World Animal Day, Korea’s Dog Meat Industry

Today, Oct 4, is World Animal Day, celebrated since 1931. And what better headline coming from Monday’s Seoul Times than “250,000 People Stand Up Against S. Korean Dog Meat Industry“!  Billed as one of biggest social media campaigns for animals ever, the Stop Killing Dogs program run by United Dogs managed to get 250k signatures so far, with the goal set at 1,000.000. The quicker they reach that goal, the stronger their case.

Korea Animal Rights Activists(KARA)will present the signature list to South Korean officials. More than 2,000,000 dogs are farm raised as food each year in Korea. It’s been determined from prior experience that international support is needed to help Korean officials see that steps need to be taken.

Although animal welfare laws have been in place for years, the meat market still thrives and the cruelty continues. As with China, it takes time for an entire culture to change, but at some point, enforcement needs to be swift and sure.  Officials took a heavy-handed stand during international games in 1988 and 2002 and no markets were selling dogs for food, and no dog entree was available at restaurants.  They didn’t want to be embarrassed.  So they can do this; KARA believes they will not without our help.

I just went to YouTube and found that this video has been up, asking for signatures, since June this year.  It has only 175,000 views.  You can check that out here A Dog’s Life in South Korea.  If you want to help, you can start distributing this wherever you can, and send it to all your contacts.  I hear it takes 100 people to view something before one, just one, takes action.