Dog meat festivals persist in China as calls for a ban grow louder

Dog meat festivals — and the trade behind them — are far from over.

Even as South Korea, long stigmatized as a dog-eating nation, has officially banned dog meat consumption, the practice persists in other parts of the world.

China stands out as the country where dog meat consumption is most widespread. In some Chinese provinces, festivals are held expressly to promote dog meat consumption and drive up sales.

Public opposition to dog meat consumption is growing inside China as well. But the absence of clear legal regulations means the practice continues.

WHO and international animal welfare organizations warn that the dog meat trade fuels not only animal cruelty but also the spread of diseases such as rabies.

International animal welfare group Humane World for Animals announced June 8 that it had successfully rescued dogs from a slaughterhouse in Yulin, China, days before the city's annual dog meat festival, working through its Chinese partner Vshine.

The Yulin Dog Meat Festival has been held every June in Yulin, in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, since 2010. Dog meat traders launched the event to encourage consumption and drive up sales.

The festival has not gone unchallenged. Fierce opposition has come from inside and outside China. Yulin city authorities had initially hoped the event would attract tourists, but sustained domestic and international backlash led them to distance themselves from it starting in 2014.

The official festival was suspended, but dog meat trading has continued in the days around the festival period — in a far more covert form than before. In effect, the festival goes on.

At its peak, as many as 15,000 dogs were slaughtered for food in Yulin, with animals transported from across China. The number has since declined, but an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 dogs are still believed to change hands during the period.

According to Humane World for Animals, China is believed to slaughter more dogs and cats for food than any other country in the world. An estimated 10 million dogs and 4 million cats are killed there each year.

That does not mean dog meat consumption is widespread among the Chinese public. As was the case in South Korea when dog meat was still legal, the vast majority of Chinese people do not eat dog meat.

Even in Yulin, where the festival is held, most residents do not consume dog meat. A Vshine survey conducted in June last year found that 87.5 percent of Yulin residents said they rarely or never eat dog or cat meat.

Unlike South Korea, China has not enacted a comprehensive ban on dog meat consumption. Some consumers continue to eat dog meat as a result. Humane World for Animals is working to help dog meat traders transition to sustainable alternative livelihoods.

The Yulin slaughterhouse rescue was carried out with that goal in mind. The owner of the facility, who had handled roughly 15,000 dogs over 20 years in the trade, was enrolled in the program and transitioned to a catering business. The dogs rescued from the slaughterhouse are now recovering.

China, however, remains an environment where the dog meat industry can survive, largely because no clear legal prohibition exists. In 2020, China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs designated dogs as companion animals rather than livestock, effectively removing them from the list of animals that can be commercially raised, transported and traded.

That move weakened the legal basis for treating and trading dogs as livestock. But it falls short of an outright ban. No explicit prohibition on dog meat consumption has been enacted, and enforcement measures have not been strongly implemented. Only a handful of major cities, including Shenzhen and Zhuhai, have introduced their own local bans.

"We know that permanent change depends on strong laws against animal cruelty," Humane World for Animals said. "Earlier this year, our partner submitted a bill to the National People's Congress to strengthen companion animal protections across China — including a provision for a nationwide ban on the dog and cat trade."

Meanwhile, concerns are mounting that the dog meat trade poses risks not just to animals but to human health. WHO has warned that the trade accelerates the spread of diseases including cholera and the deadly rabies virus, as dogs of unknown health status and vaccination history are trafficked long distances across the country.