Animal Armageddon in China when 1000 cats were destined to be slaughtered and sold as pork or mutton

NEWS AND OPINION: I have used the phrase "animal Armageddon" for a good reason because that is what it looks like to me, an outsider, looking in at both the cat and dog meat market in China. In this story - and it is not exceptional - we have Chinese police aided by animal activists rescuing about 1,000 cats from a truck en route to a slaughterhouse (reports CNN).

Image in public domain.

If the slaughter of these cats had taken place - and it is likely that some were feral/stray and some were domestic cats (pets) - their meat would have been marketed as pork and/or mutton in order to maximise the profit margins that these unscrupulous traders hoped to have achieved in this obscene business.

There appears to be a massive amount of illicit trade in cats and dogs for their meat and fur in China. There is simply no way to control or monitor it properly particularly as there are no general animal welfare laws in China. There simply isn't. There's no desire or motivation to protect animals in China in a general sense by the local authorities. 

This rescue is probably an exception and thanks to animal activists. They are brave and committed. This is a fairly new and welcome trend by the way. For many years there was no concern for these animals.

After a tipoff by the activists, a lorry containing 1,000 cats was intercepted by the police from Zhangjiagang, in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu.

The animals were destined to be taken south which is the area where, to my knowledge, most cat and dog meat markets are situated. There'd be slaughtered in the south to be served up on skewers as pork and lamb as well as in sausages.

The rescued cats have been taken to a nearby shelter. It is estimated that the fraud would have netted as much as $20,000 for the unscrupulous traders.

We don't know if any arrests have been made. The activists first noticed nailed wooden boxes with many cats inside near a cemetery. The activists then patrolled the streets for several days and noticed that a truck arrived to ferry the cats to a slaughterhouse. They intervened and called the police.

An animal activist in China said that the traders in cat meat can sell a pound of cat meat for around four dollars by passing them offers pork or mutton.

The seizure of trucks by animal activists destined for the South in the cat and dog meat markets is not uncommon. You will see videos and pictures online of brave animal activists stopping and offloading trucks carrying a large number of cats or dogs in rusty old crates or boxes. The animals are rescued but the illicit trade continues in Guangdong, a southern Chinese province, and, to the best of my knowledge, the home of the cat and dog meat market.

There is a complete lack of will by the Chinese government to do anything about the obscene and barbaric dog and cat meat markets in the south. They are left alone by the authorities because they are regarded as a cultural phenomenon and not to be disturbed as I understand the situation. President Xi Jinping supports this animal cruelty. 

There is no recognition by the Chinese authorities of the cruelty that occurs in these marketplaces. It appears to be incidental and of no importance.

For people who support the cat and dog meat markets in China because they don't see any difference in these meat markets to the abattoirs and slaughterhouses in the West, I would like to inform them that cats and dogs are not killed under regulated conditions, relatively humanely, but there are simply bludgeoned to death or thrust into boiling water alive. They are skinned alive. The whole thing is something out of Dante's Inferno. It is remarkable that it still happens today in a country which has the second largest economy in the world.

I have always stated that the time has come for international intervention to stop this in China. China will argue that they should be left alone to do as they please because it's an internal matter. I disagree because when animal cruelty is on this scale, it becomes an international problem. The world cannot just look on and rub their hands and say it looks horrible. I want to see America and other countries adopt sanctions against China until they introduce animal welfare laws of a high quality and enforce those laws while simultaneously shutting down all the cat and dog meat markets and cat and dog fur trade in China. The whole lot should stop ASAP.

To animal advocates, and anyone with an ounce of sensitivity, the dog and cat meat markets of China are horrendous and obscene places which should have been banned decades if not centuries ago.

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P.S. please forgive any typos. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Anal electrocution of animals in fur trade. Protest outside Dior.

LVMH owns Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Dior and other fashion brands. PETA tells me that they refuse to embrace faux fur to meet the demands of informed and compassionate consumers and continue to deal with real fur traders. The fur trade is viciously cruel. 

Anal electrocution of animals in fur trade. Screenshot.

It doesn't matter how you look at it. The whole concept is horrendous to any decent-minded person. China is the biggest producer and they treat their animals appallingly. It's bad enough to take the skin off the back of animals for f**k**g fashion but to kill them in the most appalling way is shameful, unforgivable and the work of the devil.

This protest took place this month. The tweet is dated May 16th, 2023.

PETA tells me that many animals on fur farms "slowly go insane and even self-mutilate from the stress of intensive confinement."

They say that an investigation into Italian fur farms revealed several injured minks as well as dead minks left inside cages to rot. The survivors were killed by gassing.

On a fur farm in Norway, investigators found six fox cubs confined to a cage with their dead and rotting mother. Foxes are devoted parents and mother foxes commit themselves to protecting their babies.

I can go on and on and on about the cruelty of the fur trade and it is the same no matter where you look. And the bosses at LVMH won't stop dealing in real fur. I've just visited a Dior products website. I don't know whether the fur coats were vintage or modern. It didn't say. But I'm told that they still produce fur garments.

What is sad for me, is that videos on YouTube and on Twitter of these protests don't get enough views. This tells me that not enough people are genuinely interested in protecting the animals from this horrendous cruelty. Perhaps Dior and their masters know this. They know that there is an apathy in the world about the fur trade and perhaps even animal abuse generally. That is why they can get away with it and brush the protesters aside.

The only way to beat it is to continually press and harass until they finally change their ways. Some people say that the big fashion houses have already changed their ways but clearly, they haven't. For example, one website forward.com asks "Are anti-fur protesters hopelessly out of touch?"

What on earth do they mean? There article was written in 2018. Protesters against fur farming will never be out of touch until it stops for good. The video on this page is horrendous. There's a guy on a megaphone telling people that the fur farm businesses electrocute the animals who give up their skin by sticking a probe up their anus or their vagina. I mean what in heavens name is going on in the world if humankind allows that to happen? It's just totally sick and all for the sake of fashion.

And here is another thing: the people, normally women who wear these garments are equally to blame. Why aren't they shunning these garments once and for all? They are accessories to what I would argue is a serious and mass crime. Of course, it is not a crime technically in most (all?) countries but in a better world it would have been. It is certainly deeply immoral.

Sale of clothes containing fur in shops in Britain will be banned

The UK government is drawing up plans to prohibit the sale of clothes containing fur in shops after Britain leave the European Union's single market and customs union. This is the result of Brexit. The government is currently negotiating a Brexit agreement with the European Union and it looks more hopeful at the moment. 

The European Union banned the import and sale of fur from domestic cats and dogs across the EU in 2009. However, an investigation by the Humane Society International in the UK discovered that fur described as faux fur is in fact real and can be found in some clothes and shoes. Faux fur is not better than the real thing.

Objectionable fur clothing. Photo: Pixabay. Note: I am not criticising this man
who is probably a model. Also I am not sure if the fur is fake or genuine.

The point to make is this: it is very pleasing to animal advocates that the UK government is going to put an end to the sale of clothes containing fur in the UK starting next year (all being well) but they will have to be particularly observant and rigourous in weeding out real fur masquerading as faux fur. My research indicates that faux fur is actually more expensive to reduce than the real thing, which is a terrible indictment of the amount of cruelty perpetrated on captive animals who are killed for their skins.

Apparently the faux fur is cat fur. Retailers should take responsibility for ensuring that the fur on the clothes that they sell is genuinely false. They should trace the source and insist that their suppliers provide certificates that their products are genuinely faux fur. Genuine fur disguised as faux fur is apparently quite a big issue in the high street. Fur traders find ways to wriggle around regulations.

I sincerely hope that the British government get a handle on this. There are a lot of unscrupulous producers, wholesalers and retailers who don't care about animal welfare. Changing the law and banning the sale of fur in clothes in the High Street in the UK is not enough although very welcome. There needs to be strict enforcement which is going to prove very difficult.

The move to ban fur in shops is being driven by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park who is the Defra minister with responsibility for animal welfare. He is working, as I understand it, with Carrie Symonds, Boris Jonson's partner who as we all know is a keen animal advocate. The ban would be a strong signal of Britain's post-Brexit freedoms. It would be very popular because opinion polls have indicated that about 80% of Briton's think that fur on clothes are unacceptable nowadays. They dislike the trade in fur. Northern Ireland will be exempt from this proposal because they remain in the EU's single market and customs rules.

The British Fur Trade Association, as expected, say that the proposals are "irrational, illiberal and misjudged". Animal advocates would say the same thing about the association. It is time for change, there is no doubt about it.