The infamous dog meat festival in China’s Yulin has opened again despite the fact that the government of the country has declared them as pets.

The Chinese government recently announced that dogs are no longer livestock, instead, they are pets.

The Yulin festival went ahead yesterday (June 21, 2020), where thousands of dogs will be slaughtered in very brutal ways.

The Humane Society International reported that campaigners rescued 10 friendly and international puppies that were supposed to be sold at a market that was outside Yulin.

Dogs are considered delicacies in the country.

Most recent reports suggest that all dog meat stalls and shops that were all over the city are now working in a single area, which is officially called the Nanchao Market, a market that is located on the outskirts of Yulin.

Dr. Peter Li, a policy specialist for the Humane Society International, said:

The Yulin authorities may want to keep a closer eye on all the dog meat trade activity by centralising it more or less at one market, possibly because of the increasingly controversial nature of the dog meat business. While some traders told the activists they were doing as much business as possible to make up for lack of sales from January to March due to the coronavirus, others reported that it is now harder to acquire live dogs from outside Guangxi province due to the government’s crackdown on trans-provincial animal transport. Instead of the huge slaughter trucks of previous years bringing in thousands of dogs at a time, they say it is more common now to see small truckloads of mostly locally sourced dogs from nearby towns.

However, this is not the case in all cities of China.

Shenzen, a massive city in China, recently announced that they have officially banned human consumption and selling the meat of dog and cats in their city.

Shenzen is home to over 12.5 million people.

Lawmakers in Shenzen said:

Dogs and cats as pets have established a much closer relationship with humans than all other animals, and banning the consumption of dogs and cats and other pets is a common practice in developed countries and in Hong Kong and Taiwan. This ban also responds to the demand and spirit of human civilization.

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, China has also placed a temporary ban on the trade, purchasing, and selling of wild animals.

What Is The Yulin Dog Meat Festival?

The Lychee and Dog Meat Festival is a 10-day festival that started on June 21, 2020. It is an annual celebration that is held in Yulin, Guangxi, China, during the summer solstice in which festival goers eat dog meat and lychees.

The festival began in 2009. During this festival, thousands of dogs are consumed and burned to death. The festival has drawn criticism both domestically and across our planet.

In June each year in Yulin, China, the residents of the Guangxi province consume thousands of dogs and lychees to celebrate as part of a newly discovered tradition.

Nearly 10,000 dogs are consumed for each annual occurrence of the festival. In 2015, these numbers decreased to 1,000.

The festival is criticized over the fact that dogs are pets not for consumption and also on how meat sellers kill and sell the meat of the animals.

It was recently reported that dog meat sellers blow torch the dogs alive and use other inhuman methods to kill the animals.