Report: Dog and Cat Meat Trade Exposed

Guest Blogger: Michele Brown

Because we all use products from either China, Vietnam, Thailand or S. Korea, the Dog Meat Trade (DMT) affects us all one way or another, even if we don’t realise it.

Every night in Thailand, masses of caged dogs are loaded onto ‘The 1,000 Dog Trucks’ and shipped across the Mekong River into Vietnam and China, for human consumption. Dog and cat trafficking is being exposed through social media, allowing everyone to become involved in the global push to halt this heinous trade.

 

Most of the dogs are stolen pets, still wearing their collars and tags and looking for human affection. Vietnamese, Chinese and Korean customers demand that dogs and cats be tortured to produce the desired tough meat, subscribing to the belief that tough meat makes men masculine when they eat it. Tender meat is considered very low quality.

In each of the countries, cats are treated extremely cruelly; seen as evil vermin, they are often trussed for hours before being flung into huge boiling cauldrons where they are boiled alive to make either cat tonic, juice or broth. Eating or drinking cats is mistakenly believed to help cure rheumatism. Small dogs are often treated the same way.

The Good News

In an open letter, Soi Dog Foundation founder John Dalley, located in Phuket, Thailand, said: “Since active campaigning begun in late 2011 more arrests of smugglers have occurred than during anytime in the past," emphasising the power of social media. Soi Dog has launched a "Trade of Shame" campaign aimed at ending illegal cross border trade in dogs once and for all.

Clashes between protesters and animal traffickers are regularly reported in Chinese newspapers. China is seriously considering banning dog and cat meat, and we only have to look at the Panda law (some poachers were given the death sentence), to see how swiftly China can act when they finally instigate new laws.   

I’m privileged to be working side by side with one of the world’s leading fighters against the dog and cat meat trade, Korean born Kyenan Kum. Twenty two years ago, Kyenan and her sister Sunnan began fighting against animal trafficking, and in 1988 she published the first DMT photos, exposing Korea’s secret shame. 

I’ll be actively bringing reports directly from Kyenan and look forward to sharing this information with everyone.

August 7th, 2012, was the first of my #DMT Twitter awareness events and I’d like to thank everyone for their participation, especially those who retweeted information via @PepiSmartDog. 

 

For More Information: (Viewer discretion advised.)

S.Korea's Dog and Cat Shame 

The Cat Meat Trade Part 1 

Michele Brown is a BlogPaws Community member and the writer behind @PepiSmartDog. Michelle lives in Australia and has been a front line animal rescuer for over thirty years, in many countries.

Comments

[Mr. Breeze (@kittehboi)]

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. There are videos online that should help authorities find the perpetrators, but ONLY if the videos stay up long enough for law enforcement to identify them.

It's a conundrum.

I highly recommend that everyone check local restaurants, particularly small neighborhood restaurants catering to older Asians. Even in the U.S., even now, it still happens.

And now for a bit of history:

http://animalrightskorea.org/dog-meat-issue/the-history-of-koreas-dog-meat-industry.html
Although the Koreans claim that dog-meat is a traditional food, the history doesn't show this to be the case. In all likelihood dog-meat in Korea only goes back to the twentieth century, at which time Korea first was under Japanese rule until the end of WWII, and then was THE theater for the Korean war, a proxy war against China that took place in the 1950s.

The Korean populace was starving. Feral cats and dogs were plentiful, and ANYTHING tastes good if you're hungry enough. I'm just sayin'. Somehow the younger people accepted dog-meat as part of the culture rather than the result of extreme deprivation.

For reference, the Japanese don't eat dogs and haven't for centuries and they probably discouraged it. The Chinese do eat dogs, and they may have introduced the practice during the Korean war.

Please stop throwing red paint at whores. They just go out and buy new furs, creating a continual demand for more deaths.

The fur trade will end when people stop liking fluffy stuff around their necks in winter. ALL fluffy stuff, even faux fur on low-cost garments, reinforces in peoples' minds the desirability of real fur in high-end clothing.

[Bárbara Martins]

Please save those inocent animals!

[Lais]

Come on Korea and China, let's end this little ashamed to kill and mistreat animals for their food, you do not need them to feed themselves, need is a lot of shame in the face and maybe even be dead like them, because they feel superior and are nothing but people nuts, dirty and filthy that are below what these poor animals are their pigs, their meat would have to be eaten to satisfy its population and not an animal who can not defend themselves, because if they are are cruel because of yourself, your temper is awful to have an angel as a friend, is that you have more die as they are doing with the poor little animal.