Tag: China

Carrie Fisher Led a Protest This Year Against the Yulin Dog Meat Festival

Really, 2016? Just two days after the sad and shocking news that George Michael had died, Carrie Fisher has also left us. Just like Michael, the multi-talented Fisher used her fame to help others, including animals.

In June, Fisher and her constant companion, a devoted French Bulldog named Gary, led a protest outside the China embassy in London, calling for an end to the annual Yulin Dog Meat Festival, a 10-day event in June during which thousands of dogs — including stolen pets — are brutally killed and then eaten.

“My dog Gary is my best friend and it makes me shudder to think there are dogs just like him being kidnapped, beaten and eaten,” Fisher told the Sun at the time. “I told Gary about the festival this morning and he was disgusted. He hasn’t spoken a word since.”

An estimated 10 to 20 million dogs are killed for their meat in China every year. The Yulin Dog Meat Festival was launched six years ago to help boost sales of dog meat.

Thanks to protesters like Fisher, the scale of the Yulin Dog Meat Festival has been reduced by 80 percent in the past few years. The government of China is currently working with local partners to enact new animal protection laws that will end the festival and the dog meat trade.

On Dec. 23, the same day Fisher suffered a heart attack, 110 dogs that were to be killed arrived safely in Toronto after being rescued by the Humane Society International (HSI).

Still, Fisher asked the Sun’s readers to “help keep up the pressure” to end the festival she called barbaric. “Just because it’s happening far away doesn’t mean we should sit back and do nothing,” she said.

In her memory, let’s all keep up the pressure.

How You Can Help End the Yulin Dog Meat Festival

Official Cause of Carrie Fisher’s Death

Carrie Fisher died after she drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra. May she rest in peace.

Photos via Twitter; Twitter

After 2 Years, Man Realizes His Dogs Are Actually Asian Black Bears

This could be the plot of a “Mr. Magoo” cartoon.

Two years ago, Wang Kaiyu, who lives in China’s Yunnan province, bought what he thought were two black puppies.

“When I was working on my banana farm, a Vietnamese man came up and showed me two good-looking pups,” Kaiyu told the Want China Times.

“He said they are good watchdogs, so I bought them.”

Wang took very good care of his new pets, bathing and brushing them every day. He was rather surprised by their voracious appetites, and how they would eat his pet chickens.

When he saw a wildlife protection promotion about Asian black bears a couple weeks ago, Wang had what Oprah would call an “Ah-HA!” moment. The bears looked remarkably like his two “dogs.”

“Some people had offered to buy them for a lot of money, but I never agreed,” Wang told the Times.

Instead, the dog — er, bear — dad did the right thing. He contacted the forestry police. On June 30, the male and female bears were taken to the Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Center of Yunnan.

“I love them so much,” Wang said.

Feng Lingui, a rescue center spokesman, told the People’s Daily Online the Asian black bears are about 3 years old and in good health. He said the center is working on finding permanent living arrangements for the pair.

Due to deforestation, being hunted for their body parts, and being subjected to illegal bear-baiting exhibitions — in which, after their claws and teeth are removed, they’re forced to fight dogs — Asian black bears are classified as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. They cannot be kept as pets.

Photo via Facebook

Chinese Woman Buys 100 Pups Headed for Yulin Dog Meat Festival

Like millions of other animal lovers around the world, retired schoolteacher Yang Xiaoyun is disgusted by the annual Yulin Dog Meat Festival.

During this festival, celebrated on the summer solstice each year, meat from about 10,000 dogs (and some cats) — many of them stolen family pets — is enjoyed by hundreds of people.

But unlike nearly 4 million (and counting) other outraged people, Xiaoyun didn’t merely sign an online petition asking the governor to end the festival.

She got in her car and drove 1,550 miles to Yulin in an effort to spare as many dogs as she could from their terrible fate, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report.

Xiaoyun paid 7,000 yuan (about $1,000) yesterday to buy 100 of the dogs. She brought them to her home in Tianjin, where she runs the “Common Home for All” pet shelter.

This hero is not alone. Other animal lovers and organizations have also traveled to Yulin to demonstrate against the festival and try to save some of the doomed dogs.

The festival has nothing to do with Chinese tradition. It was started only to raise money for dog meat traders by boosting the dwindling sales of dog meat. Although an estimated 10 million dogs are killed for their meat each year in China, eating dogs is actually on the decline in that country.

“I often hear people say that we shouldn’t interfere with tradition, but it isn’t Chinese tradition to brutalize animals in this way,” Peter Li, China specialist for Humane Society International (HSI), said in a news release. “Eating dog meat hasn’t been considered fashionable or decent in China for more than a thousand years.”

Yulin’s Dirty Little Secret Exposed by Social Media

Although the Dog Meat Festival has pretty much flown under the international radar since it was first held in 2010, thanks to social media, it’s no longer Yulin’s dirty little secret.

Celebrities like Ricky Gervais have been tweeting pleas to end the festival, using the hashtag #StopYuLin2015.

“I’ve seen the footage that HSI has captured on video, and it breaks my heart,” Gervais said in the HSI news release.

“I will never forget the look of bewilderment and fear on the faces of these poor animals — the dogs and cats await a horrible fate. No animal deserves to be treated like this.”

About that horrible fate Gervais is referring to: In order to make their meat more tender, the dogs are pounded with clubs while they’re still alive. Their throats are then slit with knives that are often dull, and then they are skinned — again, often while they’re still alive. (A hidden camera captured much of the barbaric process in an extremely graphic Daily Mail story posted today. You’ve been warned.)

Yulin city officials insist the festival is not a sanctioned event.

“The ‘summer solstice lychee and dog meat festival’ is a commercial term, the city has never [officially] organised a dog meat festival;” Yulin’s news office tweeted on the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, according to the AFP.

Four years ago, a similar dog meat festival in Zhejiang’s Jinghua was ended at the urging of Chinese animal lovers. With all the negative attention being bestowed upon Yulin, it’s time for the city to follow Jinghua’s lead and end the slaughter.

How You Can Help End the Yulin Dog Meat Festival

Photos via Facebook; Twitter

Petco and PetSmart Will Stop Selling Treats Made in China

You can expect the dog treat shelves of your local Petco and PetSmart stores to start looking pretty barren. As both national chains promised last year, they will no longer sell pet treats that were manufactured in China.

More than 1,000 dogs have died after eating chicken, duck or sweet potato jerky treats made in China, and nearly 5,000 more have become ill. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been investigating these cases since 2007 (and taking way too long to do so, many pet parents complain). No link has yet been found between the treats and the illnesses.

About 60 percent of the illnesses reported to the FDA were gastrointestinal problems; 30 percent were kidney or urinary issues; and the remaining 10 percent were symptoms including convulsions, tremors, hives and skin irritation.

“We know some pet parents are wary of dog and cat treats made in China, especially chicken jerky products, and we’ve heard their concerns,” Jim Myers, CEO of Petco, said in a press release last May. “As a leader in the industry and the trusted partner for our pet parents, we’re eager to make this transition and to expand our assortment of safe and healthy treats, the majority of which are made right here in the U.S.”

Since September, Petco has been pulling the products from its online store and 1,300 physical stores; PetSmart will finish removing them by March.

Petco Vice President John Sturm told the Associated Press the chain will substitute the China-made treats with those made in Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands.

Last week Jump Your Bones recalled some lots of its Roo Bites, treats made in Australia from dehydrated kangaroo meat, because they may have contained Salmonella.

It seems like it may not be a good idea to feed your dog commercially made jerky treats, no matter where they’re manufactured.

Photo credit: Tony Alter

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