Some of the over 1500 terrified cats trapped in and around Shanghai for shipment to Guangdong for food and fur.
Over 1500 Cats Trapped in Shanghai and Surrounding Region for Shipment to Southern China’s Food and Fur Industries
Jia Xing (Zhejiang Province, China)
30 August 2008
Shanghai Daily’s coverage of the story here.
On Friday, 29 August 2008, local animal rescuers located several trucks with over seventy bamboo crates crammed with nearly 1500 cats in Jia Xing, a small city in Zhejiang Province, about an hour outside of Shanghai. These cats had likely been trapped in parks, from housing compounds and the street of Shanghai and neighbouring areas. Many of the cats in the crates had collars on them – obviously people’s pets, possibly trapped just meters from their home. Their destination was (and still is) Guangdong Province in southern China, to be used for food and fur.
The trucks were intercepted late at night in a parking lot in an industrial section of town and as the cat trappers attempted to load the trucks, rescuers called the police. Some rescuers claimed to have lost their cat, while others challenged the rather unofficial-looking photocopied documents that the head of the cat smugglers produced to support his claim that he owned the cats legitimately, having paid RMB50,000 for Photocopied “ownership” papers them (USD$7,320 / GBP£4,067), and that he was transporting them all according to permit.
Regardless of the legality of transport permits, the condition in which the cats were packed – crammed 20 or more to a small crate with no room to move and no access to food or water, while some newborns were being crushed to death and other cats had died, was a shockingly cruel sight.
Over 15 hours of negotiations ensued, in which the local rescuers refused to pay the smugglers for the cats (an agonizingly tough approach, but buying them would fuel more trapping for the “rescue market”). By mid-day Saturday, a crowd of nearly 300 people had gathered. A local TV crew filmed animal lovers feeding the cats through the slats of the crates and watering them down to keep them cool.With an obvious stalemate, increasingly terrified cries coming from the crates and the deteriorating condition of the 1500 cats, several of the crates were broken and cats freed– albeit near a dangerous intersection without anybody to provide follow-up care. At this point, the area was cordoned off and further access to the cats blocked.
By late afternoon, the crowd was dispersed and, sadly, the remaining crates of cats appeared to be loaded onto a new truck by the cat trappers.
Although there is often little hope of helping cats already trapped and on their way to Guangdong, a focus of efforts on spay / neuter and indoor cat campaigns will hopefully someday reduce the numbers of available strays and unwittingly friendly pets going to market.
SPAY OR NEUTER YOUR CAT
KEEP YOUR CAT SAFELY INDOORS
YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
(CN) Cat rescue puts felines on the lam
Posted by: “Cate” cateanna@yahoo.com cateanna
Wed Sep 10, 2008 8:56 pm (PDT)
Cat rescue puts felines on the lam
By Fei Lai
Shanghai Daily
2008-9-3
A GROUP of animal lovers became embroiled in a bizarre confrontation as its members rescued more than 800 cats destined for the dinner table over the weekend.
Six volunteers from the Shanghai Animal Protection Association confronted cat dealers in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, and spent a day and a night trying to rescue about 1,500 cats.
The animals were being loaded onto a container truck that was due to travel to Guangdong Province.
Liu Xiaoyun, one of the volunteers, told Shanghai Daily yesterday that the cats were caged in about 70 bamboo boxes, about 20 to a box.
The volunteers managed to unlock about 40 cages, releasing about 800 of the animals.
“But we don’t know where the remaining cages are,” Liu said. “Most probably, they are on their way to Guangdong.”
Liu said the group received a tip last Friday that the cats were at a fruit wholesale market in Jiaxing. When they arrived at the market, cat traders were loading cages onto the truck.
“Shill cries of cats echoed continuously,” Liu said. “We asked the mongers not to send the cats, but they wouldn’t listen. So I called the police.”
The dealers told police that all the cats were bought from a pet market and they would be raised in Guangdong.
However, Liu said the method of caging so many animals in a confined space was obviously cruel.
“The cats’ sad and shrill screams made us heartbroken,” Liu said. “In spite of the cat dealers’ protests, we managed to release quite a few cats.
“The cats would have had no food or drink for several days. We immediately conducted emergency aid by giving water to them.”
Liu said about 10 female cats had given birth. Some kittens died immediately after birth.
She said the cats remained helpless under a burning sun. “When we released them, the cats jumped out in all directions at once. They’ve suffered so much,” Liu said.
The dealers showed police animal quarantine certificates and insisted on moving the remainder of the cats. With no animal protection laws to refer to, police were powerless to stop the remaining cats from being driven away.
Shanghai Animal Protection Association President Zhang Yi appealed to society to cultivate better dining habits and to treat all animals more humanely.
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=372408&type=Metro
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Second Chance Animal Aid, Shanghai, has an article on their site about this incident. They warn viewers that the ‘content is upsetting and graphic’.
Cat trappers near Shanghai:
http://www.scaashanghai.org/cats_trapped_in_shanghai.shtml
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The Guangzhou cat site has information in Chinese and photos on their bbs board. Upsetting photos.
http://www.gzcat.org/bbs/dispbbs.asp?boardid=13&id=42093&page=&star=1
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