Yulin 2026 -Who would you save?
It’s hard to know where to start when describing what it is like to witness first-hand the horrors of the ongoing dog meat trade in China. It’s hard to drown out the fake news of supposed historic victories in closing down the slaughterhouses forever, or to shelve as spam the many fundraising organisations that claim to be gurus on the Yulin Dog Meat Festival, but have never even been to Guangxi. Then there is social media: viewers who watch our real lives like a film, or an interactive computer game, shouting out our next move and growing disappointed that we couldn’t save more. In a few weeks, they will turn their attention to something else.
Perhaps that’s why animal lovers subscribe to big orgs: even if they don’t actually act, they somehow feel shielded from the consequences of knowing the slaughter continues. Perhaps our accounts and grainy photos feel too real in an age of AI and filters. I can only describe my truth, which, surprisingly, is the actual truth. It’s all I have: bearing witness and holding space to lives lost in fear and pain.
It’s not my first time in Yulin. I have been coming for many years, pretty much since the ‘ Festival’ started in 2010. I have seen the huge media descent on the place as well as the empty, eerie streets after stalls close, which smell of death and despair. I have been physically attacked, chased and followed, gasping for breath due to the intense humidity and afraid. There is not one person who can go to Yulin and its surrounding villages with the ‘ Mom and Pop’ slaughterhouses and not feel fear. And, if they say they haven’t, they are either a psychopath or have only glimpsed a sanitised version of events. And, to respond here to vegans who, on reading this, will likely say what about the other animals. I can attest that the severed heads of cows with painful expressions on their faces lie side by side on the dog stalls, with flies and other insects buzzing around.
In short, Guangxi, the province that houses Yulin, is a place of lawless terror. Perhaps many of you don’t know where Guangxi is or much about it other than the dog meat festival, so here are a few facts. Guangxi is a province spanning 237,600 square kilometres, with 125 cities, and is home to about 50 million people, many of whom are of the Huang ethnicity. It is one of China’s autonomous regions, such as Tibet or Inner Mongolia. Geographically, it is close to Vietnam. As such, it is far from the eyes of Beijing and allowed, even though still an important part of China, to ‘do its own thing’. That said, over the last few years, with the new Chairman Wei Tao, an ethnic Huang himself, in place, big steps have been taken to grow the economy and promote the area's cultural richness. Several X accounts have sprung up to promote tourism, the food and the amazing way of life. Tourists landing in Nanning are recorded expressing their joy to visiting the region. I wish I could have felt the same.
If anyone does fly into Nanning, they have to spend 30 minutes of their descent in darkness as all window blinds are shuttered. You arrive and leave this dystopian nightmare shrouded from even the mountains above. And the secrecy and blackouts don’t end at the airport. Foreigners are actually viewed with deep suspicion, and that includes people from the North of China, and all this before you even get into Yulin.
After the media frenzy and large American groups descending on Yulin in 2015 and 2016, never to be seen again, the City started its own lockdown, and this involves carefully monitoring all visitors, where they are going and what they are doing. If a camera is pulled out at the wrong moment, footage is quickly deleted, and when walking, even with your head down towards the markets and restaurants, you are quickly surrounded by men who start to film you. From my own experience, I can tell you that even on your own, they can become physically aggressive and then will offer to call the police to take you in to ‘help you’. Your car is followed, and they, too, scan social media. They are the abusers, the vigilantes and city guardians ready to pounce at any moment. This aggression and vigilance shows how they will protect the trade at any cost. So you may ask yourself, what chance do the poor dogs have?
Emotions aside, a few more facts. Since the pandemic, you rarely see live slaughter in the main Yulin dog meat markets or the restaurants that serve crispy dog and rice for as little as £2.50 in some places. The only thing you see are the lacquered carcasses of the dogs, mouths open and their last expression before slaughter. All the butchering is done on the many dog farms high in the neighbouring mountains or in the slaughterhouses in the villages around the city. There are actually slaughterhouses everywhere in Guangxi. In some large facilities, dogs can even be processed alongside other animals, and, as in Hebei, their meat can be mixed with beef to reduce costs. Pretty much every town has its share of dog meat restaurants open 365 days of the year.
Even in the provincial capital Nanning, with its large Ikea and high-rise office buildings, you can easily find downtown a good 9 dog meat restaurants in a square mile. All selling unregulated dog meat dishes for the scan of a QR code. In April 2020, when the Beijing Ministry of Agriculture published its list of livestock animals, it did not include dogs.
At the time, a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture said, “As far as dogs are concerned, along with the progress of human civilisation and the public love and concern for animal protection, dogs have been ‘specialised’ to become companion animals and internationally are not considered to be livestock, and they will not be regulated as livestock in China”.
Some large cities, such as Shenzhen and Guangzhou, closed their restaurants, but not Guangxi.
The Yulin dog meat festival seems particularly heinous as it conjures up a vision of demonic rituals, whilst locals and tourists whoop it up for 10 days, drinking Lichee wine and eating dogs. And, it is true with the music shows and other side events, the revelry is macabre. Over the last two years, footfall has declined significantly, but this is due to economic rather than ethical factors. And, the weather. Last year and thankfully this year, the weather has been terrible. There have been heavy thunderstorms and torrential rain wreaking havoc on many of the province’s cities and causing delays on trains and difficulties to driving.
This leaves the traders’ route to the mountains, where most of the dog farms are muddy and treacherous. Collecting live dogs for fresh slaughter becomes problematic, and the route for the large trucks to enter the city, as you have seen many times on rescues, is impeded.
So the final question remains: who would you save?
Villages around Yulin are full of small-scale slaughterhouses operating right next to beauty salons and regular shops. The cages of the dogs with pleading eyes are still there. And on top of that, each Sunday morning (so that means the opening day of Yulin), there is a large open market close to the City where pets and bred dogs are sold. Last week, we were lucky enough to save the lives of a wonderful Malamute and Golden Retriever. The two of them are now safe at our base. This weekend, we are making preparations, despite our limited resources, to save whoever we can. As an organisation with just a handful of brave activists on the ground, limited resources, and not even a decent van, we find ourselves thousands of miles from our shelter of 700 dogs, facing impossible decisions. The point is that every rescue forces impossible choices.
It is not our policy, nor can it be, to pay high prices to the butchers to look like heroes. We have no interest in that. The misery I have chosen not to document here, the screams, the things we have witnessed, the guilt, the shame, the sorrow of not being able to do more, weighs heavily, and it is hard to sleep. Most dogs are killed around dawn, and if we can rescue, that’s when we go, knowing the choice is impossible, for even if one dog caught your eye at night, he may no longer be alive when you go back for him.
When Yulin ends, we will lovingly bring back to our base any souls we have saved and care for them until they can find loving homes. We will continue to hold space for the lives lost and campaign for change until the cruelty ends. One supporter to our campaign thanked us for repeatedly returning to Yulin, even though we could do so little. I was moved reading that comment; she did not ask us who we can save, but silently stood with us in compassion, knowing we are doing the best we can.
thank you everyone
Julia de Cadenet
CEO/Founder
NoToDogMeat Foundation
Please support our work by donating directly via our official fundraiser https://www.totalgiving.co.uk/appeal/Yulin2026
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