Stop Yulin dog meat festival

On the 21st of June, many residents of YuLin will ‘celebrate’ their annual summer stolstice by eating dog meat. We have held a first ever press conference in Yulin to highlight the animal cruelty involved in this practice.

Tens of thousands of dogs are suffering from the cruel capture, long distance transport and gruesome slaughtering method. The welfare and basic needs of these animals are totally neglected.
The majority of the dogs are strays, or stolen pets. The dog meat eaters defend their habit by saying it is traditional. The festival has attracted attention and protests from across the globe – and ACTAsia is making an effort to protest inside China.

Entering the lion’s den – We hosted the 1st Press conference in YuLin
On 19th June, ACTAsia hosted the first ever press conference in YuLin, meeting over 20 Chinese and international media representatives. Our China Manager Isobel Zhang explained face to face, in detail, how the dog’s welfare is neglected, as the animal welfare issue is still a relatively new concept for the country. A film to highlight the animal suffering during the YuLin Dog meat festival was shown at the press conference. Please click to see this film. In the capital of the dog meat festival, Yulin, the atmosphere is hostile towards animal activists. They are under scrutiny of undercover police as if suspected of terrorist activities. Despite this threat, and the fact that various organisations are scared off by this hostility, ACTAsia’s China manager was at the scene. She will continue to monitor the situation on the ground until the finish of this year’s festival.

Some Positive Developments
Due to all the national and international pressure, the Yulin government has made some positive orders:
1) No live dogs can be slaughtered in public. This means that the public no longer get the message that it is normal to kill animals.
2) No live dogs are allowed to be transported to YuLin in the last few weeks. ACTAsia welcomes this order, as dogs do not need to be cramped into cages and then suffer through over 24 hours of transport. ACTAsia sent an investigator to JianYang where there was the biggest concentration of live dogs arriving in YuLin for dog meat consumption in general. Normally JianYang city would be busy sending the dogs into YuLin in the period, but this year the trade between the two cities has gone cold, ten days prior to the Dog Meat Festival.
3) YuLin Municipality has repeatedly claimed that they do not host the festival, which is only a practice taken by the residents. Again, we are pleased that YuLin Municipality does not endorse the Dog Meat Festival.
4) Government officials are not allowed to participate in the festival and eat dog meat in public.

We are glad that the global protest has at least resulted in positive developments on this issue, but our work is not finished yet. We need to continue our campaign on this issue. It does show that protesting and exposure do have an impact.

What can you do? 

Please continue to support us and help us keep up the pressure this cruel festival by :

– support our campaign against the dog meat festivals by making a donation

– like us on Facebook

– write to the Chinese Embassy in your own country to express your concerns.