China is recognized to be the world’s largest dog meat market, with 97,000 tons produced every year. There are an estimated 10 million dogs and 4 million cats tortured and slaughtered for the barbaric dog and cat meat trade annually. The sickening dog and cat meat trade is open all year round in many parts of China, reaching its peak around summer solstice for the annual Lychee and Dog Meat Festival in Yulin.

Every year thousands of dogs and cats are load into trucks, crammed into overcrowded cages, left without food and water for days, and illegally driven for long distances without the required quarantine and veterinary documents across provincial borders to Yulin, in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Despite producers claim that the dog meat comes from legal ‘dog meat farms’, many animals are instead pets and strays stolen by gang of thieves, with one study finding that 87 percent of households in one village lost a dog in the last few years, and the rest of them comes from illegal breeding farms.

Dogs are brutally slaughtered for their flesh: tortured, beaten, skinned alive in front of each other, put into machines whilst barely alive to remove their fur, burned with blow torch for sale to markets, cut into pieces, boiled alive.

The slaughter and consumption of thousands of dogs and cats not only is barbaric and inexcusable in the 21st century, leading to immense animal suffering and cruelty, but does also pose a significant health risk for both humans and animals. The conditions in which these poor animals are kept in and slaughtered in these markets are barbaric and ground for zoonosis and other diseases.

On April 8, 2020, china’s ministry of agriculture and rural affairs announced that dogs would be reclassified as “companion animals” instead of “livestock”, but did not back this up resulting in the government and authorities not implementing a national ban of dog and cat meat trade. The same year, Chinese cities of Shenzhen and Zhuhai have introduced city-wide ban on dog and cat meat consumption but this is not being enforced.

Today, we urge you to take immediate action. Raise your voice against the horrific dog and cat meat trade

THIS BARBARITY MUST BE STOPPED!