China - Live Animal Markets

The horrors of Maoshan – Part 1 

Monday, February 4, 2008, 07:34 PM

Recently, I visited Maoshan Live Animal Market in Guangzhou with two of our China team, Christie and Rainbow. Such visits are probably the hardest part of our work at Animals Asia, but they’re also among the most important. We must keep monitoring this situation and exposing the truth about these hell-holes. These are my notes from the visit:

It’s 8am and I just don’t know how Christie and Rainbow can cope with the pain. You feel it in every fiber of your body, as you breathe the rancid, acrid smell of disease and taste the dust of death and decay. It lingers for hours after you've left one of these obscene live animal markets in China.

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The horrors of Maoshan – part 2 

Friday, February 8, 2008, 10:46 PM

The market also doubles as a slaughterhouse – a round metal drum with orange spikes used for “de-furring” the cats and dogs sits just outside a burning cauldron that will be cooking their meat for customers towards lunchtime.

Close by, truck after truck piled high with white goats begin arriving at the market, while donkeys are being dragged out of sheds and loaded into cages, trucked off to be slaughtered elsewhere. Frightened and exhausted, several have no strength to rise to their feet and the traders kick them in the stomachs and beat their backs with metal poles until they can stand the agony no more and rise on shaking legs. Even then, the abuse continues and the traders continue beating them and grabbing their tails, painfully twisting them into knots, and forcing the donkeys to climb up the metal ramps into the cages.

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Up to 800 animals are loaded onto each lorry in cages that are stacked one on top of the other. Cages containing live animals are commonly tossed from the tops of the lorries onto the ground 10 feet below, shattering the legs of the animals inside them. Many of the animals the investigators saw were still wearing collars, a sign that they were beloved companions who were stolen to be made into fur coats.

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To Whom it May Concern,

I have recently read the account of the live animal markets in China from someone who visited them. The story described how the animals are severely mistreated by market workers, who beat and kick them and treat them like they are nothing more than products. I also read about their transport to these markets. The article described how large amounts of animals are loaded in cages that are stacked on top of each other. The person who witnessed this described seeing dying cats and dogs inside the cages and animals with open wounds.

Please understand that animals like cats, dogs, rabbits and donkeys are living creatures who are capable of feeling fear and pain. I would appreciate it so much if you could pass legislation to protect all animals in your country before the start of the Olympic games. Please don't let China been known in the world for their bad treatment of animals. I've heard that China has started working with agencies like the Animals Asia Foundation (AAF) and the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), which is very encouraging. I truly hope that China will continue to work with these agencies and that you will do everything you can to help change this horrible situation.

Yours truly,

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