Rescue cats in China from being slaughtered and sold as food

Acting on information from a group of animal rights activists, police in China raided a truck in eastern Jiangsu province, reports said. CNN.

The truck had more than a thousand cats on its way to the slaughterhouse, where their meat would be sold as pork or lamb. According to the Chinese state-owned newspaper the paper They would have earned more than SEK 230,000 from the illegal cat trade.

– It is profitable. As long as there is profit, there will be people who will do whatever it takes. It’s a gray area without legal regulations,” Gong Jian, one of Cat Island’s owners who takes care of street cats, told The Paper.

It is not clear whether anyone has been arrested in connection with the incident.

Want to see stronger protection laws

On Chinese social media, many called for stronger protections for animal rights and food safety.

There are laws in China aimed at regulating and protecting livestock and endangered animals, but there are no laws to protect street dogs or street cats.

Animal protection and environmental groups have on several occasions initiated campaigns to protest the use of animals, many of which are endangered species, in traditional medicine in the country. There are also more and more people protesting today against the annual dog meat festival held in the western state of Guangxi.

In 2021, local authorities were criticized for euthanizing pets when their owners tested positive for Covid-19.

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