The Yulin Dog Meat Festival has made a huge amount of news around the world. A controversial annual festival which puts dog meat on the menu in a small southern Chinese city has once again met with anger and protests from animal rights activists.
The Lychee and Dog Meat Festival, slated for Monday this year to mark the summer solstice, the longest day in the Chinese lunar calendar, has put Yulin, a city with a population of 600,000 in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, into the media spotlight every June. Locals believe dog meat is no different from pork and they should be free to enjoy their tradition without finger-pointing, while critics are concerned about animal cruelty and the health risks of eating dogs, with suspicions that many of the animals are stolen and reach the table without any inspections or quarantining.
As some 10,000 dogs are reportedly set to be slaughtered in Yulin, it's not surprising that people have tried various ways to rescue them. A dog lover who gave her surname as Yang has adopted thousands of dogs which might otherwise have been served to diners. She has come to Yulin in the run-up to the festival to try to buy more. "Who knows what risk this supposed delicacy poses to people's health?" she asked. The event has also ignited fury on social media. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese web users including many celebrities have been vocal in opposing the festival on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like microblog.
According to an ongoing poll by Sina Weibo, 87.9 percent of the 4,606 people who had responded by 7 p.m. on Sunday think China should enact laws to prohibit animal abuse, while 12.1 percent say it is not necessary. There have also been nearly a million tweets from people using the hashtag #StopYulin2015 over the past month, The Washington Post reported. Dogs can be heard yelping as animal rights' campaigners surreptitiously film the dog markets, keeping the camera hidden from view for fear of angering locals. And photographs, taken by members of Humane Society International (HSI) capturing brutal slaughterhouse scenes in the city, clearly show the trade in dog meat is already well underway.