Animal cruelty: Live animals sold inside tiny plastic bags as key rings

Vendors in China have been selling live animal key-chains for years: small plastic bubbles containing trapped turtles, fish, salamanders and frogs. 

The water supposedly contains oxygen and nutrients that can keep them alive for a few days.

For the price you might expect to pay for some kitschy trinket, Chinese street vendors are selling live animals, permanently sealed in a small plastic pouch where they can survive for a short while as someone's conversation piece. Apparently, these unimaginably keyrings are actually quite popular and totally legal.

Despite the fact that the selling of animals as keyring ornaments is a clear case of animal slavery, it is actually entirely within the law. Chinese law prohibits the sale of wild animals -- a designation which evidently does not apply to the Brazil turtles and kingfish being sold.

The seller is seen with a string of the so-called lucky charms, that he sells to tourists for less than a pound.

   

Sadly, it is likely that so too will the animals which have already been sealed in their colorful, transparent tombs -- gasping for the final breath of air they've been packaged with, as they peer out to a world in which their lives are considered essentially worthless.