Vietnam’s illegal wildlife trade is notorious for the sale of dog meat and the cruel treatment of animals caged and sold at so-called “wet-markets.” The country has committed to ending some of these cruel practices, but a probe has found that the cruel animal trade still persists.

The scenes of suffering that play out for animals are diverse and tragic.

Consider the following:

A water-bird is tethered to the top of a small cage with 6 others of its species. This agonizing prison is where these birds will spend their last moments, in noisy markets known as “wet markets.” At these markets animals are slaughtered in front of each other. Many of the animals brought to the markets are rare birds and endangered animals like turtles.

Or imagine what it’s like for a dog who is kidnapped from their owner or off the street, and bundled into a tight cage with other dogs who are frightened, confused, hungry and/or sick. As a captured dog, you witness other dogs being slaughtered in front of you until it’s your turn to be killed. These are the scenes that still play out in Vietnam’s dog meat trade. 88% of people want to end the dog meat trade, but there are no nationwide laws in Vietnam to prevent it.

Wet markets have become notorious since the COVID outbreak due to the health consequences of animal to human disease transmission. At wet markets, animals are kept in miserable conditions and routinely killed without even being stunned.

Vietnam’s prime minister has issued a directive that calls on regional authorities to crack down on wet markets and enforce existing laws to curb the trade of endangered animals. The government has made efforts to curb the dog meat trade in big cities but these efforts are still piecemeal. The investigation by We Animals Asia and the Asia Animals Coalition showed that post-COVID, people have gone back to business as usual, abducting dogs and animals from the wild and enthusiastically slaughtering and selling them at bustling wet markets and restaurants that serve dog meat.

To help animals who are killed and treated cruelly in Asia the public must continue to send the message that these practices are heinous and unacceptable. Work must be done to assist any initiatives that support enforcement and the rescue of animals. To learn more about how to support these efforts, please visit Animals Asia and the Asia Animals Coalition.

If ever there was an obvious target for animal rights activists, the Yulin Dog Festival is it. The festival is a display of barbaric cruelty, with dogs and cats kept in cages (some stolen pets), and tortured to “improve” the taste of the meat. This is a cause that has drawn an immense level of public outcry, especially in the West. These voices (including the late Carrie Fisher and Ricky Gervais) are strident in criticizing the festival for its pure cruelty and senselessness. Of course, this criticism is right: boiling and skinning live animals is intensely cruel and violent. Still, Western critics in particular give local supporters of the festival a rallying cry by being “concerned” members of a public that happily kills and eats other kinds of animals. The shock value of the festival to Westerners can be disingenuous – when the shock of the festival lies in the type of animals that are killed – cats and dogs, rather than that they are barbarically killed. The fact that some of these animals are stray pets is an awful tragedy. But activism against animal cruelty needs to rest on more than disapproval of killing cats and dogs. It needs to stop inhumane killing, find an alternative to cultural practices that glorify bloodshed, and ultimately, end the widespread practice of eating meat. Eating a “bloody steak” or burger exists on the same spectrum that the Yulin Dog Festival does – a totally artificial belief that violence somehow makes our food more life-giving. Locals feel offended that Westerners fail to understand how the poverty of the region apparently contributes to the dogmeat industry.

Without making excuses for the festival, it might be possible to use it as a rallying point to do more in your animal rights activism. If you protest the festival because of the killing of family pets, but eat meat, consider that all life is precious and think about reducing or cutting out your meat consumption. If you protest the festival and have no interest in supporting human or workers’ rights in your home country or abroad, consider whether you are contributing to a problem where violent and impoverished lives form people capable of doing violence to animals. If violence can teach us anything it is that all life is connected. The chain in which people do violence to each other and animals can also become a chain of understanding, care and support if actions are taken that are mindful, peaceful and connected.

To protest the Yulin Dog Festival, read, share and sign the petition – and commit to a non-violent lifestyle!

Further Reading:

https://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/968244/yulin-dog-meat-festival-Peter-Li-days-numbered
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/yulin-dog-meat-festival-china-animal-rights-chinese-culture-western-interference-a7800416.html