Volunteers asked to call off presentation
- Source: Global Times
- [09:08 August 04 2010]
- Comments
Two cats await their fate in Putuo district earlier this year after being caught by cat dealers. Photo: Courtesy of Shanghai Small Animal Protection Association
By Liu Dong
Shanghai police have asked a group of animal protection volunteers to call off an event during which they planned to jointly present evidence to police pertaining to the trade of domestic cats for food.
Some 15 volunteers planned to go to a police station in Yangpu district Tuesday to report cat dealers who allegedly used fake hygiene licenses to transport cats to Guangdong Province, where they would be sold to restaurants. According to the volunteers, most of the cats were taken from residential compounds in Shanghai.
However, the night before the presentation was to take place, police suggested that the organizers cancel their plan, as it could lead to an "unpredictable situation." The police offered to meet with the organizers the following day.
Li Jun, a police officer from Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau, told the Global Times after the meeting with the organizers of the presentation that the evidence they provided would be passed on to higher authorities.
"The whole chain of hunting, transporting, selling and killing cats is illegal," Xie Jiong, a 40-year-old man who helped organize the presentation, told the Global Times. "However, we have encountered several cases when cat dealers have avoided arrest by showing sanitation licenses to police, which they claim allow them to conduct the trade. We found that such licenses are all fake. We want to make the police aware of this so the trade can be stopped."
Liu Huili, a researcher at Beijing-based environmental protection organization Da'erwen and one of the organizers of the presentation, said that cat dealers could be charged with forgery of national documents and the illegal transportation of animals under existing laws and regulations.
"So far there are no national regulations or laws that set out standards for transporting cats for eating, so it is impossible for dealers to get a lawful cer-tificate to conduct their trade. Therefore, the certificates they present to police must be fake," said Liu.
According to Xie, between 300 to 500 cats are trapped by dealers in the city everyday, usually late at night. The cats are then taken to a site in Putuo district, from where they are transported to Guangdong Province and sold to restaurants.
"My cats were caught by the dealers several years ago. When I knew they had been slaughtered for food my heart was broken," Xie said.
According to Xie, over the last 20 years, millions of cats caught in Shanghai have been sent to Guangdong Province. There has been a growing awareness among the public, as volunteers and animal protection associations have tried to fight the trade.
"Every year we have a lot of volunteers who help stop trucks transporting cats, saving thousands of cats from the dealers," Lai Xiaoyu, head of Shanghai Small Animal Protection Association, told the Global Times Tuesday. "We want to cooperate with the government to halt this illegal activity."
