Sale of dog meat banned at the infamous Yulin Dog Meat Festival

Hopefully, the barbaric slaughter of cats and dogs at the festival will come to an end.
Latasha Seow 25 May 2017

According to a press release by the Humane Society of the United States, the city of Yulin will ban street vendors, restaurants and market traders from selling dog meat at the Yulin Dog Meat Festival 2017. The legislation will come into play on June the 15th this year, a week before the festival is set to begin. Those who go against this will be fined ¥100,000 (S$20,089.45) and face a potential jail penalty. Yulin’s newly-elected party secretary, Mo Gong Ming, is said to be the one who pushed for this ban to be in place. Unfortunately, the ban has not been extended to cats that are consumed during the event as well.

 

The Yulin Dog Meat Festival, also known as the Lychee and Dog Meat Festival, is an annual event where an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 dogs and cats are slaughtered for their meat. The festival first started in 2010 to celebrate the summer solstice, since it is tradition to eat dog meat in the summer. This festival is commonly associated with cruelty largely due to the ill-treatment of the animals as they are transported to the festival grounds. Many of the animals are sent there in cramped cages without any food or water.

 

The way that the animals are killed is barbaric, where many of them are beat to death with clubs in order to induce fear in the canines. According to restaurants that sell dog meat, adrenaline-rich meat is tastier than normal meat, which is why they condone the beating of the dogs to death. In addition to this, many of the pooches used in the slaughter are stolen pets that still have their collars on.


"Regrettably, many dogs and cats will still be killed for the Yulin festival in advance of the ban, so their suffering is not over yet, but this is certainly a milestone victory and we commend the Yulin authorities for taking this action,” says Peter Li, China Policy specialist at Humane Society International.  “It is a really big nail in the coffin for a gruesome event that has come to symbolise China’s crime-fuelled dog meat trade.”