Trending news on social media reports that the Chinese government buried 800-900 pet cats alive in Foshan City, Guangdong Province. The report was supported by a video of live cats in wooden crates dumped in an already-dug ditch and being buried by a bulldozer.
The post, which was shared on various platforms, including X (Twitter) and Reddit, expressed anger and called for global action to be taken against China for its crimes against animals while pushing #boycottchina.
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On X, an account named “Paws of China” that is dedicated to pets and describes itself as a small NGO that strives to save dogs & cats from the Chinese meat trade said the news of the buried cats in China was true, and it happened on March 9.
However, our findings reveal that the viral report is not true and is, in fact, misleading. The event actually happened, but not in China. In February 2015, thousands of cats smuggled from China to Vietnam in wooden crates were discovered.
At the time of the discovery, many of the cats were already dead, and the characteristic pungent smell of decomposing flesh filled the impounded trucks that were conveying the trafficked pets in Hanoi, the country’s capital.
The cats were cramped tightly in the bamboo enclosure, and fearing the outbreak of diseases, the Vietnamese authorities were forced to bury them all, including the live ones, alive in a ditch.
“We culled them by burying them”, an environmental police officer said about the incident.
The Vietnamese authorities said the animals were buried following their law on smuggled goods. They had the option of burning them, but that would be expensive.
The actions, however, sparked outrage at the time it happened, especially from animal protection groups that had been calling for the government to spare the cats. Though the number of cats that were buried that day was in the thousands, the actual number of live and dead cats was not given.
Pets such as dogs and cats are eaten in many Asian countries. In 2020, during the COVID-19 epidemic, North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, ordered its citizens to hand over their pet dogs to be eaten. China is known for its Yulin dog meat festival that sees reports of dogs being abducted from their owners’ homes and brutally killed for meat. Cat meat in Vietnam is called little trigger, and though illegal, it is still sold as a special delicacy in many restaurants.
