Xu Zhihui - Xu Mouhui - Jack Hot Strip - Jack Spicey Strip leads a gang torturing/killing street cats in China

NEWS AND OPINION: Xu Zhihui - Xu Mouhui - Jack Hot Strip - Jack Spicey Strip leads a gang torturing street cats in China and he created a video game app in which cats are cruelly killed in kitchen blenders. These are ALLEGATIONS. He did it for real! He killed a cat in a blender and videoed it and uploaded the video to Chinese social media.

Update: I've been told by a reliable associate who knows more than I do about this evil gang of cat torturers that the man I've mentioned Xu Zhihui is not the true leader of this gang but a person living in America who funds them. I am confirming this because it sounds very strange to me. Note: I could not confirm it and believe it was a lie.

The real leaders are in hiding and they use the name Xu Zhihui to post videos. I don't know whether this is a real person or a fictional person. Probably the latter. It is symptomatic of this story that it is shrouded in smoke and mirrors which what I'd expect.

Xu Zhihui - Xu Mouhui - Jack Hot Strip - Jack Spicey Strip. Gross and disgusting cat torturer and killer who needs to be stopped asap.

Gang? torturing and killing street cats

The story isn't clear but in my current opinion, Xu Zhihui is the leader of a gang (not sure if it's a gang or he kills alone) of Chinese men who like to torture and kill street cats in China. He is a food blogger/vlogger and he runs multiple accounts. He has a large following on a Chinese website called Bilibili with 400,000 followers and a Weibo account with over 20,000 fans. He posts videos of himself cooking (cats??). 

That seems to be his mainstream activity but I would allege that as a side activity to entertain himself and his gang of merry murderers, he commits the most heinous animal cruelty against street cats.

Cowcat was brutally tortured for 3 days by a famous food blogger. The Cowcat case kind of leads and symbolizes this "animal rights movement" in China.

I briefly saw a picture of one of the cats he horrendously tortured (I think the above tweet refers to it). He tied the cat up and cut off the cat's paws and then burnt the cat to death. And there is an uploaded image of this. It's something I shouldn't have seen but I just bumped into it. There is another below but I have pixelated it.

There is a current movement in China for animal welfare laws due to the hideous torture of this cat. If Beijing does create laws because of this cat's torture it would be the best legacy any cat has given to the world ever.

Different names

The problem with this man is that he has various names and personas and therefore is very difficult to know where the truth lies. For example, another name is Xu Mouhui (online name @jack spicy strip).

And I've written about this man before firstly in respect of a video game which I think he created. I don't know for sure but I think he did. It's a video game in which the player kills cats by putting them in blenders and in other cruel ways.

Beaten up

It fits in very nicely with his general modus operandi (MO) which is to torture cats and kill them. And I've seen on Twitter allegations that he killed cats by putting them in microwaves or one of his gang did. And also, I have a page on another website in which I have a video showing him allegedly being beaten up on the streets of China. Note: this video may show a gang beating up someone else in Holland! See what I mean. It is all smoke and mirrors.

It appears that he became well-known enough to be recognised and he wasn't just known for his cooking but also for his cat killing and torture.

No animal welfare laws China

The great difficulty with this man is stopping him. This is because in China they have very weak animal welfare laws. There is no umbrella animal welfare law which protects animals in general. This is shocking in itself. In fact, it is as shocking to know this as it is to know that this disgusting man allegedly tortures and kills cats.

But perhaps he does it because he knows he can get away with it. It is just not illegal to do it. However, my research on a Chinese website, Weibo.com tells me that the police are involved (but in what way?) and although there is no penalty for abusing stray cats and dogs 'without owners' (as they say) it may be against the law to upload videos of animal abuse because it is a breach of the peace. It disturbs society and undermines the cohesion of society. That, as I understand it, maybe why his activities could be illegal in China.

Apology

He apologised but can we believe that he is sincere? He asked to be given another chance. And he said that he was willing to bear all the consequences of his actions. He posted this apology on April 27 on his Weibo channel. 

On that channel he writes:

I am "Jack Hot Strip" Xu Zhihui, and I feel very ashamed, remorseful and sorry for my behavior of abusing cats and taking videos, grafting videos of online cat abuse and sharing in QQ groups.

You can read the apology and see a disgusting video (click here) in which I believe his apology is written out but, in the background, out of focus, is a video of a cat being abused. Thankfully it is out of focus but even then, it is horrifying and shocking.

Weibo post

On Weibo below this post (poor translation from Chinese) is the picture below which I have partly pixelated.

Jack Spicy Strip only admits to abusing cats, without mentioning the industrial chain formed by shooting cat-abuse videos, have these audiences investigated? Nearly a thousand demons in the group are quick to enjoy the abuse and mutilation of weak lives, and dare not imagine how twisted and ugly souls are covered under human skin, this is only the tip of the iceberg that has been exposed, there is no cost of crime, there will always be abuse and mutilation in the dark places!!!

That link also takes you to his channel on Weibo.com. If you are a Chinese speaker then you will be much more able than me to understand what is going on.

The trouble is that Weibo.com translates the Chinese into English and it is very poor English. In fact, it is unintelligible. But the general drift is that people don't believe his apology is genuine.

My thanks to whatsonweibo.com and Twitter.

Horrible cruelty in China against a working donkey

The background music is obviously highly inappropriate but probably significantly in line with the attitude of the person that we see beating this donkey because they can't pull a weight which apparently is far too heavy for them (I can't watch it). This is a very difficult topic because it means we have to talk about cultural attitudes which are clearly in general completely different in China compared to the UK for instance.

The tweet accompanying the video from 'We Are Not Food' states:

Does this reflect China's attitude towards animals? Or would it be high time to start protecting these most vulnerable members of society? The choice of background music tells a lot - no respect for the suffering of a sentient being.

I have a nice article which I wrote some time ago which helps to explain these cultural differences and which you can read by clicking on this link if you wish. I think that it is a very enlightening article because it does mystify a lot of people in the West as to how people in China - I'm referring to some people in China - can be so brutally cruel to animals without any sensitivity towards their sentience.

It is a tradition. Culture is a tradition. And that is one of the great problems with relying on cultural attitudes to guide one. These cultures originate in a bygone era perhaps 2-3000 years ago. Attitudes then were far less sophisticated than they are now. A country's culture and attitudes must evolve with changes in modern life. This certainly applies to animal welfare.

Improvements in animal welfare are being made but too slowly. Traditional cultures are holding back improvement in animal welfare. It's time for change in that respect. It is time for a greater enlightenment about hanging on to old-fashioned cultures which foster animal abuse as we see in this distressing video.

Chinese citizens bravely protest to improve animal welfare in China

This page shows two separate incidents of Chinese citizens protesting about the lack of animal welfare in China. The first photos shows leaflets which were thrown from a high building (a tower block in an urban area). The report says that the person who did it lived in the block and as they walked down the stairs, they threw the pamphlets out of the window. 

Here is a better image:

We don't know exactly what the pamphlets say but they are to do with a desire to improve animal welfare in China. They may be concerned with the cat meat business in China which occurs in the south. I'm not sure but we do know that there are almost no animal welfare laws in China so it is fair to presume that the leaflets are demanding an improvement to the law.

In the second protest you can see a rather poor-quality video which was taken direct from my computer screen because I could not embed the video from Twitter (subsequently I was able to carry out the embed - see tweet below). It shows very brave women protesting about the lack of animal welfare laws in China as I understand it.

I say that they are brave because China is a democratic dictatorship of some sort. I'm not sure quite what it is but in effect it is a dictatorship. A one-party state. And I sense that it is difficult to protest about anything in China which concerns criticising the government. I suspect that they are always vulnerable to being arrested on a false pretext or some drummed up pretext in order to silence them. Any dissent by citizens is normally squashed pretty quickly in China as I understand it.

For me and I hope many others this is welcome news. These are well motivated people taking a risk on their health and welfare to help animals whose health and welfare is always at risk in China. The Yulin dog meat festival comes to mind as one example. There are many others. 

How can the 10-day dog meat market in Yulin be called a FESTIVAL!?

It is an international scandal that China refuses to introduce proper animal welfare laws as have been in existence for decades in the West.

#Beijing, China 🇨🇳 May 14th 2023

These Chinese activists are amazing 👏 👏👏

Thank you for speaking up for the #animals. So happy about this. Thank you very much. Animal protection law now!!#stopanimalcruelty #stopanimalabuse #cowcat #blendercat #animalprotectionlaw #China pic.twitter.com/K6bpOP98Jl

— We Are Not Food (@WeAreNotFood) May 15, 2023

The Communist Party don't want animal welfare laws as they go against the general attitude in China that animals are to be used. The government doesn't want to upset the citizens I guess and in any case the government agrees that animals are to be used and don't want interfering animal welfare laws and they don't care about how it looks to Westerners.

There is a horrendous couple of photos of a crucified cat being burned from I believe China. I am surprised Twitter allows them. I can't publish them here. I am appalled. 

Calico cat posted from China to Canada!

This is an extraordinary story but I doubt whether it is the first time that this has happened. This is a news story plus my opinion. Canada Border Services Agency officers at the Vancouver International Mail Center in Richmond, British Columbia contacted the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals when they discovered a calico cat inside a box that appears to have been posted from China.

Calico cat posted from China to Canada. They've named her Precious. Image: BC SPCA.

The agency workers noticed that the box was damaged which allowed them to look inside whereupon they saw two eyes blinking back at them! They managed to coax the calico (tortoiseshell-and-white) cat out of the box into a dog kennel in which there was bedding and water.

They say the cat was healthy but frightened. Unsurprising that they were frightened. The agency service workers contacted the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the BC SPCA sent an animal control officer to take the cat to an emergency veterinary clinic.

She was stabilised in the clinic but nobody is sure exactly where the cat came from or how long she was in transit. Because of that she was vaccinated against rabies and given rehydration fluids and tested for diseases and parasites.

She started to settle down and was placed with a foster carer at the BC SPCA who intends to adopt her when she has fully recovered.

Under foster care she is improving and has started to eat and drink more and is becoming comfortable in her surroundings.

My opening words are that this is an extraordinary story but as also mentioned it is not a unique one. In 2018 people tried to smuggle in a tiger cub at the Texas border. And in 2022 there was an attempt to smuggle two toucans into the US hidden in a purse. That attempt was thwarted by U.S. Customs and border protection.

Source: Newsweek.

PETA compares eating fish to eating dead cats. People need to 'sea' things better.

NEWS AND COMMENT: A spokesperson for PETA said: 

"Grimsby – the centre of the UK’s “seafood” processing industry is catching some heat from PETA with a new lenticular billboard – showing a smiling fishmonger holding a limp fish from one angle and a dead cat from another – urging locals to see fish as intelligent, sensitive individuals and opt for vegan fare instead."

PETA chose Grimsby, UK because it is a fishing town; historically connected with fishing and they put the sign outside a fish and chip shop.

PETA compares eating fish with eating dead cats. Image: Grimsby Live.

Apparently if you look at the billboard poster from different angles you either see a fish or a dead cat. 

A clever aspect of the billboard is the use of the word 'sea' which sound like 'see'. They are asking people to see more clearly what they are doing.

Separately, it might be worth noting that thousands of people in Asia like to eat dead stray and domestic cats particularly if they have been killed brutally as it improves the flesh's medicinal properties.

As you can tell from the statement at the top of the page, PETA want people in general to consider fish as sentient beings. And further they want people to opt for a vegan diet.

Personally, I am also pushing for fish welfare. A study has found that fish feel pain (link below). Because millions of fish have been caught over the years, it seems that human kind regards fish as harvesting wheat and not killing billions of animals in a painful way through suffocation.

RELATED: Fish endure prolonged suffering due to a failure to stun them before slaughter.

It's time for a change. It's a time to change the perceptions of the general public. It will be difficult because the fishing community is pushing back against this poster on the sidewalk. This about protecting jobs.

And also, fish is constantly promoted as a healthy food source. It will be many years before people come off fish solely because they regard them as sentient creatures.

But things are changing because little by little people are realising that animals are sentient and have the power to feel emotions. Animal are often far more intelligent than the vast majority of people believe. Studies are gradually revealing this intelligence.

Personally, I am totally for PETA on this and in all the work they do. They push tirelessly for animal welfare and they don't mind shocking. In fact, they have decided that creating shocking campaigns is the best way to catch people's attention and change their attitudes.

Dog fan falls for a tiny rescue cat 'down a leg, two ears and a tail' but full of love and personality

This interesting looking small cat was bred in China and adopted by a couple in America which is very unusual in itself. It looks like the Chinese breeder is creating Chinchilla Persian-like dwarf cats. She is called Mochi. It is the first time I have heard of a Chinese cat breeder exporting internationally from the country where they eat domestic cats in the south.

Mochi. Image: Instagram (Greg McDouglas).

Mochi has become bit of a star because of her unusual appearance. And that has come about because of a very severe illness she suffered after she arrived in America. She developed ischemic dermatopathy. 

My understanding is that this was an autoimmune response which attacked her body leading to widespread inflammation which further led to necrosis in parts of her body. That's why her ear flaps were amputated and her tail. She also lost the paw of one leg

But, of course, it hasn't slowed her down one bit. She's made a full recovery and is flourishing in a home where she is deeply loved. The power of love is immense.

Mochi ended up in a shelter where she spent two months recovering.

A Boston couple, Greg and Natalia, were thinking about adopting a rescue cat and they hit the jackpot in adopting Mochi. That "jackpot" description refers to the possibility of them becoming celebrities vicariously on social media because sometimes interesting looking cats can become quite famous on social media.

Mochi in her nice home. Image: Instagram.

Greg McDouglas and Natalia have taken super care of her. When she arrived, she weighed 2.5 pounds as a tiny kitten but has grown to a healthy 4 pounds in weight. It is a very nice home. You can feel the love.

She is infectiously cute and people love cuteness. Greg is appreciative of the luck he had in being able to adopt Mochi. And Mochi is appreciative of the luck she had in being adopted by him and his partner.

Apparently, they were selected by the shelter because they had no kids or pets and they were young adults. That's an indication of the kind of profile that you might have if you want to be selected by a shelter to adopt a shelter cat.

The shelter by the way is the MSPCA Angell shelter in Boston.

Tiny rescue kitten with a big personality 😺
Down a leg, two ears & a tail but full of love. Link to Instagram page.

The video doesn't work very well but you'll get the story just fine.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mochi (@mochi.boston)

Presence of cachavirus in Chinese pet cats

A study (lead scientist: Jun Ji) detected the presence of cachavirus in Chinese pet cats, with a low infection rate of approximately 1.17% in diarrheic cats (cats with diarrhea). The virus was found to co-infect with FPV (Feline parvovirus) in one sample, and there was no statistically significant association between the presence of the virus and diarrheic signs.

Tabby and white street cat in China. Image in public domain.

The study suggests that larger investigations and animal inoculation experiments are needed to determine whether cachavirus may be pathogenic (a pathogen such as a bacterium or a virus causing disease). The phylogenetic trees based on NS1 and VP1 indicate that the cachaviruses from dogs and cats belong to the same branch, suggesting a recent common origin. However, the cachavirus strains detected in Chinese cats were quite different from the fechavirus and more closely related to the virus previously found in dogs in the United States. 

The study only obtained a partial genome sequence, and further studies are required to obtain the complete sequence and confirm the difference. Compared with Cachavirus-1A and Cachavirus-1B, the cachavirus from cats demonstrated changes in amino acid sites, and some mutations changed the tertiary structure modeling of the two major viral proteins as predicted. 

Further studies are needed to investigate whether these changes lead to changes in the virus's function and pathogenesis. In conclusion, the study identified a novel parvovirus, cachavirus, in Chinese pet cats, which now appears to infect both dogs and cats. The findings of this study enhance our understanding of the tropism of different members of the Carnivore Chaphamaparvovirus 1 species.

Canine Cachavirus was novel parvovirus species has been firstly identified in dogs in USA.

The study referred to: Genetic Analysis of Cachavirus-Related Parvoviruses Detected in Pet Cats: The First Report From China. Link: https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2020.580836

Dogs

A similar study concerning the same virus in dogs was published 3 days before this one. It is called: Molecular characterization of Cachavirus firstly detected in dogs in China. 

The highlights are:

• This study firstly reported the presence of Cachavirus in pet dogs in China.
• A low rate of Cachavirus positivity (1.23%) was found only in dogs with diarrhea symptoms.
• Most mutations were found in NS1 of Chinese Cachavirus strains compared with the two strains from the United States.

Note: Google does not help me in providing details of this virus. Nonetheless I feel that the study is useful.

Toxoplasma gondii infections in Chinese and ethnic minority races in China mainly caused by eating raw meats

The people who dislike cats say that cat owners and other people get toxoplasma gondii infections from cats through cat faeces as the feces can contain oocysts for a short period. And there's lots of discussion on the Internet about this and whether a pregnant woman should have a domestic cat companion. Toxoplasmosis is a zoonotic disease.

But the experts, and I would include myself in that, say that the major way people contract toxoplasma gondii infections is through their handling of and their eating of certain foods. I'm referring to undercooked or uncooked foods and handling raw foods and then using their hands to eat cooked foods. This creates cross contamination.

And in this vein, I've picked up a study on the Internet about Toxoplasma gondii infections in humans in China dated 2011.

The study is interesting because in certain parts of China they have very specific eating habits. Sometimes these eating habits exacerbate the likelihood of contracting toxoplasmosis.

The first human case of toxoplasmosis in China was reported in 1964 and there were many human cases reported in China after an epidemic survey on toxoplasmosis was carried out in Guangxi province in 1978. The difficulty is that it is hard to glean information from Chinese documents because little information is published in English.

Interestingly, and this point needs to be made, based upon the documents surveyed, the prevalence of toxoplasmosis in humans in China is lower than in France for example (50-75% seropositive). A lot lower in fact. Although in the provinces in China the incidences of toxoplasmosis increased from 5.2% in 1988 to 7.9% in 2004.

Guizhou province and Guangxi province had the highest levels of prevalence at 15.1% and 12.7% respectively. The ethic group Miao and the highest incidence of Toxoplasma gondii infections in people at 25.4%.

They state that the eating habits of the ethnic groups surveyed were an important part in being infected. For example, people living in south-west China enjoy eating raw or half-raw meat. Or they eat animal organs as part of their tradition. They might eat sour-meat or pork or beef which is half-raw. The Mongol people like to eat their traditional food using their hands after contact with animals or raw meat (Mongolian Finger Mutton).

The study points to the fact that the greatest risk of being infected with toxoplasma gondii is through eating or handling raw meat. A toxoplasma gondii infection is usually harmless (asymptomatic) but can cause serious illness.

The incidence of Chinese citizens with tuberculosis and hepatitis B of a toxoplasma gondii infection was much higher at 35.3% and 19.2% respectively. Most of the cases were chronic infections. And they state that "70% of individuals infected with T gondii and tuberculosis had the experience of intimate contact with animals."

The study concluded that the oral route of a T. gondii infection is the major route. And pigs in China are often infected. The infection rate in pigs in some parts of China is 53.4% whereas in the USA it is 2.7%. The Chinese like their pork. As I recall, they are the biggest consumers of pork in the world.

The conclusion that one takes from the study is that the greatest risk of being infected with T gondii is through the handling and eating of raw or semi-raw meats due to cultural traditions.

In the West, such as in America, the greatest risk will be through handling raw meat in the kitchen. Veterinarians will tell you that people get the disease from eating raw or undercooked pork, beef, mutton or veal or unpasteurised dairy products which contain toxoplasma organisms.

It is the handling of these products and the consuming of them and the necessary regulations and advice issued by governments concerning these matters that count in terms of reducing infections. 

Educational programs are important to help people change their habit of consuming undercooked meat. Lastly, water that hasn't been boiled in certain districts of China are an issue because oocysts can survive up to 3 years and be transmitted by water through direct drinking.

The study: Zhou, P., Chen, Z., Li, HL. et al. Toxoplasma gondii infection in humans in China. Parasites Vectors 4, 165 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1186/1756-3305-4-165

Woman in China locked out of her home uses her cat to get in (video). True or False?!

USA Today introduces the video below with these words: "A woman in China was locked out of her home after forgetting her keys. Luckily, one of her cats was able to unlock the door for her."

Do you see the ginger cat unlocking the door? I don't. They don't question whether this is implausible. It has to be a false assessment. A lie - a fake. Strong words but I feel that they are true words.

The cat lets the owner in by jumping up onto the door's handle and pulling it downwards using their weight. They did not turn any key or adjust any locking mechanism inside the door. They simply pulled down on the handle as stated. This means that the woman outside on the other side of the door was able to pull down the handle in just the same way. 

Therefore, she was not locked out. Also, it means that this is a fabricated video as so many are to try and get some views and a little bit of internet fame for the video maker vicariously through their companion cat. 

It is incredibly tiresome for someone like me and it is compounded by the blind journalism simply regurgitating what they've been told in the video or by somebody else.

This video may disappear over time as they often do and if so, I apologise but I can't control this as it is embedded into this site but held on USA Today's server.

Why is the cat omitted from the Chinese zodiac? It is not!

Answer (my answer!): the cat is listed as one of the 12 zodiac animal species as the tiger, a specific species within the cat family. The creators of the zodiac therefore included the cat but as a distinct species and not generically as at the time of creation of the zodiac - 2,500 years ago - there were no domestic cats in China.

---

There are 12 Chinese zodiac signs, in the following order: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig. There is ostensibly a shocking omission: the 'cat'. With the domestic dog, the domestic cat is the most popular companion animal in the world.

However, the cat is listed in the zodiac as a specific species namely the tiger. If you read the serious version set out below, you'll see what I mean.

Chinese zodiac of 12 animals. Image: MikeB

There are 2 versions for the reason for the omission. One serious and the other a myth. 

Serious version

The Chinese Zodiac was created about 2500 years ago. It hasn't changed since that time. At the time of its creation the domestic cat had not arrived in China. This occurred when pet cats were introduced to China along the silk Road during the period 386-589 A.D. around 1600 years ago.

On those figures, the Chinese Zodiac was created 900 years, almost 1000 years, before the people who created the Zodiac had seen domestic cats.

Comment: I think that's a pretty weak argument. My research indicates that the South China tiger was in China 2 million years ago. There must've been tigers in China when they created the Zodiac.

Tiger

This is why the tiger is listed as one of the signs of the Chinese Zodiac. The tiger is obviously a cat, actually the world's largest cat species. Therefore, they could not include another cat species in the zodiac when the domestic cat arrived a thousand years later. Logically this must be the reason why the "cat" is not specifically listed as a generic name for all the species of cats.

The problem is that they have taken one species of the cat family - the tiger - and listed it whereas for the other animals they have used generic terms and not broken it down into specific species.

Myth

The myth plays out as follows. The divine Jade Emperor organised a race for animals and there would be 12 winners each one getting a spot on the zodiac.

The cat and the rat were in the race but they were friends. They joined the race together and they hitched a ride on an ox to cross a river. While they were crossing the river the rat pushed the cat off the ox because they were fearful of being beaten by the cat in the race.

The cat did not drown but lost the chance of securing one of the 12 zodiac signs. This, incidentally, is why the cat hunts rats which is not actually true because modern day rats are a little bit too big for the average domestic cat!

President Xi Jinping President of the People's Republic of China supports animal cruelty

My bold statement in the title is backed up, time and again, by the cruelty against cats and dogs perpetrated by the traders of these animals in supplying them to the cat and dog meat markets in the south of China; specifically, the city of Guangzhou where cat and dog meat is very popular.

That's the first point. The second point is this: President Xi has openly declared to the world in a speech that he supports the cat and dog meat market. He sees it as a tradition which should not be eradicated. Behind his permanent, plastic, fixed half-smile is a man who is cruel to animals.

That sinister fixed grin:

Xi Jinping can change things at a stroke but refuses to. That fixed grin hides a cruel heart. Picture: Wikipedia.

The president is very fond of Chinese traditions which is to be expected. What is not to be expected and what is not to be desired is to retain cultural traditions which are abjectly and obviously cruel to animals.

This shows a myopia in the president. It's a disregard of animal welfare. If the general disregard of animal welfare by the culture of the Chinese living in China interest you, you should read an article I wrote recently about the famous contemporary artist Ai Weiwei, who currently lives in Portugal.

He has exhibited all over the world and is a renowned artist. He is also well known to be a cat lover and he finds cats more interesting than humans.

RELATED: Brilliant, compassionate Ai Weiwei loves cats and finds them more interesting than humans.

In addition, he has shed some light on the cultural traditions of the Chinese living in China which helps explain why there is a prevalence of animal cruelty in that country combined with an almost total lack of animal welfare laws. There is no legal protection in China to almost all the animals in that country.

It is hard to comprehend that fact in the modern world. This is the 21st-century. Even the most backward country has animal welfare laws of some sort. And yet China resolutely refuses to introduce them.

And once again a story from that country emerges which supports this neglectful and archaic attitude towards animals.

Death Truck

It's all over the Internet news media. Every so often we get the same story from China about animal cruelty. In this instance almost 400 dogs and cats died in a China death truck. The animals were being shipped south as mentioned and because they pile the animals together in a rickety old truck in rusty cages lots of them die on the way. They die of starvation, lack of water, suffocation et cetera.

In all, almost 1500 animals were being trafficked on this occasion. Police stopped the truck on a highway heading south. It was halfway on its 1200 km journey according to Humane Society International.

Fortunately, there are some emerging animal welfare organisations in China which can step in and rescue these animals on occasions.

Rescuers gathered at the scene including staffers from Capital Animal Welfare Association.

It discovered hundreds of dead cats and dogs and the ones that weren't dead were found to suffer from open wounds, broken bones, respiratory disease and severe dehydration.

They were treated as best they could at the roadside and then transported to a nearby school as a holding facility in preparation taking them to shelters when and where possible.

The estimated that most of the 718 dogs on the truck was stolen pets. Yes, they were snatched from homes.

One worker said: "I’ve attended many rescues of dogs and cats from the meat trade, but never before have I encountered such a shocking scene. 

This was a death truck, crammed full of desperate, frightened, traumatised animals caged up with their dead and dying companions. The smell of death, diarrhoea and vomit was overwhelming, and the sound of the animals whimpering and crying for our attention, was just heart-breaking."

Many of the workers were shocked and had tears in their eyes. One of them said: "Such appalling cruelty bring shame on China and shame on the majority of Chinese people who want nothing to do with this despicable trade". If that was correct the people of China would be up in arms about it but they are not.

The truck drivers were detained by police and the trader is facing an investigation by the Agriculture Bureau. It is said that they may face charges for transporting sick animals across provincial boundaries without legally required quarantine papers.

Notice that they are in breach of some technicality. There's nothing wrong in China in shipping thousands of dogs and cats south to be eaten after being brutally slaughtered.

It is truly time that this stops and the best way to stop it if the President of the People's Republic of China bans the trade immediately.

How you say 'cat' in Chinese (video)

No words needed really; except I think of Chairman Mao! You remember the reformer: Mao Tse-tung. It is better to call him Mao Zedong actually. Chairman Mao to his followers. I wonder if he liked cats! I doubt it. He was a Chinese Communist revolutionary and the founder of the People's Republic of China. He was the son of a prosperous peasant and supported Chinese nationalism and had an anti-imperialistic outlook when he was young. He is still regarded as one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. I can remember one thing about him! 

How you say 'cat' in Chinese (video). Screenshot.

He ordered that Chinese citizens clapped their hands all over the country to stop starlings landing to prevent the birds from damaging crops. The birds couldn't land so they died in flight and fell to the ground. They then realise that they had created a catastrophe because the starlings ate insects and there was a plague of insects as I recall. Clever wasn't it!

The word 'mao' is close to 'mau ' from Egyptian Mau. I've been to China many years ago. When I was there, they all wore blue suits and underneath the blue suits they had their preferred clothes which were much brighter. This I think was the end of Chairman Mao's era to have all the citizens like robots. That was how it seemed to me. I was in Beijing and I cycled to an opera house and the air was thick with dust and pollution. 

You could almost chew the air it was so filthy. There was and perhaps there still is a higher rate of throat cancer in Beijing and the surrounding areas because of pollution. I suspect things have changed but China is renowned for burning coal and giving up on trying to prevent climate change. I am waffling.

Cats living in the Palace Museum grounds, Beijing, China (video)

Here's a short video of cats living at the Palace Museum in Beijing. It is situated in the heart of the city. A record 17.5 million people visited the museum in 2018. It is within the Forbidden City. Entrance tickets currently cost $9.11. It is open between Tuesday and Sunday, 8:30 AM-4:30 PM. You can buy tickets on TripAdvisor. It gets a 4.5 out of five rating on their reviews (14,103 reviews).

The cats of the Palace Museum in Beijing. Screenshot.

It is one of the most comprehensive museums in China. The Forbidden City is nearly 600 years old. Construction was completed in 1420.

It is nice to see semi-feral or perhaps domestic cats inhabiting this venerated and famous museum in the Forbidden City. It indicates a tolerance towards street cats in China which I believed or still believe are generally badly tolerated. Although things are changing, I believe and hope.

I remember just before the Beijing Olympic Games when the authorities cleaned up the city by brutally rounding up and killing all the street cats with a complete disregard for animal welfare. 

They wanted to present a nice clean and organised city to visitors to the games from all corners of the world. At the same time, they brutally eradicated street dogs. This is in complete contrast what we see in this video.

I do not know the relationship between the museum management and these cats. It may be a gentle one with respect. I have no idea. Perhaps they cull these cats in the off-season as occurs in Greece but that is speculative and there is no evidence that I have found to state that this happens.

Animal rights activists in China fighting against the cat and dog meat trade

This is a good news story for animal advocates among the depressing stuff from China. The world is aware of the barbaric and brutal cat and dog meat trade in China. It truly is the worst of human behaviour resulting in catastrophic cruelty to, often, domestic animals. 

Yes, a recent story on the Independent newspaper states that 126 animals were saved from a slaughterhouse. These dogs were destined for a brutal death but were plucked to safety from an illegal operation. Many of these animals had collars. These are domestic companion animals. They are stolen from the streets and from houses et cetera to fuel this disgusting trade.

If the authorities were doing their job this trade wouldn't happen. If China had animal welfare laws it wouldn't happen. If they had animal welfare laws that were enforced it wouldn't happen. This trade is entirely due to ridiculous, out of date and ancient superstitions in combination with local government and national government which is entirely disinterested in animal welfare.

However, on the upside, there are some green shoots and there have been for some time of animal activist in China - and these are Chinese people - fighting back. One example is on Newsweek. It shows a video in which 282 dogs, some destined for the meat trade being rescued. The animal advocates intercepted a truck carrying these dogs.

On the truck there were 260 puppies and 22 adult dogs. The truck was making a 1000-mile journey. It was stopped on a highway in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui. The news comes from the Humane Society International. They described it as a "truck from hell". The conditions were so poor that 12 of the puppies had died at the time the truck was intercepted. A further 18 died shortly afterwards due to parvovirus and distemper. The surviving puppies suffered from dehydration and starvation in skin diseases.

However, if you do a search on Google, you will find that there are quite a few animal rescues by animal advocates in China normally from the back of trucks. These animals are destined to be brutally slaughtered by psychopathic traders. How do people become that callous? Many, many years of a culture and their way of life which simply totally disregards the sentience of animals and the fact that they feel pain and have emotions. That's the reason.

But this is a good news story because I'm seeing a change in China although it is far too slow. How does China think that they can integrate into the world community if they refuse to enact animal welfare laws. China is eons behind the UK and other European countries in this regard. They are living in the past. Their attitude towards animal welfare is that of mediaeval times. Shame on them. Shame on the president of China who supports traditional Chinese medicine which is the source of huge conservation problems but that is another subject albeit equally bad and depressing.

Cat Hell Dog Nightmare Human Norm

WARNING: this is about dog and cat meat and the brutality of the business. It's just horrendous. The pictures are from a horror movie only it's real this time. And for the perpetrators it is all normal but got the cats and dogs it is a living hell until they are mercifully killed. You have to click links to see the pics as they are too horrible to have on this page. 

The brutal and ignorant behavior by the humans (sub-humans) who kill cats and dogs for meat reminds me of Putin's behavior in his manic desire to invade Ukraine and the subsequent death, destruction and rape perpetrated by his troops. There is not much difference in attitude which is why Russia is matey with China and vice versa.

It is tough to face up to humankind's weaknesses. People in one country don't like people in another country criticising them. They say "you don't understand our culture" and "what right have you got to criticise". That sort of thing. At its root, this article is not about a country's culture. It is about obvious animal cruelty of the most heinous kind. It is about base human behavior dressed up as part of an area's culture. All of us have a right to criticise that wherever we are. Despite that I will be ostracized by someone, somewhere.

This website never shirks from spelling out the truth. A lot of people don't like that. Humankind is very good at self-denial and finding ways of covering up the truth. Millions of examples take place every day. The current classics in the cat world are:

1. The mass slaughter of unwanted cats at "shelters" while we have fancy cat shows showing gorgeous, purebred cats bred for the purpose. You cannot justify having the latter while the former takes place.
2. Declawing of cats. A modern aberration and horribly distorted human behavior that one day will look ridiculous - hopefully.

To the above two I'd like to add something that is worse than both but which takes place at the opposite side of the world, in Asia. There are some horror pictures below the text. This is as bad as animal cruelty gets. See also cat meat name and shame.

Warning: Don't read on if, like me, you become upset at gross animal abuse. But please spread the word to try and stop this.

I received an email from Ольга Брундасова. I have published the contents verbatim. I believe that is what she wants me to do. I expect that you will find these words on other websites. They need to be.

PETITIONS

Update: these petitions are closed now as this post was written many years ago but it has been updated (see below in yellow highlighter).

• www.thepetitionsite.com/1/meat-trade--dogs-cats/  
• www.thepetitionsite.com/368/stop-animal-abuse-china/  
• https://secure2.convio.net/ida/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=2169  
• http://www.ptroa.co.il/petition/  
• www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/395/884/823/

The $2 billion dollar-a-year South Korean dog and cat meat industry, which extinguishes the lives of approximately two and a half million dogs a year for meat or gaesoju, a dog wine or broth, and thousands of despised and doomed cats for so-called “health” tonics or goyangyeesoju, and soup, operates in a sordid and illicit world where farmers and butchers kill with frightening impunity in the most abominable fashion. Dogs are killed with high-voltage electronic rods (which does not kill immediately), hanging, or even beating the dog to death at the request of customers who believe that the meat is more tender and tastier the greater the dog suffers (one of the most pernicious of myths) and that the medicinal properties are enhanced. 

They are most often killed within sight of their cage mates. They are then thrown into a tub of boiling water, often still alive, and then into a rotating drum for the removal of their fur, and finally blowtorched. At Moran Market, South Korea’s largest open air-market for dog meat, dog carcasses are on display next to the cages of live dogs. Cats are thrown into boiling water while alive. At the farms, dogs are fed germ-infested, rotting, and fermented human leftovers, a health risk to both the dogs and those who eat them. In South Korea, dogs and cats’ lives are short and ferociously heartless until they tremble no more at the hands of their slaughterers as cage mates look on.

Legitimacy of dog meat in Korea

Dogs are defined as “livestock” according to the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAF). The purpose of keeping them as livestock--for breeding, killing, or whatever--is irrelevant to the law.

However, dogs are not defined as “livestock” under the Livestock Processing Law. That is, they are not listed as livestock that can be officially processed as food. Therefore, it can be inferred it is illegal to process dogs for food, but there is no law expressly forbidding it.

It might be argued that since Korean laws are usually strict in listing what is allowed or prohibited, and since dogs are not listed as animals that can be processed as food, then it is illegal to produce dog meat.

The current Animal Protection Law does not ban the slaughter of dogs for meat, nor does it protect dogs on dog farms from abuse. It only applies to dogs kept in a house.

Tens of millions of animals are slaughtered and butchered in China each year. Animal fur is in high demand, and the Chinese deliver. What does not get exported outside of China usually ends up on a dinner plate. The sad fact is that the animals suffer horrendous torture. They are captured on the streets, and packed by the dozens into small cages, without ability to move. 

They are then tossed like inanimate objects from the trucks, onto the ground, hitting each other and the steel cages. These cages are later stacked, and the real nightmare begins. The animal is brutally pulled out of the cage, and tied to prevent resistance. It is lightly stunned by a blow on the head, but still alive. If the animal is not heavy, the worker holds it by its hind legs, waves it in the air and then bashes its head against the ground. Once the animal is subdued, a new and incomprehensible stage in this ongoing nightmare begins. 

The worker cuts a tiny incision in the animal's rear, and then methodically peels away the skin. This skinning process takes about a minute, during which the worker actively keeps the animal alive, as it is believed that it is easier to skin the animal while it is still warm and blood flows through its veins. The nightmare does not end here. 

The final stage in this unbelievable horror is when the animal is tossed aside, and slowly, amidst a heap of its dying friends, it perishes as it is no longer able to withstand the pain. In other cases, when the animal's fur is not needed (mostly with cats), the animals are put in a sack, and are then cooked alive in a barrel of boiling water.

Back in the day, there was a series of photographs below this text. But the policies regarding the kind of pictures you can put on websites has changed over the years. Nowadays, advertisers don't want their adverts to be in any way associated with pictures which are difficult to view. Accordingly, below, you will see a series of links to these photographs. You remain on this page and will be able to view the pictures on another page where there are no adverts. Sorry for the inconvenience.

These are all brutal photos. Horrible. A complete breakdown in morality. It's ignorance and cruelty.

Image 1 - dog being beaten to death
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China is developing a western-style relationship with their pets. Time for animal welfare laws.

It is reported that there has been a 30% increase over recent years in the number of pet funeral-related enterprises in China. In other words, more and more citizens of China are deciding to cremate their companion animal on their passing. This clearly indicates a close relationship between human caregiver and animal.

Chinese woman and black cat. Photo: Adobe Stock.

For example, at Zhongqiao village in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province, there is a white building which is a pet crematorium. It's reported that more than 3,000 companion animals have been cremated there over the past three years.

The owner of the crematorium says that prices are scaled according to the size of the animal and they range from 800-2000 Yuan per cremation. This is US$125.8-US$314.4.

The prices seem quite high. In the UK, you can get an individual companion animal cremation for around a similar price. And I'm going to presume that the prices quoted in China relate to non-individual cremations. 

I much prefer individual cremations because when you receive the ashes you know that they are absolutely the ashes of your companion animal although, you probably know, that in a proper cremation there is no DNA left of the animal in the ashes.

I'm also told that there are now 6,900 pet funeral and cremation businesses in China. This comes from Tianyancha, an enterprise big data service provider.

All the more reason, therefore, for the Chinese authorities to introduce, as a matter of urgency, proper, general animal welfare laws that protect all animals as has been the case in the West for many, many years. 

RELATED: Pet ownership surging in China but still no general animal welfare law!

They simply have to adopt an existing piece of legislation in the West such as the Animal Welfare Act 2006 in the UK. This is an excellent act which not only protects animals but also sets out the basic requirements of animal welfare.

Is it such a mountain to climb to the Chinese authorities to integrate this sort of legislation into their society?

The lack of animal protection laws in China results in state-sanctioned animal cruelty as recently evidenced in Shanghai - read this story by clicking here.

Shanghai: men in hazmat suits roam the streets beating pets to death

See the CNN video by clicking on this link (opens new tab). China's zero-tolerance policy on Covid-19 is having disastrous consequences with citizens becoming utterly desperate. The CNN report shows a man in a white hazmat suit beating a corgi to death on the street. It is unbelievable but it is not the first time pandemic officials in China have done this. A disregard for decency and common sense is very evident. They have a 100% lockdown for the Omicron variant which has symptoms no worse than a cold!

RELATED: Chinese health workers “disinfect” an apartment by killing the owner’s dog with a crowbar!

Shanghai: men in hazmat suits roam the streets beating pets to death

In Britain we regard it as a cold and ignore it. And yet in China they are killing pets over it. No discussion with anyone. No attempt it seems to find the owner and give them a chance to go home with the pet. They just go up to the dog or cat and kill them it appears, judging by this video. The video is a compilation of videos and some of these videos have gone viral. I am unsurprised as the incidents are shocking.

Screenshot from video of man in hazmat suit who killed a corgi with a shovel. Why not take the dog into quarantine and run Covid tests? How could he do it?

I have expanded on this story. It really is a story is state-sanctioned animal cruelty:

Shanghai residents fight back against state-sanctioned Covid-related animal cruelty

Update

What happened to this corgi is potentially happening to a lot of other pets in Shanghai. In this instance, as I understand it, the owner tested positive for the Omicron variant of Covid-19 and under the rules of Shanghai and perhaps wider China, they had to go into quarantine. She was carted off to quarantine and the dog was taken out into the street and killed with a shovel. Shanghai residents are now taking steps to avoid this kind of incident. We don't know how many pets have been killed in this way. But in Britain, as mentioned, we don't see Omicron Covid-19 as a threat to the health of the nation. We treat it as a cold.

Hong Kongers are struggling to get their cats and dogs out of Hong Kong in a mass exodus because of Beijing's crackdown

NEWS AND COMMENT-HONG KONG: The world has heard about Beijing's crackdown on Hong Kongers for being too democratic. China is in breach of the treaty with the UK to allow democracy to exist in Hong Kong until 2047. They unilaterally decided that the agreement was over and jumped the gun and imposed their version of democracy in Hong Kong much too soon which has forced many thousands of Hong Kongers to leave. They have to get out. Their freedoms including freedom of expression have been lost.

Hong Kongers are struggling to get their cats and dogs out of Hong Kong in a mass exodus because of Beijing's crackdown. Photo in public domain.

In fact, since January 2022, 2,500 Hong Kongers have arrived in the UK (or are applying to emigrate to the UK) every week. I think we can expect perhaps several hundred thousand Hong Kongers to be in the UK in due course. There appears to be a bit of a crisis in certain work sections of Hong Kong such as school teachers where they describe a brain drain. Hong Kong has changed massively thanks to Beijing's crackdown on freedom of expression.

That's the background and is causing real problems with companion animals. The problem, as I understand it, is that people are desperate to get out of Hong Kong but they are still in a Covid pandemic. This has placed, as we all know, severe restrictions on flights both incoming and outgoing into all countries including Hong Kong.

In addition, the Chinese authorities, apply a zero-Covid policy both in China and Hong Kong. They have a very strict set of rules in order to squash the transmission of the virus. This in addition, creates barriers to free movement including flight out of the country.

As a consequence, it is reported that some Hong Kongers have joined together, perhaps via social media, to fund private jets to fly them and their pets out of the former British colony. It was a dependent territory of the British Empire from 1841 to 1997.

Hong Kong's population declined by 1.2% in the first six months of 2021 according to a recent census. I believe this is been put down to this mass exodus. 

Businesses who arrange charter flights are busy. Chris Phillips, who works as a pet and medical charter manager for a private jet broker said that: "People want to get their pets back to their home countries and their dogs and their rabbits, and they just can't get them back via commercial routes". 

He is referring to expats in Hong Kong. It isn't just the native Hong Kongers who want to get out but foreigners working in the country too.

A company called Pet Holidays say that they arranged 18 private jets last year and expect to arrange 20 this year. The zero-policy against Covid had resulted in the culling of 2,000 hamsters in Hong Kong. Animal advocates were very much against this because the transmission from animals to people appears to be highly unlikely. It is said that it is not a genuine hazard and therefore there was no need to cull 2000 hamsters. Vets are calling for them to be quarantined. There have been reports that some hamsters where infected in The Netherlands before export to China. And a cluster of Covid infections in hamsters. Some owners have abandoned them.

Update: Feb 4th, 2022: 9 dogs and 10 cats had tested positive for the virus in Hong Kong.  Will this lead to some horrendous treatment by Bejing? They are not the best when it comes to animal welfare.

One company involved in arranging flights out of Hong Kong said that they have seen a 700% surge in business recently. Another private aviation company based in Hong Kong, Live Travel, told CNN that 90% of arrange flights are about relocation. People are on the move with their pets. The trouble is that Covid and Beijing are making it very difficult.

Mouse bite: supporting evidence that the Covid pandemic started in the Wuhan biolab

The world is still trying to figure out how the Covid pandemic started. Although China is trying to deflect blame by saying that it started in a country other than their own, it's clear that it started in China but did it start in the Wuhan biolab or in a wet market?

Mouse in biolab. Photo: Pixabay.

More scientists now believe that the Wuhan biolab may have been the originating place of this devastating pandemic. It's looking more plausible for various reasons and recently, in particular, because a Taiwanese woman was twice bitten by a mouse that had been deliberately infected with the Delta variant of the Covid virus. 

She contracted the disease. It's clear that she got the disease from the mouse because the woman was double vaccinated and had not travelled abroad and there had been no domestic transmissions in Taiwan for more than a month. The only possible plausible route of infection were the mouse bites.

This establishes the possibility that mice that were used in the Wuhan biolab might have bitten a lab worker in the same way and the lab worker might have passed the disease to others when they left work to go home.

The Wuhan biolab I'm referring to is the Wuhan Institute of Virology. A Chinese public health expert at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, Yangzhong Huang, said: "If the lab worker is confirmed to have been infected at her workplace, then this will add credibility to the lab leak theory."

The Wuhan Institute of Virology is situated on the outskirts of the central Chinese city, just a few miles from the wildlife market associated with several early cases of Covid-19. And we know that China's "bat woman", the expert on coronaviruses, Shi Zhengli, used mice to test the impact of modified bat viruses in "gain-of-function" experiments. She has vehemently and angrily denied the possibility.

The genetic adaptation of animal pathogens is frowned upon by some scientists because it's dangerous. People fear the escape of artificially created viruses, which might have happened as discussed.

American and British government investigations have concluded that the Wuhan lab leak theory is at least plausible. Of course, Beijing has reacted angrily to the suggestions.. They have blocked international investigations (which implies guilt I've got to say) and have pushed conspiracy theories that the virus started in Italy and certainly not in China.

It is known that viral infections transmitted to the public can originate in laboratory workers who acquired the infection during their work. It's happened before in laboratories in Taiwan, Singapore and China in 2003 and 2004 during research into the SARS coronavirus.

Testing cats for Covid-19 in Texas. Photo: Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

Postscript: I would briefly like to touch on the issue as to whether domestic cats can get Covid. Some people ask Google search whether domestic cats can get Covid. That to me seems like a silly question because we know that Covid is a zoonotic disease. This means that it can transmit from animals to people and vice versa. We know that animals are getting Covid from people as it has happened in zoos with a variety of animals including the big cats. 

And we know that some domestic cats, albeit very few, have caught Covid from their human caregivers. But it's a given that family pets can get the disease. The question should not be asked. The whole point of this disease is that it jumps from people to animals and as the human is a human-animal we are as capable of transmitting the disease to other animals, and other humans, as animals are.