Chinese lose taste for dog meat
Chinese and international animal rights campaigners have presented an 11 million-signature petition – their largest yet – against an annual dog meat festival due to take place this month in the southern Chinese city of Yulin.
More than 30 million dogs are killed across Asia every year for their meat, with more than a third of that number in China, campaigners say.
Thousands are set to be slaughtered in Yulin for the festival, which starts on June 21. Opponents say pets are stolen and strays rounded up for the festival, before being beaten to death in slaughterhouses.
In increasingly modern, middle-class and urban parts of China, a growing number of people own pet dogs and cats, and eating dog meat is becoming increasingly controversial, with young people, in particular, latching on to the idea of animal rights.
‘‘China’s dog meat trade is animal abuse and criminality on a massive scale, and a stain on China’s international reputation,’’ said Peter Li, China policy expert at Humane Society International, after presenting the petition to the Yulin state government office in the capital, Beijing.
Yufeng Xu, founder of Beijing Mothers Against Animal Cruelty, called the festival ‘‘a total embarrassment to China’’.
Defenders argue that eating dog meat is a traditional Chinese practice going back thousands of years, and have ascribed a wide variety of health benefits to it.
Animal rights groups say the Yulin festival was only invented in 2010 by dog traders to boost their profits, and has resulted in the illegal and unregulated seizure of many dogs.
Activists said they had rescued more than 500 dogs from trucks on their way to slaughter during the past few weeks. ‘‘Many of the dogs were pure breeds such as golden retriever and huskies who were still wearing their pet collars.’’
Campaigners have cited ‘‘numerous violent clashes’’ between pet owners and dog thieves.
Chinese legal scholar Chang Jiwen argued in a commentary in Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily this week that dog meat festivals ‘‘have caused an unfavourable impact on our national image’’.