China’s Yulin Dog Meat Festival 2020 is Still Opening for 10 Days Despite COVID-19 Risks

If you didn’t know about the Yulin Dog Meat Festival, you’re not a dog lover or you’re simply a cat. Known officially as the Lychee and Dog Meat Festival, it’s an annual “celebration” held in Yulin, Guangxi, China. And as the name suggests, people pay respects to lychee and dogs.

Well, that’s in a world whereby humans are kind and cats can fly.

In the real world, it’s a festival whereby festival goers eat dog meat and lychees.

During the 10-day event, dogs are paraded in wooden crates and metal cages, and are taken to be slaughtered and cooked for consumption by festival participants.

What you might not know is that it’s actually not a very old and traditional event: it started only in 2009.

So why would the organisers allow this?

According to them, “eating dog is no different from eating pork or beef”, and that those dogs had been killed humanely.

That was disputed by animal rights activists who claimed that the dogs were treated cruelly. Some even claimed that the dogs were boiled alive so that they’ll taste better.

Nevertheless, the media attention has led to improvements; in the early years, it was estimated that over 10,000 dogs had been consumed during the entire 10 days. Now, the number has dwindled to fewer than 1,000.

Suffice to say, the event has attracted the attention of both domestic and foreign animal rights activists—and even politicians from other countries.

So you’d have thought that with COVID-19, this festival would finally be cancelled, hopefully forever.

No.

In our world, cats still can’t fly, and humans are still greedy.

China Yulin Dog Meat Festival is Still Opening for 10 Days Despite COVID-19 Risks

Lest you’re not aware, COVID-19 has at least contributed to a positive change in China; in April, Shenzhen became the first city in China to ban the consumption of dogs.

It’s said that with Shenzhen’s ban, more cities would follow suit and eventually, the entire country.

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But that’s a tad too late.

The event, which always takes place from the 21 June of each year, did occur from yesterday.

It’ll last for 10 days.

This year, however, would be different: other than the country’s slow but eventual move to ban the consumption of dogs, people are hoping that fears of COVID-19 would prevent people from gathering, which would lead to fewer dogs being bought and consumed during this festival.

A China policy specialist with the Humane Society International said, “I do hope Yulin will change not only for the sake of the animals but also for the health and safety of its people.”

Despite the ongoing festival, animal rights activists feel that the festival would eventually be banned. Zhang Qianqian, an animal-rights activist, said, “From what we understand from our conversations with meat sellers, leaders have said the consumption of dog meat won’t be allowed in future…But banning dog-meat consumption is going to be hard and will take some time.”

So for dog lovers, this year’s still not a good year.

But soon, Yulin Dog Meat Festival might finally be part of history.

Or maybe, it might be called Yulin Lychee Festival.