Once he received a call from a family who survived on the 7th flooring of a domestic building and had actually lost their animal cat. Yan said the very first thing for him and his staff member to do when getting to the flat was to evaluate whether the cat had actually escaped or was concealing someplace inside the building.
“According to traces left by the cat, such as footprints in the corridor and hair left in corners, we guessed that it could be somewhere between the 7th and 11th floors,” said Yan. “At last, it was found on the 8th floor.”
In another case, Yan’s group discovered a three-month-old cat caught in a ventilation location. They rescued it by sending out an investigator who connected ropes around his waist and crawled through 2 holes, each with a size of 50cm, prior to reaching the cat.
“The process of looking for pets is interesting. It’s like being a normal detective, and you need to pay attention to many details that are usually overlooked,” said Yan.
Wu Lilei owns an animal investigator firm in Beijing. In the previous 4 years, his group has actually browsed and discovered 5,000 animal animals in cities throughout China like Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan.
“For pets of different species or ages, our direction when searching is also different,” Wu said. “The work relies on a detective’s experience, but what’s more important is to be familiar with an animal’s habits and characteristics.”
Wu said they would just charge a “basic service fee” if they might not discover a lost animal.
“In many cases, the price of searching for and rescuing pets is far higher than that of buying one. Clients who regard their pet animals as members of their family value the bond with their ‘fur children’,” said Wu.
According to a report by the China Agricultural Publishing House, an approximated 117 million animal animals were kept in metropolitan locations in mainland China at the end of 2022, up 4 percent year on year.
Consulting company iiMedia Research said China’s animal economy increased by 25 percent in 2015 to 500 billion yuan (US$70 billion). The business forecasted the marketplace would rise to 811 billion yuan by 2025.