Yulin heeds the pleas of millions of animal lovers to end the public execution of dogs ahead of their controversial festival as dozens of animals were rescued prior to the event.
The Yulin Dog Meat Festival, one of China's most controversial festivities, may not be the same again as the local government pledges to end public killings of "Man's Best Friend" during the event, which will begin on June 21.
Meanwhile, Chinese advocates from Humane Society International (HSI) were able to rescue animals in captivity that were going to be slaughtered for the feast ahead of the festival in Yulin.
Yulin Government Vows No More Public Killing
According to a report from the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong deputy to the National People's Congress Michael Tien Puk-sun urged the NPC Standing Committee to act on the controversial animal killings during the festival, which earned the country nothing but international condemnation.
While the local government of Yulin promised to work on it, they made no assurances that they can prevent their citizens from killing and eating the domestic animals since there is no law that gives them the power to do so.
What they can do was to ban the people from killing the dogs in public by citing food safety issues.
"This will be a very long process [to outlaw the festival] . . . but at least we won't see these heinous acts [in public]," Tien said, citing the response he got from the government.
"[Mainland officials] indicated that there would be a lot of resistance if I proposed a ban on eating dogs . . . But they said there was no reason not to [prohibit] animal abuse," he added.
Yulin had been killing thousands of dogs each year to celebrate the festival every summer solstice.
Rescued Pets
On Wednesday, the HSI revealed that its Chinese members were able to rescue five cats and 29 dogs from being butchered in Yulin, China.
According to HSI's Peter Li, they found the dogs, some of which still wore dog tags, cramped in cages and waiting for their deaths.
"The dogs and cats were clearly afraid, especially the older dogs who looked very fearful," he said. "But once they realized that we were not there to hurt them, but in fact we would make their suffering stop at last, they very quickly responded with licks and wagging tails."
However, Li admitted that the rescue operations did not go as smoothly as they expected.
"The police presence is heavy in Yulin right now, and the atmosphere is very tense, so this was not an easy rescue," he explained.
The rights advocate group would find animal shelters to help the dogs and cats find a new home in China, but some of the animals may be flown to the United States or the United Kingdom.