A Dog Meat Festival is Held Each Year in Yulin, China-Truth!
Summary of eRumor:
Social media has lit up with calls to stop a dog meat eating festival held each year in Yulin, China.
The Truth:
It’s true, a dog meat festival is held in China every summer.
The Yulin Summer Solstice Lychee and Dog Meat Festival is held each year in Yulin to mark the beginning of summer. The local tradition started in the 1990s, but the practice of eating dog meat in China dates back centuries, Time reports:
“According to Chinese lore, eating dog meat stimulates internal heat, making it a food that wards off winters’ cold. But on this inaugural day of summer, it’s a superstition that’s driving dog consumption: the meat is believed to bring good luck and health. At the festival, hotpots are fired up, lychees peeled and liquors poured. Animal activists estimate over 10,000 dogs are killed for the festival, according to China Daily, the government’s English-language mouthpiece.”
Each year, millions of people take to social media sites to protest the so-called Yulin dog meat festival. But a state-run news agency claims that the festival is a “only a local folk tradition, without official sanction.”
In 2011, the dog meat festival was “banned” by Chinese officials because of outrage on social media sites. Then, officials in Yulin responded with a public statement that denied the existence of a dog meat festival. The statement said locals had hosted small gatherings to eat dog meat, but there was never a widespread festival for it.
But a state-run news agency reported in 2014 that the dog meat festival had started a week early to avoid protestors and journalists from attending. Also, Humane Society International reported finding dog collars at slaughterhouses in Yulin, which indicated that dogs were stolen from their owners and butchered there.