Race against time to save stray cats from being eaten
- Source: Global Times
- [12:44 December 01 2009]
- Comments
By Lin Meilian
Only days after they rescued 800 stray cats and kittens from being sold as food, animal rescuers in Tianjin were facing a deadline yesterday to find permanent homes for the cats or they could still end up on restaurant menus in Guangdong Province.
“The deadline has us in a dilemma,” said Wang Han, who was part of last Tuesday night’s rescue. “We moved all the cats in a hurry to a new place we rented Sunday.”
Pet lovers rescued the cats from urban trappers who planned to transport the alleged strays to restaurants in Guangdong, where some enjoy cat meat delicacies. Some of the cats were said to be house pets grabbed off the streets by kitty kidnappers.
After 24 hours negotiating with the dealer and police, animal rescuers managed to free the starving cats from rows of crowded iron cages.
The police offered a room in a nearby school as a temporary animal shelter. However, the pet activists were told to move the cats by yesterday, otherwise government agencies would handle the case.
Local residents in Tianjin adopted about 100 of the cats. The Beijing Times reported yesterday that 50 others had been transported to animal hospitals in Beijing. Another 30 sick or injured cats were quarantined.
“Most of us are inexperienced in handling such a large-scale rescue,” Wang said. “We need more time and support from the government and the public.”
Wang and other pet lovers send messages on bbs. movshow.com, soliciting donations of money, pet food, cat vaccine and asking volunteers to take care of the cats.
However, the rescuers failed to reach agreement on how to resettle the animals. Some people want to set the cats free to roam the streets again. Others want to find a residential neighborhood to house them, according to Lu Di, who took part in the rescue effort as head of the China Small Animal Protection Association based in Beijing.
Lu was not happy with either solution, saying, “The pet lovers are impressive but poorly organized.”
“If they freed the cats, those poor little things might end up on the dinner table again. If they find a community to house them, then it might become a burden for the residents living in the community,” he said.
He added that government support is necessary to protect the animals.
“The strength of public opinion alone is not enough to protect the animals from being abused or eaten,” Lu told the Global Times. “We need government support as well.”
Lu said there are cat trappers nationwide who steal or pick up stray cats from the streets and then sell them to dealers.
“It is beyond the pet lovers’ ability to halt them,” he said. “If we had an animal protection law, the police would be more cooperative with pet lovers.”
In 2007, pet lovers in Shanghai rescued about 800 cats that would have been sold to Guangdong to make a soup called “Tiger vs. Dragon,” which is boiled with snake and cat meat, Shanghai Daily reported.
The dealer was released after a few hours without charge because there is no animal protection law in the country.
