Every year on October 4th is World Animal Day which exists to raise the status of animals and improve welfare standards around the globe.

The origin of World Animal Day can be dated back to 1925 when Heinrich Zimmermann, a German cynologist, organized the first World Animal Day on March 24th. In 1929, Zimmermann moved the date to October 4th to align with the feast day of San Francesco d'Assisi, the Italian Catholic friar who founded the Franciscans and the patron saint of ecology and animals. In most of his records, he was depicted as a person who loves animals and can communicate with them. After so many years of promotion, finally in 1931 at a congress of the International Animal Protection Congress in Florence Italy, Zimmermann’s proposal to make October 4 World Animal Day universal was unanimously accepted and adopted as a resolution.

World Animals Day encourages everyone to take part in events such as organizations for animal protection or volunteer work. On this day, numerous events are held to tell people the seriousness of animal issues. In 2003, the Naturewatch Foundation from the U.K. set up a World Animal Day website and launched a project called World Animal Day Ambassadors in 2007. The project already had more than 90 volunteer ambassadors to help promote the event in 70 countries around the world so that more people would know and be involved in the event. This year, the foundation had set the theme as “Great or small, love them all,” suggesting that all animals should be loved regardless of their sizes.