Animals in China

"Millions of dogs and cats in China are being bludgeoned, hanged, bled to death, and strangled with wire nooses so that their fur can be turned into trim and trinkets. This fur is often deliberately mislabeled as fur from other species and is exported to countries throughout the world to be sold to unsuspecting customers in retail stores. China supplies more than half of the finished fur garments imported for sale in the United States, so the bottom line is that because dog and cat fur is so often mislabeled, if you're buying fur, there's no way to tell whose skin you're wearing."

The sale of such furs in this country may be stopped by a bill sponsored by Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA).

As repellent as the slaughter of pets for meat and fur is to us as Westerners, the dogs and
cats are not only killed, they are slowly tortured; they are bled or beaten to death; they are
boiled or butchered alive.  The Chinese believe that the more the animals suffer the better they
“taste.” German shepherds have been seen being skinned alive in a frigid warehouse in Harbin.
Ironically, China this year is celebrating “The Year of the Dog.” Does Wal-Mart, now operating
and expanding in China, sell dog and cat meat there? 

Another humane group website, the Asian Animals Protection Network, has photographs
showing men thrusting knives into the necks of fully conscious dogs, then hanging them on
an incline as their blood runs out. Others show people gathered at a roadside with dogs tied to
a truck or railroad tracks. As man’s best friend cries out, and as the next victims look on petrified,
several men or women are seen holding him while another cuts his chest open and butchers him
on the spot. Mangled corpses are all around.

The dogs and cats are raised on huge “farms” in extremely crowded and filthy conditions that in
any civilized country would result in the farms being shut down for animal cruelty. Some farms
import giant, gentle breeds like St. Bernards, the beloved rescue dogs. These are cross-bred with
local dogs to produce a fast growing “meat dog” that can be profitably slaughtered at the age of four
months. The dogs’ journey from “farm” to market is worse. Animals Asia investigators have observed
trucks carrying up to 2000 dogs arriving at a notorious market in Guangzhou. The animals had endured
three days and nights wedged on top of each other in cages, deprived of food and water. Large numbers
of dead and sick dogs and cats have been seen lying beside the cages at the market. The ones
still alive are brutally lifted by the neck and flung into a pen by a man using metal tongs. Other
investigators have witnessed dogs tied in nets being dumped from trucks, some crying as their feet are
broken; then they are flung with the tongs into fenced areas where laughing men bludgeon them just for
kicks. Cats are slowly bled to death on curbs as the expectant diners look on.

According to Animals Asia, these practices have arisen mainly in the past few decades and are not 
endemic to Chinese culture. They are, however, carried on with the knowledge and sometimes the
active support of the government. They are growing rapidly into a large industry in many areas, including
Guangzhou, Hubei, Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Jilin.

Animals in China are strangled to death, often from trees, for up to an hour, or bludgeoned to death
with pipes or hammers, then blowtorched. Cats are boiled alive or beaten to death in sacks pounded into

the ground.