Animal Rescuer Was Brutally Attacked By Dog Meat Traders In Run-Up To Yulin Festival

Originally, she ran a successful kindergarten, but after rescuing her first stray dog, she sold that business and began focusing on animal welfare.

She opened the Bo Ai Animal Protection Centre in 2008.

It's important to note, though, that her fight is against the industry and traders that keep the practice alive.

In fact, while proponents of the dog meat trade may argue that the practice is "tradition," the Yulin Festival only began in 2010, and it was specifically created by the industry to try to save the stagnant dog meat market.

However, according to Humane Society International (HSI), less than 20% of Chinese people eat dog or cat meat frequently. In Yulin itself, 72% of people don't eat it.

64% of Chinese people polled want the Yulin Festival shutdown entirely and 51.7% want the entire industry banned. 69.5% of those polled have never even eaten dog meat.

While perception continues to turn against the festival and its promoters, the Chinese government has yet to prevent it from being held, even though there are laws clearly being broken.

The animals are kept in terrible conditions, often starved and dehydrated. Many are sick with rabies or other illnesses, their meat still sold to humans who can (and do) get sick as well.

Plus, there is a lot of evidence that many of the dogs aren't being bred for the event, but rather, they are being stolen from the yards of loving families. Many still wear their collars and tags.

But it's just a drop in the bucket compared to the estimated 3,000 dogs killed in recent years, or the whopping 15,000 killed during the festival's first year.

Things came to a boiling point this year, when Du heard about a convoy of hundreds of dogs being transported to the festival in terrible conditions.

They tried to appeal to authorities to get the dogs released, but were told that the animals all had infectious diseases and were going to be buried alive. While awaiting a response to her appeal of the action, Du and her volunteers visited the dogs daily.

Finally, tensions grew too strong and the traffickers attacked Du and her two female volunteers.

In a later statement to the Daily Mail, she explained that one of her volunteers is still hospitalized weeks later.

The volunteer is nearly 60 years old and suffered two fractured ribs and a head injury.

Despite Du's appeal for the dogs' to be quarantined and allowed treatment for their illnesses, the animals were all killed the same night as the attack on Du and her people.

There is some hope, as a petition with 1.5 million signatures was just delivered to the Chinese Embassy in the UK.

Maybe if we keep the pressure up, by the time the festival rolls around in 2020, it will be prevented from happening at all.

h/t: Daily Mail