Indonesia: Market stops dog and cat meat trade

End of slaughter at the Tomohon Market

On 21 July 2023, authorities announced the end of the “brutally cruel” slaughter of dogs and cats for their meat at a notorious animal market on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, bringing to a close a years-long campaign by local activists and world-famous personalities.

The Tomohon Extreme Market will become another market in Indonesia where no dog or cat meat is sold. Indonesia's capital Jakarta has already banned the trade in dog and cat meat in spring. Images of dogs and cats being beaten to death while still alive and pierced with a blowpipe had caused outrage.

The definitive end of the slaughter and trade was announced by the Regional Secretary of the city of Tomohon, Edwin Roring.

"We hope that Tomohon will be completely free from the trade in dog and cat meat," said Roring in his remarks. "We believe that we can reduce people's interest in consuming dog and cat meat in Tomohon if we stop its sale at the markets."

The Tomohon Extreme Market was previously promoted as a tourist attraction and listed on TripAdvisor as a destination where cat meat and the carcasses of wild and protected species such as bats, snakes and other reptiles are also sold.

Cruel practices

Videos recorded by activists in 2018 at two markets in the province of North Sulawesi show dogs cowering in cages while workers drag the howling animals out and beat their heads with wooden clubs. The animals, which are often still moving, are then stripped of their hair with blowtorches so they can be slaughtered and sold.

The animal welfare organisations described the treatment of animals at the markets as "brutally cruel" and "like a walk through hell," evoking the sympathy of Indonesians and people around the world.

In 2018, international actors and celebrities appealed to President Joko Widodo to close the markets. They said that if Indonesia joined other Asian countries that had already banned the trade, it would be "celebrated worldwide" and put an end to the country's poor reputation.

Actress Cameron Diaz, talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, talent scout Simon Cowell, comedian Ricky Gervais, Indonesian pop singer Anggun, and musician Moby are among the more than 90 celebrities named in the letter.

"The immeasurable suffering and fear they must endure is heartbreaking and absolutely shocking," reads the letter, which prompted the Indonesian central government to issue a decree stating that dog meat is not a food product and that local administrations should therefore take action to ban the trade.

The province of North Sulawesi is home to more than 2.6 million people who are predominantly Christian in the majority-Muslim island nation. The consumption of dog and cat meat with special spices is a long-standing tradition for most people in the province and one that is very difficult to abolish, according to Frank Delano, a local animal welfare activist.

Thousands of dogs and cats are slaughtered weekly in North Sulawesi, according to animal welfare organizations.

"I am disappointed, but what else can I do? I have to comply with government regulations," said Melki Pongo, the owner of the slaughterhouse that has been supplying tonnes of dog and cat meat to the city's markets for more than 30 years. He said he would replace them with pork.

The Karanganyar district in Central Java was the first to issue an official ban in 2019, followed by other regions in 2020 and 2021. Most recently, authorities in Indonesia's capital Jakarta announced in March that they had banned the trade in dog and cat meat.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, may seem an unlikely hub of dog meat cuisine, given that nearly 90% of its 270 million inhabitants are followers of Islam, which regards dog products as haram — that is, forbidden — much like pork. Most Muslims would not touch a dog, let alone eat one.

The archipelago is also home to many other religions, some of which regard dog meat as a traditional delicacy or believe it to have health-promoting properties. According to Dog Meat Free Indonesia, 7% of Indonesians consume dog meat, particularly in the provinces of North Sulawesi, North Sumatra, and East Nusa Tenggara, where the majority of the population identifies as Christian. More on the topicAnimal Rights.

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