Exotic animal cafes are not uniquely Japanese. Since the first known animal cafe opened in Taiwan in 1998, featuring cats and dogs, the concept has rapidly spread across the region. A 2020 study identified 111 such businesses in Asia, primarily in Japan but also in China, Thailand, Taiwan, Indonesia, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines and Cambodia. Japan, however, seems to have become “the epicentre of the phenomenon”, Sigaud said.

The researchers visited some cafes in Japan in person and also searched online and across social media in both English and Japanese for keywords such as “pet cafe”, “otter cafe” and “petting zoo”. They found 142 exotic animal cafes across the Japanese archipelago and made a list of all the species they observed in photos posted on the cafes’ websites and social media accounts, excluding insects.

The number and diversity of animals came as a surprise, Sigaud said. Birds accounted for 62 per cent of species, and 40 per cent of them were owls. But the researchers also recorded dozens of reptiles and mammals.

Thirty-eight of the cafes also offered options for buying the animals they displayed – owls, primarily, but also species as diverse as sugar gliders for $US150 ($225) to $US300; ball pythons for $US455 to $US1290; secretary birds for $US20,500; and red-tailed black cockatoos for $US23,250.

Some species were of particular concern, including critically endangered ones such as the pancake tortoise and the Central American river turtle. Others were of questionable origin. Bengal slow lorises and Sunda slow lorises, for example, are endangered species from South and South-East Asia that are frequently the victims of poaching and are strictly banned from international trade. They are difficult to breed in captivity, Sigaud said, and no professional facilities for these species exist in Japan.

“So where are they coming from?” Sigaud said. “It’s hard to believe they’re legal.”

The international trade of 60 per cent of the species the researchers identified in cafes is regulated by the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, and most of these animals were registered as coming from captive breeding facilities when they were imported into Japan. Only 14 per cent were marked as coming from the wild, though the researchers say this is likely an underestimate, because no records exist for the 40 per cent of species not regulated by CITES. Wild animals such as otters are also known to be laundered as captive bred to make their trade legal, they point out.

In a CITES database search spanning 1975 to 2019, the researchers also found no records of any imports into Japan of seven species whose trade is strictly controlled but that are present at animal cafes, including the Bengal slow loris, spotted pond turtle and barred eagle-owl.

“These gaps trigger more questions than answers,” Sarabian said.

Sarabian and her colleagues also signalled welfare concerns at cafes. Animals can become stressed through constant handling, birds of prey are chained to perches and nocturnal species are made to interact with visitors throughout the day, she said. Nearly all species are kept in small cages and artificial environments, and are looked after by people with no specific training or qualifications to work with wildlife.

Kohei Kimura, the owner of Funny Creatures Forest, an animal cafe in Kyoto that specialises in reptiles, said he often heard criticisms like the ones raised by the new study, including that cafes keep protected species and that the animals there are mistreated. Kimura – whose cafe exhibits about 40 types of reptiles, plus three owls and some tropical fish – said he took extra care to ensure he was not contributing to these problems. He sources all of his animals from wholesalers in Japan or breeds them himself. He forbids customers from touching the owls while they are sleeping, he said, and has built his own specialised cages for the reptiles because “the commercially available cages are too small”.

Kimura, who has loved coldblooded creatures since he was a child, said he opened his cafe to share “the charm of reptiles” with others. “A big lizard can make you feel like you’re raising a dinosaur.”

“In Japan, reptiles are often disliked and thought to be scary, but in reality, many of them are gentle,” he added.

Timothy Bonebrake, a conservation biologist at the University of Hong Kong who was not involved in the research, said the new study demonstrated the need for stronger regulations and oversight for Japan’s exotic animal cafes. “Overall, I think the analysis makes clear that there is an alarming number of threatened species in these cafes with questionable origin,” he said.

But he noted that with proper regulation, it may be possible for animal cafes to play an active role in conservation, much as many zoos do: by raising public awareness and fondness for wildlife. “I do wonder often about the possible benefits,” he said.

The New York Times