MORE than 20 netizens in Shenzhen helped a law enforcement team rescue 34 cats and dogs from an illegal slaughterhouse in Bao an District on Christmas Eve, which supplied restaurants.
The cats and dogs were now being treated at pet hospitals and the slaughterhouse in Shiyan Subdistrict had been closed, the Daily Sunshine reported Saturday.
The rescue was initiated by a woman surnamed Xu, who first discovered the slaughterhouse.
I found a very dirty truck full of cats and dogs on the Guangzhou-Shenzhen Expressway and guessed it was heading to a slaughterhouse, so I followed the truck and reported to other netizens on szcat.org and szdog.org and the law enforcement team, Xu said. We did not take action until the team arrived at about 8:30 p.m. because we did not have the right, Xu said.
The illegal slaughterhouse, which was called Feilao Dog Slaughterhouse, was hidden among litchi trees in Yuanling Old Village where about 100 cats and dogs were held in cages, waiting to be killed.
The slaughterhouse was in terrible condition and garbage and animal faeces were everywhere, the reports said.
Cats and dogs are good friends of humans. How dare they kill them for money, one of the netizens told the newspaper.
They knew they would be killed, so they were scared to death. They could not move, shaking in fear. After being rescued, it will take months for them to recover, said a person in charge of szcat.org, identified as Ai Suo.
The netizens took the animals away but some dogs were too afraid to walk and had to be carried.
During the action, villagers tried to stop them from resuing the animals. They wanted us to give the animals back, so we had to stand around the truck to protect them. They were very angry and we had to wait until 4 a.m. when police arrived from Shiyan, Ai said.
However, only 22 dogs and 12 cats were rescued. We had to agree to come back in the morning with the law enforcement team from the urban management bureau and the industrial and commerce department because only they had the right to investigate, Ai said.
But when the departments arrived in the morning, the rest of the animals had taken away by villagers. The team told the newspaper that the illegal slaughterhouse was shut down and the owner would be punished for illegal operation.
The cats and dogs would be sent to a protection center waiting for adoption after being checked and treated at hospitals, Ai said.
We are all volunteers to protect small animals, preventing them from being killed by illegal slaughterhouses. We hope more people will join us. Meanwhile, Shenzhen does not have a quarantine organizations for cats and dogs, so almost all cat and dog meat has not been inspected and are from illegal sources, Ai said.
(Wang Yuanyuan)
