The Yulin Lychee and Dog Meat Festival, a gruesome event in China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region where sellers publicly slaughter dogs for food, appeared to have drawn significantly less attention this year than previous ones, animal rights groups told Breitbart News this week — but not because Chinese authorities tried to block the event.
The Yulin Festival begins every year on the summer solstice, June 21, when street butchers gather in the city’s streets, with cages full of dogs and cats, many of whom are Stolen petsThis event is held every year result (Lychee, a sweet, fleshy Asian fruit, is believed to have a similar summertime effect.) Animal rights activists have long pointed out that eating dog meat is not a long-standing tradition in China, and the Yulin Festival itself is only around 15 years old, having only begun in 2010 to boost dog meat sales.
Today, thousands of dogs are killed in Yulin for the summer solstice, turning the brightest day of the year into one filled with darkness. Marley is one of the lucky few, currently living a wonderful life in the UK. It’s a miracle. https://t.co/NfFNb3AIrj #YulinDogMeatFestival #Endurin pic.twitter.com/WMZC7UvJ0S
— Paws of China (@PawsofChina) June 21, 2024
The event gained international recognition in the mid-2010s as a result of growing celebrity interest in the United States, with celebrities such as Matt Damon, Paris Hilton, Ricky Gervais and Joaquin Phoenix publicly calling on the Chinese government to ban the event and dog meat consumption in general in 2015.
Actress Lola Bayonas participates in the “Stop Yulin Forever” demonstration to end dog cruelty in Yulin, China, at MacArthur Park Recreation Center in Los Angeles, California on October 4, 2015. (Photo by Matthew Simmons/Getty Images)
Within China, China-based animal rights groups have long opposed the festival, working to rescue and rehome dogs in Yulin that would have been eaten, but international attention for the festival has largely faded, first after rumors circulated that it was being canceled in 2017 and then due to a decline in interest from celebrities in supporting the animal rights event.
However, international animal rights groups continue to document and oppose the scourge in Yulin, and report that the festival will undergo dramatic changes from 2023 to 2024. Despite little effort by the Chinese Communist Party to block the festival, the Chinese public appears increasingly less interested in participating.
“While of course the gruesome scenes of dead dogs and cats still persist, the trade in dead and live dogs appears to have slowed considerably at the two main markets at this year’s Yulin ‘festival,'” Wendy Higgins, director of international media for Humane Society International (HSI), told Breitbart News. “According to Chinese activists HSI has contacted in Yulin, the trade in dead and live dogs appears to have slowed considerably at the two main markets at this year’s Yulin ‘festival.'”
“This was confirmed by local activists who were on site on the solstice on June 21,” Higgins noted, “However, there is no evidence that the local government has taken direct action against dog meat traders, and stalls have not been closed down as in previous years.”
HSI shared images from this year’s festival, provided by its official partner in China, Vshine, which show slaughterers carrying out the usual slaughter in broad daylight, without any opposition from local Communist authorities, cages full of dogs, and blood spilling on the sidewalks.
WARNING – GRAPHIC PHOTOS:
Dogs sit in cages at the 2024 Yulin Lychee and Dog Meat Festival (Photo courtesy of VShine).
The slaughterhouse floor at the “wet market” during the 2024 Yulin Lychee and Dog Meat Festival (Photo courtesy of VShine)
Slaughtered dogs are hung at the Yulin Lychee and Dog Meat Festival 2024 in China (Photo: VShine).
A dog sits in a cage at the 2024 Yulin Lychee and Dog Meat Festival in China (Photo by Vshine).
The global animal rights organization “Protect Animals” report Related Chinese groups have similarly recorded signs of residents in the city of Yulin avoiding the event, with this year in particular seeing “noticeably fewer temporary dog meat stalls during the festival.”
“Many of the old stands have also disappeared. It’s a change. Duo Duo Project [a Chinese animal rights group] “This is the achievement of Wang Shen, the new secretary of Yulin city’s party committee, who took office in June 2023,” In Defense of Animals noted.
The lack of public participation in the festival is a stark change from what animal rights activists recorded in Yulin in 2023 by a UK-based animal rights group. Dog meat ban/The rescue of dogs and cats from the meat trade has been described as “unprecedented in scale and cruelty”.
Thanks to a rescue effort against China’s cruel meat trade, a group of dogs are now safe and set to be welcomed into their forever homes in the United States. https://t.co/ftkZdr4p7R
—Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) June 28, 2023
“Locals say it was the largest turnout in Yulin they’ve seen in years, and there were Western tourists there too, which made them feel particularly uncomfortable,” said a China-based animal rights activist. China’s Footprint“We were shocked,” the owner of the facility, then known as Plush Bear Shelter, told Breitbart News last year.
HSI’s Higgins told Breitbart News earlier this year that Yulin was seeing visible signs of change in public attitudes toward dogs, despite any government inaction.
“What’s interesting is that in the last few years, many pet hospitals, pet supply stores and pet grooming parlours have opened in Yulin,” Higgins said. “This shows that the dog and cat meat trade in Yulin is in direct conflict with the city’s rapidly growing pet-loving population.”
A man sits behind his dog near a restaurant that serves dog meat in Yulin city, southern China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on June 21, 2017. (Becky Davis/AFP via Getty Images)
“This gives us hope that the abnormality of China’s dog meat trade will eventually not persist, even in so-called hotspot areas like Yulin,” she continued. “It was only a few years ago that the Chinese government acknowledged that dogs are pets, not food animals. In that context, the dog meat trade is clearly at odds with Chinese social norms.”
Jason Baker, a senior executive at the international animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and senior vice president of PETA Asia, similarly told Breitbart News that interest in the public slaughter of dogs is waning in China.
“Most Chinese people do not eat dog meat and do not support the Yulin Festival. It is long past time for the Chinese government to ban the killing of dogs for food, as South Korea recently did,” Baker said.
South Korea, which has a long history of dog meat eating, banned the dog meat trade in January after strong protests. Opposition Support for dog owners has come from dog farmers who make a living from slaughtering dogs. South Korea’s ruling conservative People’s Power Party says eating dog is too unpopular internationally and could damage a decade of “soft power” efforts in which Seoul has used popular music, television shows and other culture to promote a positive image around the world.
“Yulin’s dog-eating festival should serve as a reminder of the cruelty and suffering animals face if we allow outdated traditions to continue,” Baker told Breitbart News. “But all sentient creatures, from poodles to pigs, feel pain and fear, and no one wants to die in a horrific way. So I urge anyone who is horrified by the idea of eating a dog to extend their compassion and go vegan.”
There has been such growing interest in animal rights in China that HSI’s China partner, Vshine, has successfully used the regime-controlled social media app WeChat to set up a hotline to report violators of animal laws in the country and has collaborated with authorities on several efforts to shut down illegal dog meat operations.
Human rights groups warn that any positive developments in any given year do not necessarily translate into the long-term eradication of systematic animal cruelty without sustained pressure, and point out that celebrity support for the campaign against the Yulin Festival faded after heightened attention in 2015 and 2016. In 2017, rumors that China had canceled the festival (which turned out to be false) largely silenced support for the Yulin Festival beyond the continued work of dedicated groups.
People eat dog meat at a restaurant in Yulin city, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, southern China, on June 21, 2017.
China’s most notorious dog meat festival kicks off in Yulin city on June 21, 2017. Butchers chop up dog meat and chefs deep fry it following rumors that authorities will ban it this year. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)
“Of course, Yulin is just one location in China where the cruel dog and cat meat trade exists,” HSI’s Higgins told Breitbart News.
“Yulin is supplied by slaughterhouses, dog and cat thieves and traffickers across the country. If we want to tackle this brutal trade we need to look beyond Yulin and examine the entire supply network.”
