However, that was back in June. Attention has now waned to the point where the shelter that currently houses the rescued dogs is struggling to stay afloat as volunteers and contributions continue to dry up. Of the 1,381 dogs that were rescued from the Yulin Dog Meat Festival, only 440 have survived, most dying fro illness.

On July 4, the rescued dogs were transported by truck from the southern province of Guangxi to a remote shelter in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, a harrowing journey of 1,800 kilometers that took 35 hours to complete.

But the ordeal was too much for some of the dogs. According to Chang Le, a volunteer at the Hushengyuan shelter that houses the rescued dogs, approximately 200 of them died the first day after arriving.

The rescue did not come cheap. The 1,381 dogs purchased ended up costing around RMB 500,000 ($78,500). But even after the world-wide attention this past summer, donations and volunteers at the Hushengyuan shelter have steadily diminished since then, resulting in less care for the dogs.

“In the first few days after those dogs arrived, we received many donations ranging from medicine to dog food every day, and also many pet lovers across the country came to help us. But now we haven’t seen any pet lovers for some time, and the donations now only come every few days,” Chang said.

Worse, a WeChat campaign to find the rescued dogs new homes has failed to attract attention, resulting in most of the dogs having to remain at the shelter. And while volunteers at the shelter numbered in the dozens when the rescued dogs first arrived, there now are only five left.

Right now, 40 sick dogs are being sequestered in individual kennels while another 400 dogs have been placed into six enclosures. As Chang says, “As there is no vet, many sick dogs died eventually.”

The shelter has an annual rent of over RMB 100,000, and also lacks around RMB 200,000 required to expand. Although China has a growing population of pet owners who are sympathetic to the cause of animal rights, the Yulin rescue operation still faced a lot of opposition online, the biggest criticism being that they won’t be able to take care of the dogs they rescue.

The dog rescuers also have a legal problem in that they transported the dogs over provincial territories without a certificate of quarantine for the dogs, the same violation that animal rights activists were able to pin on dog traffickers transporting dogs to slaughter.

Zhang Zhengzhong, director of the Gaoyou municipal veterinary office, told Modern Express that the dogs should have been returned to Yulin as they lack the legally required documents that prove they have been quarantined.

Zhang said that animal rights activists and animal shelters should seek help from the government, which could send vets from government-backed institutions to treat rescued animals and provide subsidies to support the long-term operation of shelters.

This year’s rescue was much larger in scope than last year’s effort that saved 417 dogs, of which only four died after making the trip to Gaoyou by train. The purchase of last year’s rescued dogs was under RMB 200,000, and they had the proper certification papers for quarantine.

Dogs rescued from the slaughterhouse have faced bleak times before in China. This past March, government workers tasked with removing 89 dogs from an illegal slaughterhouse in Shenzhen inadvertently killed dozens of them because the workers were “too violent” in handling them.

The post Spotlight Gone from Yulin, Rescued Dogs Left to Die as Donations Dry Up appeared first on The Nanfang.

Much of the controversy over the Yulin Dog Meat Festival has continued because no government authorities have felt confident enough to step in on such a sensitive topic. No current law forbids the eating of cats and dogs as a criminal act, nor does the government condone it with official recognition of the festival. Without dog eating being outlawed, animal welfare activists have tried to approach the issue by changing the way society sees dog consumption.

Then there’s people like 65 year-old retired schoolteacher Yang Xiaoyun. With no way to stop the Yulin Dog Meat Festival or the consumption of dog meat, Yang takes the last option available to her: she buys live dogs from dog vendors so they can’t be sold to local restaurants to be consumed.

On June 20, Yang rescued over 100 dogs by paying vendors RMB 7,000. On Monday, the total was raised to 500 dogs and cats for RMB 10,000. Last year, Yang paid RMB 150,000 to save 360 dogs over the entire course of the Yulin festival.

Yang has come to symbolize the protest movement against dog meat eating when she was featured in an iconic photo during last year’s protests, kneeling in front of a dog vendor to plead for a dog’s life. Her impact continues to be felt this year, too, as dog vendors contacted her to say “they had a lot of dogs waiting for her to buy”.

Yang said much of her money comes from donations from people around China, but wouldn’t disclose how much. Unlike last year, the rescued dogs will be raised and given a home in the local area instead of being taken back home to Tianjin.

Despite claims made by dog vendors that the dogs are bred for the purpose of meat, Yang says the vendors are lying. “I am pretty sure that most dogs were not raised in a dog farm,” she said. “They were stray dogs brought from other provinces.”

“Local authorities also assigned police officers to protect me from vendors who may try to harm me,” she added.

Yang has been rescuing stray dogs and cats for 20 years after her husband died in 1995. She remains estranged from her only son Dayang after she sold off two properties after using up her life savings to continue rescuing stray animals.

Yang operates four kennels in Tianjin that house about 3,500 rescuded dogs and cats.

For all her contributions to animal welfare, Yang remains aware that her work only provides a temporary solution to a ongoing problem. “At the moment we don’t have the ability to change people’s habits, [but] this is the government’s responsibility, isn’t it?”

Related:

• Chinese Donors Raise Hundreds of Thousands of Yuan to Rescue Yulin Dogs
• Yulin Dog Eaters Doubling Down Amid Foreign Campaigns to Stop Controversial Festival
• Yulin Dog Eating Festival: “The More You Protest, The Better Our Business”
• Shocking: The Brazen Capture of a Dog in Broad Daylight in Guangdong

The post Meet Yang Xiaoyun: The Woman Who Spends Thousands to Save Dogs From Yulin’s Dinner Tables appeared first on The Nanfang.

Business at this year’s festival was better than ever thanks to the international attention. Jiangbin Road, well-known as the city’s premier location for dog meat restaurants, was packed with visitors, most of whom were apparently from out of town. On the other hand, there were reportedly fewer animal welfare activists than last year when violent confrontations with dog meat supporters gained national attention.

In contrast to last year’s festival, no altercations have been reported so far, but police have stepped up their presence in the city.

Protests against this year’s Yulin Dog Meat Festival has attracted wide international support. At the beginning of the month, the hashtag “#StopYulin2015” had been posted on Twitter some 250,000 times while a Change.org petition calling for the cancellation of the festival had gathered over 200,000 signatures. Furthermore, celebrities ranging from Fan Bingbing to Ricky Gervais have objected to the festival, calling on their online followers for support.

Despite being marginalized, animal welfare activists have continued to protest at the Guangxi provincial festival. Twenty-five of them were reported to have unfurled a banner in front of Yulin municipal government offices and called for an end to the festival, but were stopped and ushered away by unidentified men.

A vendor named Zhang detailed some of the protests. “Some activists showed up today, but only outside the hall. We have already been ordered to move indoors. It is not like we are engaging in an illegal business.It is not like we are engaging in an illegal business. Some of them came to the market before us just to protest.”

Dog meat vendors and restaurants have been ordered by local authorities to make certain concessions in the wake of last year’s violent protests. Restaurants have been asked to move their tables indoors and to remove the word “dog meat” from their billboards, both things that have been implemented with mixed results.

Several vendors reached by the Global Times said that their products were not made from pet dogs but “edible dogs” that were bred like other livestock, with the uniform size of the dogs as proof.

Many locals remain fiercely loyal to continuing their dog-eating traditions.

Liang Xiaoli specifically returned home for the festival. “This is one of our traditions. They criticize us, saying we don’t have compassion or humanity, but every person has different circumstancesThey criticize us, saying we don’t have compassion or humanity, but every person has different circumstances. You can’t just lump all people together. If I think eating pork is brutal, then no one can eat pork. That’s not on,” she said.

Some have taken to protesting the protesters. A man wearing sunglasses and a mask was seen in news photographs confronting a woman while carrying a sign that contains the words “Are dog lovers an evil cult?” and “We have atomic weapons! China must empower itself and rise!”

Although it has stopped short of banning it, the Yulin government has distanced itself from the dog meat festival.

The city’s official Weibo account says: “Some residents of Yulin have the habit of coming together to eat lychees and dog meat during the Summer Solstice. The ‘Summer Solstice lychee and dog meat festival’ is a commercial term; the city has never (officially) organized a ‘dog meat festival.’”

An estimated 10,000 dogs are consumed each year at the Yulin Dog Meat Festival.

Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province located next to Guangxi, recently initiated a crackdown on restaurants serving dog meat.

Related:

• Despite Million-Strong Petition, Still No Law Against Eating Cats and Dogs
• Yulin Dog Sellers Openly Taunt Dog Lovers: “Buy The Dog Or It Dies!” [UPDATED]
• Yulin Draws Foreigners Who Dine on Dog Meat

The post Gallery: Yulin Dog Eating Festival Opens Amid Protests appeared first on The Nanfang.

With the festival’s annual start date on the summer solstice just weeks away (this year on June 22) , Chinese news organisations have picked up foreign coverage of the event and online appeals to stop the festival.

The hashtag “#StopYulin2015” has been forwarded on Twitter some 250,000 times, while a Change.org petition calling for the cancellation of the festival started by animal welfare group Duo Duo has gathered over 200,000 signatures.

Duo Duo founder Andrea Gung said the group  intentionally targeted a Western audience with its social media campaign. “The main thing we have done is made people in Yulin realise that their tradition is something from the past, that is perceived negatively from the outside world.”“The main thing we have done is made people in Yulin realise that their tradition is something from the past, that is perceived negatively from the outside world,” said Gung.

With a lack of laws protecting animals in China, the issue of dog meat consumption has largely been left to Chinese people to decide for themselves. Both sides can be seen making their arguments on a Weibo page dedicated to the Yulin festival, with one side advocating that dogs have uses beyond being cooked, while the other side accuses animal rights activists of hypocrisy and asked for local customs to be respected.

However, pressure coming from abroad may have changed the tone of the Yulin argument. Instead of just concentrating on the issue of dog eating, the international response has become the focus for some netizens who are taking offense to criticism from outsiders. We’ve seen that Chinese netizens are willing to admit shocking truths to each other, but it does not appear that a loss of “face” to a foreigner is acceptable when Chinese culture is at stake.

Here then, running the entire gamut of opinions, is the reaction by Chinese netizens to international appeals to shut down the Yulin Dog Meat Festival:

布丁果果：
Foreigners are crazy, and the original poster (of the microblog) has gone crazy as well. Eating dog meat is not illegal. This is none of your goddamn business.

月球车玉兔号：
Firmly in support of eating dog meat.

CC的小小哲学人生：
Chicken, duck, fish, goose, horse, cow, and sheep all don’t agree with this… in that case, we all shouldn’t eat meat at all.

chensee看不见：
I don’t understand this at all. Aren’t cows a good friend to humanity? You drink its milk, make it work the fields, and in the end you eat its flesh? And there’s no protest against this? Aren’t sheep a good friend to humanity? It contrubutes its wool to us, and yet you still eat it? Isn’t the chicken a good friend to humanity? And when you’re lonely, you still go and…. wha? To suffer this final deviation–!

__141：
And yet, this protest will come to no good use.

一只在古灵阁数钱的地精：
Regulate the dog meat industry! Implement an official quarantine standard! And then nationalize it! And crack down on illegal traders! And dog thieves! Stop the practice of catching stray dogs on the streets from moving vehicles!

笑隆戈：
Hee hee, hey foreign netizens, have you heard about bull fights in Spain?

学土木的小明：
What’s the difference between eating dog meat and pork? Why can we eat pigs, but we’re not allowed to eat dogs?
Strange. Southerners need to eat dog meat during the Winter Solstice! What? It’s not allowed?

qq00001851：
If names were collected in support of the dog meat festival, millions of signatures would be collected.

爱跳舞的兔子咚咚：
Many people are protesting, and yet with the same mouth they can be seen with a piece of dog meat hanging from it. Aren’t you ashamed?

要当海贼王的咸鱼：
People have the freedom to eat whatever they want, just as they have the freedom to refrain from eating whatever they want. No right to interfere??? What’s more, the topic in question is the eating of dog meat!!! Not the eating of pet dogs!!! People are just afraid that their pets will be stolen by dog traders and supplied to the markets.

曹先生KL：
This is like how Eskimos hunt whales, it’s a local tradition. All that can be said about this protest is that people are getting worked up about nothing over other people’s customs.

noiseB：
We’ve set up a petition on Weibo to “free the turkeys for Thanksgiving”!!!

GalaPotato：
Dog meat eating is a custom belonging to other people, the same way that people of the Islamic Hui ethnic group don’t eat pork. They won’t protest us for eating pork. We should mutually respect each other; if you don’t want to eat something, then you don’t.

小于号K：
I don’t eat dog, but I won’t oppose people who do. This is what you call ‘respecting other people’.

实在没办法起名：
What business does eating dog meat have anything to do with foreigners? Why don’t they go to the Middle East and try promoting pork to them?

彼得小茄：
Europe has a culture of raising livestock in which dogs served as friends and helpers to people. This is why they eat beef, will hold bull fights, and kill cattle. On the other hand, China has an agarian culture in which cows are a symbol of wealth. In ancient times, the slaughter of cattle was penalized by prison time. Confucius said, ‘Do unto others as others would do unto you.’ So, to you keyboard warriors of China as well as those abroad, to arms! Shout your slogans and protest the bull fighting festival of Spain, something which is even more famous… 

全家网络：
Of course you can eat dogs, naturally! You can eat any friend of humanity, any search and rescue dog or seeing-eye dog. To you it’s just another piece of food on your plate!!!

久_池：
Let’s all protest the Christmas practice of eating turkey!

走不快的劣马：
Frenchmen eat horses, man’s faithful friend. As you find eating horses so enjoyable, by what right do you have to criticize Chinese for eating dog? Australians eat kangaroo. As you find eating such a cute, adorable animal so enjoyable, what right do you have to criticize Chinese for eating dog? People of Spain and many South American countries eat alpaca. As you find eating such a cute and adorable animal so enjoyable, what right do you have to criticize Chinese for eating dog?

颐香斋：
There are those that forbid others from eating dog. There are those that forbid other people from eating beef. There are those that forbid other people from eating pork. There are those that forbid other people from eating meat. There are those that forbid other people from wearing fur… That’s a myriad of variations, but they all have in common the imposing of one’s will and preferences upon others.

魏斐_Wizzarff：
Twitter doesn’t exist in China, therefore this is fake news.

QN春雷：
Japanese people hunt and kill whales. Why don’t I see these foreign bastards protesting against them?

落英有时：
I don’t own a dog as a pet, and I don’t eat dogs. What’s more, I don’t oppose other people raising dogs as pets, or eating them. However, I ask dog owners to not let their dogs run wildly all over the place, defecating and urinating wherever they want. I ask that they promptly vaccinate their dogs and not let them bite anyone. And, I ask people in the dog meat industry to not steal dogs or poison them.

嚣张小盼：
Not in support of eating dogs, and don’t protest it either. The cultures are different, and there should be more tolerance (towards others).

Local authorities have responded to last year’s controversy by banning the Yulin Dog Meat Festival, but this probably isn’t the last we’ve heard about the issue.

Related:

• Yunlin Dog Sellers Openly Taunt Dog Lovers: “Buy The Dog Or It Dies!” [UPDATED]
• Yulin Dog Eating Festival: “The More You Protest, The Better Our Business”
• Yulin Draws Foreigners Who Dine on Dog Meat
• Chinese Donors Raise Hundreds of Thousands of Yuan to Rescue Yulin Dogs
• Doctors In Yulin Told To Stay Away From Dog Eating Festival

The post Yulin Dog Eaters Doubling Down Amid Foreign Campaigns to Stop Controversial Festival appeared first on The Nanfang.

After a tumultuous year that has seen multiple cases of animal rights activists clashing with local restaurants that sell dog meat dishes, the Panyu District branch of the Ministry of Agriculture has launched a campaign against local restaurants that serve dog meat.

Beginning in March, restaurants have been required to provide a quarantine certificate for every dog they acquired. A single certificate costs between RMB 200 and 300 ($32-48) and is valid for only a single dog, whereas previously a quarantine certificate was valid for a truck full of canines.

Under the weight of this newfound expense, many restaurants in the Guangzhou’s Yuexiu District that once specialised in dog meat have either gone out of business, or have stopped serving dog meat in favor of other more common and publicly palatable meats.

Hand-pulled dog meat

A popular establishment once well-known for its dog meat dishes, the Sunshine Fresh Meat Eatery, has recently closed shop and has been replaced by a clothing shop. Meanwhile, the De Dog Meat restaurant is revamping its menu by cutting out any mention of dog meat. The manager of the restaurant told local media, “I don’t serve that anymore. No more dog meat. No longer is (the restaurant called) ‘De Dog Meat’, but the ‘Hakka Family Restaurant’. We are going to exclusively serve Hakka cuisine.”

Industry insiders say that dog meat is still being served in many establishments, but that it is only available in smaller restaurants after larger restaurants were targeted in the crackdown.

This crackdown stems from a law passed on April 22, 2013; “Ministry of Agriculture Supervisory Work Notification of Quarantine Strengthening on Dog and Cat Meat Sources“, suggesting that Guangzhou had not been enforcing the letter of the law until March.

Although some Chinese media is reporting the crackdown to be a result of heightened concerns regarding animal welfare, the media is warning Guangzhou residents against eating ‘exotic meats’ because their safety can’t be guaranteed if the source of the dogs (or cats, for that matter) can’t be confirmed.

Reports are cautioning that wild dogs not raised on farms are often caught using cyanide, a poison that remains in the meat after cooking. Meanwhile, dogs raised in captivity are reported to contract diseases more easily, and are said to be overlooked by the inspection agency.

Rabies remains a threat to the public in Guangdong. In December 2014, seven people died from contracting rabies, the province’s second-most dangerous contagious disease after HIV/AIDS, which killed 92 people the same month. The report does not mention if the fatal cases of rabies resulted from people being bitten by infected animals, or by eating them.

Related:

• Yunlin Dog Sellers Openly Taunt Dog Lovers: “Buy The Dog Or It Dies!” [UPDATED]
• Dog killer in Shaoguan finally caught… when he used his poison on a human
• Worst Nightmare? Shenzhen Markets Caught Selling “Lamb” That Was Actually Dog Meat
• Beijing Dog Market Raided as Demand for Dog Meat Rises

The post Crackdown Hits Guangzhou Dog Meat Restaurants appeared first on The Nanfang.

The activists had been following the truck since it left Nanyang, Henan, and eventually stopped it after it picked up its cargo of dogs on a Shaanxi ring road. 20 activists worked together to successfully block the truck from departing from a Hancheng service station. While authorities arrived at the scene soon after, they were reluctant to intervene, arguing that the transport of dogs fell outside their jurisdiction.

The following afternoon, workers from the Weiyang District Animal Hygiene Inspection Agency arrived at the scene and took control of the situation. The truck was transferred to a parking lot and the dogs were released from their 20 centimeter high cages and put into much larger crates where they were fed and given water.

Following his admission that the dogs had not been appropriately quarantined before being loaded on the truck, Cheng, the driver, released the 153 dogs to the Inspection Agency and animal rights activists to avoid a hefty fine.

The dogs are said to be recovering from their ordeal.

The post Animal Rights Activists Rescue 153 Dogs Destined To Be Slaughtered appeared first on The Nanfang.

National People’s Congress representative Zheng Xiaohe had put forward the proposal at the lawmakers’ gathering at the beginning of this month, where it had drawn the support of 30 of his peers. But the bill didn’t pass, at least not this year.

The proposed amendments would forbid the use of “non-agricultural animals” (ie. cats and dogs) for food, and to establish regulations for the humane slaughter and quarantine of animals.

The proposal is still up for consideration by the National People’s Congress next year.

The post Despite Million-Strong Petition, Still No Law Against Eating Cats and Dogs appeared first on The Nanfang.

Government enforcement agencies and animal activists were successful in shutting down an illegally-operated dog slaughterhouse in Guangming New District yesterday after animal activists had held a vigil for 36 hours straight. The 89 dogs that were saved from slaughter then had to be removed from the slaughterhouse — which is where things went horribly wrong.

Government workers (seen wearing yellow hard hats and reflective vests in the photographs) put the dogs into cages to be relocated, but a majority of the dogs died because the workers didn’t take enough care. Several were described as being “too violent” while handling the dogs, using metal pincers to subdue them and pick them up by the neck. Then many were squeezed into tiny cages and put onto trolleys. One dog appeared to be heavily bleeding from a wound on its neck.

The illegal slaughterhouse had dirty knives strewn across the floor and a device that removes fur from a slaughtered dog.

The post Dozens of Dogs Killed in Shenzhen After Being “Saved” From Slaughterhouse appeared first on The Nanfang.

The weather in Beijing is getting colder, and that means demand for dog meat for traditional hot pot is on the rise. Despite the growing interest, it’s getting harder for Beijing consumers to find dog meat as local officials crack down on markets that sell the product.

The latest was a raid on a live animal market operating illegally outside the Gaoliming market. Authorities managed to confiscate 20 live dogs that were destined for the dinner table. Apparently the market sells about ten dogs a day, each one fetching about RMB 700 each.

Eating dogs is not against the law in China. While it is frowned upon by an urban population that favors dog ownership, restaurants that offer dogs as part of their menu can be found all over the country, even in big metropolitan cities like Beijing.

According to the Chinese calendar, an important date to consume special tonics to prepare for winter is drawing near. Dogs occupy a special place in Chinese food and medicine in that their meat is considered to provide warmth to people that eat them.

China’s first astronaut Yang Liwei was given a diet that included dog in order to better keep warm during his mission.

Related:

• Photos of Dog Swirling in Washing Machine Meant to Incite Hong Kongers
• Chinese Donors Raise Hundreds of Thousands of Yuan to Rescue Yulin Dogs
• Yunlin Dog Sellers Openly Taunt Dog Lovers: “Buy The Dog Or It Dies!” [UPDATED]
• Yulin Draws Foreigners Who Dine on Dog Meat

Photos: Sohu

The post Beijing Dog Market Raided as Demand for Dog Meat Rises appeared first on The Nanfang.