Chinese police and animal rights activists rescued more than 800 cats scheduled to be listed on restaurant menus throughout the country.
The cats, locked up in iron cages in a store in northern China’s Tianjin municipality, would have been transported to Guangzhou, Guangdong province, and slaughtered had it not been for 30 residents who rallied for nearly 24 hours, negotiating with the trader and the police, to free the animals.
The cats were either picked up from the streets or stolen from their owners. They were to be sold to restaurants at the price of 10 yuan (some $1.5) per cat.
Residents said the store, which has a license to sell flowers, birds, fish and worms, had been trading cats for the last six months.
Qin Xiaona, chief of the Beijing-based Capital Animal Welfare Association, who rushed to Tianjin as word spread, alleged it was obvious most of the cats were stolen.
“The police told us that the trader bought the cats. But the trader was unable to provide receipts to prove any of the 800 purchases,”.
Qin said the cats were suffocating in the cages and many of them would have died on the way to Guangzhou.
It took Li and Qin 24 hours to convince the trader to free the cats after intervention from the police last night. Police have given the volunteers a room in a nearby school to house the cats, many of which are in need of urgent medical care.
