‘It’s horrible’: The brutal festival where dogs are beaten and boiled alive
WARNING – GRAPHIC CONTENT: Animal activists say they have rescued more than 60 dogs ahead of a controversial dog meat festival held in Yulin city in China’s south.
This year’s event kicks off on Friday and will see thousands of dogs slaughtered, sometimes in brutal fashion, to mark the beginning of the summer solstice.
According to Humane Society International, which shared video of the latest rescue, the dogs are often beaten and even burned or boiled alive.
The brutal practices involved means the festival is routinely decried by animal rights groups. The most dedicated among them travel to Yulin to rescue dogs and often end up clashing with local traders.
Perth man Dean Hathaway, 53, is one of them and has previously travelled to China to rescue animals with an organisation called No Dogs Left Behind.
“Foreign players don’t rescue on their own, they have to rely on the local activists who intercept and stop the trucks or discover slaughterhouses in operation,” he explained to Yahoo News Australia.
“The foundation I belong to offers emergency response to these rescues. We go in, set up the response centre and fence off sections ready (to treat) the different diseases.”
‘Stolen’ dogs with collars slaughtered
In 2017, Mr Hathaway was part of a group that helped rescued and transport about 1300 dogs headed for slaughter at the festival.
“They were all malnourished and dehydrated. Many dogs still had collars which was proof they had been stolen,” he said.
Mr Hathaway won’t be attending this year’s festival but knows there will be plenty of local activists, who will be joined by a smattering of Westerners, who set out to disrupt the event.
“The movement is growing and the call to arms is being answered, I hope they are prepared for what awaits them. PTSD is ripe in dog rescue,” he said.
“We are taking away peoples’ livelihoods by taking their dogs. Large operations are most likely run by the Chinese mafia and they don’t mess around. We have been attacked on numerous occasions while trying to stop them from stealing their dogs back.”
Dog meat festival ‘sensationalised’ by media
Depending on who you ask, the Yulin festival is either an event steeped in cultural customs that warrants no scorn from Westerners, or ground zero for unnecessary cruelty towards an animal many Australians consider man’s best friend.
The tradition of eating dog meat dates back four or five hundred years in China, South Korea and other countries, as it is believed to ward off the heat of the summer months, according to state news agency Xinhua.
The festival in Yulin has become “increasingly commercialised,” says Dr Pan Wang, Senior Lecturer in Chinese studies at UNSW.
While she believes the event has been “sensationalised” by the media, the global attention has resulted in more regional tourists attending.
“That is the irony,” she told Yahoo News Australia.
“A lot of the dogs are raised for that purpose. They eat dog just like people eating chicken,” she explained.
However she would like to see changes to the way the dogs are killed and exhibited during the event.
“The way they promote the festival, the way that they display and exhibit (the dogs), that is horrible.”
The commercial dog meat trade
While groups like Animals Australia condemn the festival, they are quick to point out that the dog meat trade is simply a matter of cultural conditioning that is at odds with Western sensibilities.
But for Mr Hathaway, who has seen the mistreatment of the dogs up close, it’s not an argument that he finds particularly persuasive.
“Eating dog is one thing, unnecessary cruelty and treatment is something else,” he said.
“The mistreatment of dogs is not cultural, eating dogs does go back through history but festivals like Yulin are something new and not based on culture, Yulin is a commercial enterprise.”
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