$1.50. For just the price of one candy bar, you can buy a small amphibian held in a plastic bag of colored water with little oxygen to spare. First spotted in a Beijing market in 2011, turtles, lizards, fish and frogs are sold by vendors in

China in small decorative keychains with beads to attract consumers. They claim to hold nutrients and plenty of oxygen for the animals, yet their deaths in these keychains prove otherwise.

Is the short-lived entertainment of carrying around a keychain worth taking the life of a small animal? The answer is simple: no innocent, living animal should ever be taken out of their natural habitat and put into an uncomfortable or dangerous situation where they are left to die. It seems obvious that it is not morally correct to be able to treat a living thing this way, but these moral standards seem to differ in other countries in comparison to the United States.

One main reason that vendors in China are able to sell thousands of animals in a tiny bag is due to the fact that China has no animal welfare laws that prevent cruel treatment of living creatures. The problem is that animal protection laws have been introduced, but none of them have been able to pass.

Although these unreasonable practices are continuing and lack of regulation keeps them moving forward, many people are beginning to speak up on different social media platforms.

Change.org, a website that allows you to post public petitions, has a new petition called Ban the Sale of Cruel ‘Live Animal’ Keychains. On this petition you can allow your voice to be heard and join the movement for stricter animal-protection laws in China, where currently zero laws exist.

Without more animal rights activism, animals will continue to be sacrificed every day for the small profit of a vendor on the streets of China. For absolutely no cost, you can help save their lives and sign a petition directed to the Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai. Without action, your voices will never be heard.

by SIENNA EAGLE