Approximately 150 cats destined for slaughterhouses were rescued by police in eastern China, according to an international animal welfare organisation. The animals were discovered by police in the eastern city of Jinan, Shandong province, crammed into rusty cages, according to a statement released by Humane Society International on Tuesday.
An activist with the local animal rights organisation VShine said that a gang used sparrows as bait and a remote control to close the traps as soon as a cat entered.
“It was shocking to see the state they were in, many of them emaciated and crying out,” an activist, who only offered their last name Huang, said in a statement to the society. “Our discovery of dozens of live sparrows used as bait to lure the cats was also a big shock.”
Most of the rescued felines are believed to have been household pets and have been sent to local animal shelters, the statement added.
At the scene, activists discovered 31 sparrows, a protected species in China, and released them back into the wild.
China has no laws prohibiting animal cruelty, but the suspects might be punished for shooting the birds, stealing property, and violating guidelines for preventing animal epidemics.
According to the group, over 10 million dogs and 4 million cats are murdered for human consumption annually in China.
In certain regions of China, dog and cat meat is considered a delicacy, and the profitable trade in their flesh continues to motivate criminal gangs to kidnap pets, despite a gradual drop as pet ownership has increased.
Every June, the southern Chinese city of Yulin celebrates a dog meat festival when live dogs and cats are offered for consumption.
In the southern Chinese regions of Guangdong and Guangxi, eating dogs and cats stretches back thousands of years.
“These are China’s two main cat meat eating hotspots,” Dr. Peter Li, China policy specialist for the society, said in a statement. “Throughout the rest of mainland China, cat meat is not part of the food culture at all.”
The COVID-19 epidemic seems to have further lowered the demand for cat and dog meat, since the illness has been connected to a market in Wuhan that sells live animals for consumption.
In 2020, China outlawed the eating and trade of wildlife.
In April of that year, the cities of Shenzhen and Zhuhai in the province of Guangdong became the first in China to prohibit the consumption of dogs and cats.