Hundreds of Dogs Rescued Before the Yulin Festival
Hundreds of dogs were rescued ahead of the notorious dog meat festival in Yulin. Animal welfare organizations are calling for the festival to be banned.
Activists rescued 386 dogs from slaughter in Yulin, just days before the annual dog meat festival in the southern Chinese city.
Last weekend, activists discovered a truck loaded with the dogs. According to the Humane Society International (HSI), the animals were suffering from inflamed eyes and skin diseases.
The activists reported the situation to the police, claiming that the traders were exposing people to the risk of contagious diseases. Lin Xiong, one of the activists on the ground, told HSI that the sight of the dogs was «horrific». They added that it was «like a truck from hell».
Police officers from Shaanxi Province seized the dogs and brought them in for veterinary treatment. But the case is not yet closed. The dog trader is to be fined. If he fails to pay, the dogs will be handed over to HSI.
According to HSI, however, the fines are rarely paid, as they are often higher than the profit a trader would make from selling the animals.
Dog Meat in China
A very small percentage of the Chinese population continues to eat dog meat. In Yulin itself, HSI notes that more than 70% of residents do not regularly consume dog meat. HSI even claims that it is not consumers but traders who are keeping the dog meat industry alive.
This aligns with the views of the government, which officially declared in 2020 that dogs are companion animals and not livestock. The major cities of Shenzhen and Zhuhai have also banned the sale of dog meat.
«If all law enforcement authorities across China were to show such consistent zero tolerance towards dog thieves and traders, that would be the end of the dog trade here«, said Xiong.
It's not only dogs that are mistreated in the meat trade. Every year, billions of cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, and other animals are slaughtered around the world. Like the dogs captured near Yulin, they too are mistreated and exploited.
According to a recent investigation by the Guardian, more than 20 million farm animals die each year in the United States on their way to the slaughterhouse, likely from exhaustion, hunger, overheating, thirst, or trauma.
In parts of Asia, an estimated 30 million dogs are killed for meat each year. In the United States, more than 1.5 billion animals are raised for slaughter in factory farms.
