rescue for some miserable animals: stray cats and dogs that were beaten to death to curb the spread of rabies, and bears whose bile was extracted from their gall bladders for use in traditional Chinese medicine.

In early 2010, after public suggestions were solicited, the draft was renamed the Anti-Animal Cruelty Law. Clauses were added to, among other things, forbid animal abuse by starvation in zoos and animal slaughter in the presence of the underaged. The drafter said the document was submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the country's top legislative body.

However, the draft never made it into the formal legislation process, said Qin, from the Capital Animal Welfare Association. She fears the pressures from some business sectors may have blocked its progress.

"If the law gets passed, many industries would receive restrictions or limitations - for instance, the fur dealers and the catering businesses which serve animals other than livestock," Qin said.

Zhang Dan, from the China Animal Protection Media Salon, also thinks the lack of an animal protection law contributed to indifference by some media outlets in the face of animal abuse cases.

"Understanding of some basic concepts, such as animal welfare, abuse and protection, were still quite poor among general reporters when we started the project in 2009," said Zhang, who also works for the US-based Fortune Magazine's Beijing bureau.

"I was shocked to see a TV program in praise of a Chinese entrepreneur who runs a bear farm to extract bile in a really cruel way," she said, "and the program didn't even see the cruelty."

In what Zhang called a "self-education" process, the association tried to involve intellectuals, animal protection groups, journalists and the public to focus on both specific animal abuse cases and more general topics such as drafting laws.

The increased media attention has led to improved public awareness, Qin said. "I was glad to see the first about into the goldfish trick was actually coming from the public at some online forums.

"But to combat some conventional thinking among the public - that animals are not worth the care - we still have a long way to go. And the foremost thing is legislation."

The joint letter from the 53 animal protection groups also was sent to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and to the Ministry of Culture. The groups said on Thursday that they had not received an official response.