Every year, thousands of dogs suffer unimaginable cruelty at Yulin dog meat festival. They are taken off the streets and stolen from homes, crammed into cages without food or water and killed in horrific ways. It's time to stop the torture.
Take action now!
The Yulin dog meat festival began way back in 2010 by the meat traders of Yulin as sales were in decline. They sold it as a local tradition and a commercial means to boost sales and potentially attract tourists to the area. Their positive advertising backfired, though, as the festival causes major uproar every year and attracts negative press from all over the world and rightly so.
Unimaginable cruelty
Every year meat traders snatch dogs off the streets of China and steal them from their loving families, while others rear dogs purposefully on meat farms.
These poor animals go through possibly some of the worst cruelty imaginable, and it starts even before the festival begins. Those snatched from mainland China travel thousands of miles crammed together in metal wired cages without food and water. Many do not make the excruciating journey, dying from heatstroke, dehydration, or illness along the way, though some say they are the lucky ones. Cages are thrown on and off trucks, and any poor surviving animals are led to a horrific death in the slaughterhouse where they get bludgeoned to death, stabbed, hung, or electrocuted in front of other terrified animals.
Falling demand
Before this festival began, dog meat was in decline in China, and it is eaten infrequently by less than 20% of the population. When the festival first began, as many as 15,000 animals were killed during the Yulin festival days, but with international peer pressure, this has reduced to around 3,000, which is still far too many.
When is the Yulin Dog meat festival?
The festival takes place every year during the Summer solstice from the 21st to the 30th of June. The horror of the 2021 festival has not long come to an end, so it’s time now to come together to save dogs and cats from suffering the same unthinkable cruelty in 2022.
It’s time to stop the cruelty
There are many ways you can help stop this horrific festival.
- Raise awareness. Sharing this blog and spreading the word about this horrific festival will increase the pressure on authorities to shut the festival down. It will also help to decrease demand for dog and cat meat and, thus, continue to drive the numbers of dogs and cats sold at the festival down.
- Sign Humane Society International’s petition. Putting pressure on authorities and showing your disgust at this festival, is working; they have withdrawn their consent and claimed an end to the festival. Meat traders are continuing to run the event though. Show your support to encourage authorities to do more to intervene and put a stop to the cruelty.
- Sign a pledge to end the trade of dog and cat meat in Asia. The Cities of Shenzhen and Zhuhai have hopefully started a trend by banning dog and cat meat, and the declaration by the National Government that dogs are now considered companions rather than livestock provides a good incentive for other cities to follow suit.
How Humane Society International help
This year, 68 dogs were saved after being intercepted by Chinese activists; the animals were then taken for veterinary care before moving to a shelter supported by Humane Society International (HSI). HSI play an important and integral part in supporting the work of animal protection groups and shelters across China who are campaigning, delivering public education, and providing hands-on rescue efforts.
Campaign by volunteer writer, Susan Bulloch. Edited by Jane Warley.