OSAKA—Feline-friendly Osaka Mayor Ichiro Matsui wishes to make the 2025 Osaka Kansai Expo the very first one to permit animals, however a variety of obstacles stand in the method.
The Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition, the exposition’s organizer, is making modifications to permit individuals to delight in the exposition, whose style is “inochi” (life), with their animals.
However, obstacles are accumulating, such as how to look after individuals with fur allergic reactions, how to manage the animals’ waste, and how to secure the additional financing required.
Allowing animals at the location would need an approximated 900 million yen ($6.7 million) in extra costs to cover expenses for workers, locations for the animals and clean-up work.
Katsuhiko Shoji, a teacher at Toyo University and a specialist on pet tourist, said that providing animals unlimited access to the exposition might trigger confusion.
“(But) it is possible (to allow pets) if we devise ways to do so,” he said.
Shoji recommended validating vaccination records and types of the animals ahead of time and needing appointments for visitors to get in the locations with animals.
“It is important to try to allow pets, considering the expo’s theme: designing future society for our lives,” he said.
On the other hand, Hajime Tanida, a teacher at Hiroshima University Graduate School who investigates relations in between people and animals, revealed doubts about the strategy.
He kept in mind that the exposition will be hung on a manufactured island with restricted gain access to paths, indicating visitors should utilize public transport to reach the location.
Therefore, animals might be required to spend long hours in cages in incredibly heat, “causing them significant mental and physical stress,” Tanida said.
EXTRAORDINARY PROBLEM
In summertime in 2015 and behind closed doors, the association, the market ministry and authorities of Osaka Prefecture and Osaka city started talks on whether to permit visitors to bring their animals to the location.
They are now thinking about allowing just little dogs and cats, and just at the outside passage of the location.
A panel of specialists will quickly be developed to talk about how to carry out the strategy.
However, the Bureau International des Expositions, headquartered in Paris, has actually taken a careful position on the animal concern due to the fact that it is “unprecedented.”
The bureau said animals might respond to loud sounds at the occasion and blast other visitors, producing a safety threat, according to sources knowledgeable about the matter.
Some members in Japan’s exposition association have actually likewise opposed the concept.
Others recommended establishing a big day called “Wannyan Day” (Bow-wow meow day), on which visitors would be enabled to bring their animals.
But Matsui, who has 2 cats and firmly insists “pets are family,” said that would not suffice.
He straight brought the matter to Yasutoshi Nishimura, the market minister.
The mayor likewise supposedly proposed establishing an animal examination location at the exposition location.
The association is thinking about restricting the days and locations for the animals.
It likewise prepares to have visitors with animals send kinds that state they will comply with the guidelines when they get in the location.
Major amusement park in Japan are divided over animals.
Universal Studios Japan and Oriental Land Co., operator of the Tokyo Disney Resorts, permit just guide dogs, service dogs and hearing dogs.
On the other hand, the Huis Ten Bosch amusement park in Nagasaki Prefecture opened its doors to dogs and cats, no matter their size and kind, in May 2010.
Visitors with their animals are asked to accept 15 guidelines, consisting of “I will not use the indoor facilities or enter them with pets.”
(This post was composed by Itsuki Soeda, Kazuhito Suwa and Shinji Hakotani.)
