Yulin
Up to 10,000 dogs and dogs and cats are killed and eaten at the annual Yulin dog meat festival in China, which is held from June 21 to 30 every year.
The festival is said to celebrate the summer solstice, but, far from being ancient or traditional, it was created in 2009 to bring business to a place that was economically depressed. Sadly, it has been very successful in doing this.
When NoToDogMeat’s founder, Julia de Cadenet, first went to Yulin in 2011 the festival was a heinous, seedy event that was largely unknown. It was primarily attended by locals who got drunk on lychee wine and feasted on dog meat, barbecued and in soup.
When we protested against the event in 2013, most people in the West could not even believe that such an event existed. China seemed impenetrable and unhearing, but we kept on lobbying and speaking out.
By 2014, the Yulin festival had almost doubled in size. It started to attract the world’s media and, by 2015, activists and NGOs from inside China and overseas were making the long trip to the Guangxi region in southern China.
By 2016, Yulin had become a macabre carnival where exploitative, macho foreigners played the hero and bargained for the lives of the dogs. They threw money at greedy traders who had no intention of stopping their involvement in the dog meat trade.
As demand for the dogs increased, things got so bad that, in 2017, a massive truck containing 1,700 dogs was stopped by activists heading to Yulin.
Most of the dogs were stolen pets rounded up weeks before the festival and kept inside secret warehouses in appalling conditions.
NoToDogMeat took part in this rescue, and it was heartbreaking to see so many sick dogs riddled with distemper and other ailments.
In 2017, celebrities began to raise their voices and 11 million people signed a ‘Stop Yulin’ petition that was presented to the Chinese authorities.
In an opinion poll in 2017, 64% of the Chinese people interviewed said they were against the Yulin festival.
In 2018, Hong Kong’s deputy to China’s National People’s Congress, Michael Tien, lobbied to end the Yulin festival. The Yulin authorities responded positively, saying: “The dog meat festival, though not promoted by the local government, is a private and spontaneous activity. However, the Yulin authorities and relevant government agencies will take immediate actions to prevent it from happening again.”
The Ministry of Agriculture in Beijing stated that it was looking to put measures in place after Chinese legislator Zhang Dejiang called for improvements and reforms to China’s food safety supervision system.
It had finally become apparent that the Yulin festival was a distasteful, rogue event fuelled by greed rather than tradition.
In April 2020, dogs in China were placed on a livestock ‘safe’ list. This was a formal declaration that they are not food. After this, several cities, including Shenzhen, banned the sale of dog meat.
We had fresh hope during the Covid-19 pandemic when, in 2021, the Chinese government introduced new laws prohibiting the transport, slaughter, and sale of animals that could pose health risks.
The government demanded the quarantining of animals before they could be sold. A minimum fine of about 50,400 Chinese yuan (about US$7,000) was introduced.
However, as our brave team at the 2021 Yulin festival discovered, this didn’t stop the insatiable demand for dog meat.
We uncovered the most heartbreaking slaughterhouse and some dog breeding farms about an hour from Yulin where pups and pregnant dogs were being sold for food.
The Yulin festival was quieter in 2021, but only because of the pandemic and the fact that no foreigners could travel to the region.
On May 31, 2021, when many parts of China were still in lockdown, a massive truck containing 2,000 dogs pulled into Yulin. Only a few volunteers were on hand to give the poor dogs water. This time, the butchers didn’t even bother to take the dogs to a slaughterhouse. They just dragged them off the truck and murdered and blowtorched them.
In June 2025, the world once again witnessed the macabre spectacle of the Yulin festival.
Yulin
Fast Facts
- Yulin is a city in southwestern China, 2,300 km from Beijing and about 400 km from Guangdong province, an area that is known for the consumption of dog and cat meat.
- Our team uncovered some dog breeding farms in the countryside about one hour from Yulin, which supply the city with dogs that are killed for food.
- Most of the victims are brought to Yulin from all over China by truck. There are stolen pets of all dog breeds along with strays and dogs traded from police pounds.
- Traders are willing to pay large fines to continue to pander to the demand for dog meat.
- Before the lengthy journey to Yulin that the dogs are forced to endure, crammed into small cages without water or shelter, they are often kept for weeks in large warehouses.
- Many rescued dogs do not survive as they catch multiple airborne diseases such as distemper and canine flu. They require months of quarantine, veterinary care, and love and attention to overcome their ordeal. They have experienced utter terror watching their cage mates being dragged out and brutalised.
It means a great deal to us that so many brave Chinese activists have answered our appeals on Chinese social media for help to stop the trucks carrying dogs to the Yulin festival and for people to attend rescues.
Together, we will bring an end to this appalling event.
Contact us
NoToDogMeat Foundation
19 Crawford Street
London
W1H 1PJ
UK
