The NoToDogMeat charity has uncovered a series of secret puppy farms, where adorable pups are sold to be slaughtered for dog meat at the infamous Yulin Dog Meat Festival which begins today (June 21, 2023).
In images revealed by the charity, Qin Xi Zhao, who is leading the NoToDogMeat team in China, can be seen viewing puppies as young as three months old and being asked how much he is prepared to pay to save them.
Ahead of the cruel Yulin Dog Meat Festival, where thousands of dogs are tortured and killed in China to be eaten ‘for luck’ and to celebrate the summer solstice, the charity has found that around the countryside in the surrounding Guangxi province, en route to the ancient city, is a series of well-concealed puppy and dog farms.
The illegal farms are where traders supply the desire to eat dogs all year round – and not just the estimated 10,000 killed and eated for the week-long festival – in this sprawling city. With a price tag of up to 1800 RMB (921 AED/ £196) per dog, the traders can make a huge profit.
Qin Xi Zhao, who runs the NoToDogMeat shelter in Hebei, and is working to gather intelligence for the charity’s report to the United Nations on the issue, said: ‘In 2021 we uncovered so many atrocities that contradicted what the ‘party’ line is when they say there are no dog farms in China.
‘Of course, they would have to say that because otherwise, they are breaching their own agricultural code, which confirms that dogs and cats should not be considered livestock.
‘For too long, Beijing, abetted by the West, speaks of Yulin as some backward city in a forgotten province with some cultural festival of feasting on dog meat once a year and drinking Lychee wine to celebrate the summer solstice, but this just isn’t the case.
‘Guangxi province is massacring the innocent.’
The NoToDogMeat charity has been in Yulin for a week, trawling the well-known Qiaonon, Chengnan and Dongkou markets, observing small vans pulling up containing dead dogs and watching the male and female traders cut them up for human consumption while smoking and laughing.
The puppies were kept in cramped cages with no visible water or food in the searing heat. Any that die are stuffed in a bag, their fur removed by blowtorch and sold as meat for soup. If they survive, they are shipped to markets where they are publicly slaughtered
London lawyer Julia de Cadenet, who founded the NoToDogMeat charity in 2009 after witnessing the slaughter for herself, said: ‘The dog meat trade is still thriving in Guangxi province and is unlikely to stop anytime soon.
‘Mr Zhao, who has devoted his life to caring for dog and cat meat trade survivors, feels depressed at all he has seen, but he is relentlessly tracking down where the live dogs are and running intel on where the trucks will be coming in from next week.
‘On his hunch, he has once again managed to uncover a dog farm.’
The puppies were kept in cramped cages with no visible water or food in the searing heat. Any that die are stuffed in a bag, their fur removed by blowtorch and sold as meat for soup. If they survive, they are shipped to markets where they are publicly slaughtered.
This is illegal and contravenes a government statement that ‘there is no public slaughter at Yulin’. The charity has already found evidence that live slaughter is being set up for the start of the festival.
Prior to being killed, the dogs are ‘tenderised’ before death via malicious practices, including various combinations of hanging, bludgeoning, drowning, suffocation, stabbing, electrocuting, burning, blowtorching, boiling, and skinning alive.
The barbaric practise continues despite a global outcry.
Dog Meat
In 2021 the World Health Organisation renewed its call for the sale of live wild mammals to be suspended at food markets in Asia, and China took the historic step of establishing a specific office in Beijing to protect pets – the China Compassion Animal Protection Office.
That same year China declared that dogs were not livestock and should not be treated as food, and banned the live slaughter of dogs.
Prior to being killed, the dogs are ‘tenderised’ before death via malicious practices, including hanging, bludgeoning, drowning, suffocation, stabbing, electrocuting, burning, blowtorching, boiling, and skinning alive
This should have effectively outlawed Yulin, but lack of respect for and enforcement of the rules has emboldened organisers further.
The puppy trader demanded 300 RMB (153AED/£32) per puppy and said if Mr Zhao bought a big bag, he would take him to the ‘big dog farm’. The charity dispatch says that all the pups are riddled with worms and infections.
Julia, who finds homes for the dogs the NGO rescues, added: ‘Despite our team being Chinese, the locals are suspicious and unfriendly, but our brave activists, tears mingling with the sweat from the heat, continue to take footage and wear their NoToDogMeat shirts in a silent act of defiance against this brutality.
‘We left with our purchase knowing we can’t take them all and reach out to local groups for help to provide sanctuary.
‘Very soon disaster tourists will land to take shock horror photos of the event, and large organisations will “claim” rescues and make lip service to change. But until the government implements its own ‘rules’ nothing will change.’
You can donate to NoToDogMeat’s rescue efforts here
