Animal rights group Humane Society gathered 11 million signatures as call for an end to China's Yulin Dog Meat Festival. (Photo : Getty Images)
China has a long history of eating dog meat, as confirmed by a new study by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology that bones inside the tomb of workers and craftsmen, who made the terracotta warriors, when analyzed, indicate their diet mostly were from domestic animals protein, mainly dog.
That long tradition is what animal rights activists are going against in their petition to end the traditional Yulin Dog-eating Festival which would start on June 21. The activists, together with dogs, delivered to Beijing authorities a petition with 11 million signatures to stop the festival, reported CNBC.
The activists also brought banners with dog photos, bearing the message, “I’m not your dinner” which they unfurled when the group presented the petition to Yulin City’s representative office in a bid to save the lives of thousands of dogs.
Those who support the festival defended the festivity. They said dog meat is healthy during summer and added eating K9 meat is not different from ingesting meat of other animals. Among foreign celebrities who have backed the animal rights groups are American actors Carrie Fisher and Ian Somerhalder, and British comedian Ricky Gervais. Even Chinese actor Fan Bingbing and pop star Chen Kun are not in favor of the festival.
Because private business people organize the festival, the Yulin government said it does not officially support the dog-meat eating frenzy and had distanced itself from the annual event since 2014.
Humane Society International, which campaigns against the event, calls it a nightmare and not a festival, BBC reported. According to The Washington Post, across Asia, 30 million dogs are killed yearly for its meat, of which more than one-third are done in China. Most of these animals slaughtered for their meat are stray dogs or stolen.
