Every year at the Yulin Dog Meat festival in China it’s estimated 10,000 dogs are slaughtered. In an open letter to Yulin local government Animals Asia’s Manager of China Cats & Dogs Welfare Project, Chinese national, Deng Yidan, spells out the five reasons why holding the festival is a mistake for the region and it’s people.
The Yulin Lychee Dog Meat Festival itself is, in fact, not a tradition at all. It only started in the 1990s. It exists because of profit and has been linked to economic growth. But bad news has increasingly overshadowed the good. Negative coverage is growing - dog theft, criminal activities, food hygiene issues, and rabies fears - not to mention the division in society between those for and against the festival. Together these have brought significantly more negative publicity to Yulin than economic benefits.

In China, few, if any, dog meat farms remain. Classed as carnivores, dogs have proven difficult to raise under general livestock conditions in China, mainly owing to high feeding cost, high rate of injuries and deaths from fighting under stressful conditions, as well as high risk of disease and infection.

Dogs are easily prone to injury or disease under such conditions. As a result of transporting them across great distances in crowded cages – to areas of highest demand  – a high percentage of animals both catch, and share, disease.