Need for Legislation Against Dog Meat Consumption

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Need for Legislation Against Dog Meat
Consumption

• Challenges in Animal Protection Movement in Korea

CARE(Coexistence of Animal Rights on
Earth) www.fromcare.org KOREA
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Table of Contents

• Overview Dog Meat in Korea
• Dog Meat in Korea raising, slaughtering,
  distributing
  selling of dogs
• Legalization of Dog Meat?
• Why Should We Ban Dog Meat?
• Suggestions for Anti-Dog Meat Campaign
• Future Direction

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Overview Dog Meat in Korea - 01

• Contradiction Inconsistency
• Dogs are classified as livestock according
  to Livestock Industry Act
• Processing of Livestock Products Act does
  NOT list dogs as dogs, thus dogs are not to be
  slaughtered, processed and consumed as food.

Dogs being sold in the middle of the city

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Dog meat restaurants illegal but exist
nationwide
Overview Dog Meat in Korea - 02

5
Dog farms in Korea hard to comprehend the full
scale
Overview Dog Meat in Korea - 03

• No official statistics
• Most of the dog farm facilities are illegal
  building
• Investigation Study Method government
  document interview with officials field study

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Number of Dog Meat Restaurants in Korea how
many?
Overview Dog Meat in Korea - 04

• No special application required for dog meat
  restaurants the license for ordinary restaurant
  ok
• Dog wine(dog meat extract) is sold at stores with
  extract processing license.
• Dog farms not under the control of local
  authorities (thus, not treated as same as cattle
  or pig farms)

• Estimated number of
• Dog meat restaurants about 8,000
• Dog wine selling shops about 13,000
• Dog farms more than 3,000

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Dog Meat in Korea - 01

• How dogs are raised
• Where sparsely woven bottomed cage, over the
  ground
• Food- leftover food, food waste
• Canine characteristics-social nature
  aggression- neglected

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Dog Meat in Korea - 02

• How dogs are transported/distributed
• Crammed into tiny cages, three to five dogs
  together
• Kept in the cage for over four hours

yellow dogs crammed in a tiny cage
for transportation
Anti-dog meat campaign performance in summer
of 2008
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Dog Meat in Korea - 03

• How dogs are slaughtered
• Inhumanely slaughtered
• Hanged, electocuted, torched alive, beaten, etc

Small size slaughtering place near by residential
area
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Dog Meat in Korea - 04
Dogs from home pet shops are even traded
for meat consumption
Dogs with no more breeding capability

• Open Secret?

Dog meat
slaughtering of small pet dogs

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Dog Meat in Korea - 05
Dogs from home pet shops are even traded
for meat consumption
Small pet dogs being sold at the Moran Market
for dog meat and wine consumption

slaughtering of pet dogs/ auction site

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Dog Meat in Korea - 06
Dog farm owner shelter owner? ! Some runs two
different facilities concurrently and shelter
dogs are traded for meat consumption, too.
Not all dogs are safe in animal shelters. Animal
Protection Act requires each local government to
have a shelter. Due to the lack of budget to
build its own facility, instead, most of the
local governments contract with entities or
individuals who already have some kind of
facilities. Unfortunately, many of those who
already have some kind of facilities are owners
of dogmeat farms

• Dog-meat Farm

• Dog Shelter

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Legalization of Dog Meat?
Those who argue for legal dog meat are saying
that

• 1. There are many people who consume dog meat
  currently.
• 2. I dont eat dogs but I dont care if others
  eat dogs.
• 3. For food safety, dog meat trade should become
  legal since it is
• already being consumed.
• 4. Legal dog meat trade will stop the abuse and
  cruelty on dogs.
• 5. It can even restrict distribution of pet
  dogs.
• 6. Dog meat is Korean traditional cuisine and
  its own food culture.

Totally irrational and absolutely non-sense
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Why should we ban dog meat? 01 Legal dog meat
is unrealistic Conditions of Farm Animals
(1) Increase and Expansion of Livestock Industry
156,818(97.2)
Number of Farms ( of total)
118,364(88.71)
Number of Farms ( of total)
3,284(31.1)
3,104(29.5)
2,030(48.9)
1990
2007
406(0.31)
299(0.2)
1990
1990
2007
139(3.4)
2007
1990
2007
Farms with 50 pigs or less
Farms with over 1000 pigs
Farms with 50 hens or less
Farms with over 1000 hens
Source National Veterinary Research Quarantine
Services
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Why should we ban dog meat? 02 Legal dog meat
is unrealistic Conditions of Farm Animals
(2) Farm animal abuse still in place or
increasing low cost cheap products in large
scale raising no consideration of ecology
animals natural characteristics
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Why should we ban dog meat? 03 Legal dog meat
is unrealistic Conditions of Farm Animals
(3)Too much use of antibiotics
Livestock Products (in thousand tons)
39,822
2002
Use of Antibiotics (in tons)
5,799
3,046
2,150
1,541
1,691
1,084
1,324
548
94
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53
Sweden
USA
Japan
Denmark
KOREA
New Zealand
Source People's Solidarity for Participatory
Democracy Bar graphs not drawn to scale
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Why should we ban dog meat? 04 Conditions of
Farm Animals
Government cost Burden to tax payers!
(4) Government budget burden on livestock
management
38M USD is allocated to the National Veterinary
Research Quarantine Service for providing
quarantine service over the entire lifecycle of
livestock products from raising to butchering
and consumption.
(5) Budget burden on zoonosis hygiene control
The government can afford to take on increased
workload resulting from incorporation of dog in
livestock category when it is already
outstretched with responsibilities for
controlling BSE, AI and brucellosis?
(6) Environmental Issues
The revised Livestock Night Soil Disposal Act
requires dog farmers with facilities of 60 sq.
meters to have proper waste disposal facilities.
- the cost 17M USD on the government The
cost for the animal-waste reuse process 169M
USD, as expected by the ministry of agriculture.
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Suggestions for Anti-Dog Meat - 01
Challenges facing anti-dog meat campaign

• Many people still equate animal rights activists
  with dog fanciers
• Anti dog meat campaign pro-US stance
• Media plays unwittingly in favor of dog meat

• Fail to forge significant consensus at home front
• Fail to win the public approval of anti-dog meat
  campaign

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Suggestions for Anti-Dog Meat - 02

• Animal rights welfare group must grow
• Has grown rapidly since 2000
• Must produce home-grown activists more
• Then form close network with international
  groups, and
• Expand the solidarity of animal rights advocacy
  worldwide beyond Asia
• Must keep pressuring on the governments
  legislative move.

Due to lack of human financial resources, past
campaigns were limited to the small scale
Close relationship and cooperation with
international groups and other countries been
helpful and effective
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Suggestions for Anti-Dog Meat - 03

• Wide survey on dog meat market must be conducted

• Though difficult to investigate and understand
  the full scale and the approximate numbers,
  estimation must be carried
• - The number of dog meat wine selling
  restaurants(selling dogs
• solely selling in combination with other
  food), dog farms, head
• count of dogs for meat
• Trend Study
• - Annual consumption of dog meat, changes in
  the number of dog
• meat restaurants
• - For and Against by demographics

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Future Direction

• Anti-Dog Meat Campaign

1. Awareness raising among children teens 2.
Cooperation with public opinion leader
(politicians, journalists, celebrities,
etc) 3. Campaigns- wide publicity of farm animal
conditions and ban on expansion of livestock
industry 4. Joint effort in Asia region (regions
of AI outbreak/ countries with the practice of
dog-eating)
Legislation of Ban on Dog Meat Distribution
Consumption
Considering the overall landscape of livestock
industry, it is theoretically illegal to butcher
and eat dogs. Therefore, Anti-dog meat campaign
should proceed in a way to call for legalization
of ban on dog meat.
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Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth
www.fromcare.org
KOREA