Stop the 2021 Yulin Dog Meat Festival!

This year, like every other since 2009, the city of Yulin is gearing up for a festival that the majority of Chinese people and activists fiercely oppose. It’s the Yulin Dog Meat Festival. Farmed, snatched as strays, or worst of all, stolen from heartbroken families’ homes, dogs are brought to the Guangxi region in China where they are subjected to torture and public execution in Yulin’s wet market. Wet markets — which exist in many countries, including the United States — are markets where animals are kept alive, stressed, densely packed, and then killed on site where their blood, urine, feces, and hair combine, all in close proximity to people. Most experts believe the novel coronavirus, which has killed nearly 4 million people worldwide, originated in a wet market, and have called for every single one to be shut down — or we risk another pandemic.

Yulin is frankly a complete misrepresentation of the attitudes within China. In 2020, when Shenzhen became the first Chinese city to ban dog meat consumption, a whopping 75% of nearly 400 million Chinese citizens polled said they supported the decision. Polls taken as recently as 2019 show that close to 70% of folks in China have never even eaten dog meat. Along with the people of China, there are dozens and dozens of animal welfare groups within the country that vehemently oppose the festival. We stand with them and ask you to do the same. The Chinese government must put an end to the dog meat trade, and their first step should be canceling Yulin. Sign the petition and demand that the 2021 Yulin Dog Meat Festival be called off!