Original Article: https://blog.theanimalrescuesite.greatergood.com/owner-gps-tracks-missing-pet-to-a-suspected-dog-and-cat-meat-factory-in-china/

A suspected dog and cat meat factory was raided and hundreds of animals were confiscated after a pet owner found his missing cat being held hostage at the factory.

According to ABS-CBN, a cat owner used a GPS tracking device to locate his missing cat. Thankfully, he was able to find his cat, 1,200 kilometers away, and save it from a potentially cruel fate.

The cat had been stolen and it’s suspected it would’ve been slaughtered and sold for food had the owner not tracked the cat and found it prior. The incident, which took place at the Guangdong market, was immediately reported to authorities and animal rights activists. Authorities shut several stalls of the market down while the investigation continued.

Two activists, Liu Ling and Chen Yu, went to investigate the situation and reported it to authorities. As the outlet reported, Chen shared with The Beijing News that he found around 300 cats and dogs crammed into five cages in one shop.

He noted a “heavy stench” coming from the shop and also found tools used to slaughter animals in the shop.

It was apparent that many of the animals were stolen pets and some cats even had their collars on still.

The owner of the suspected meat factory was not present at the time of the raid. Jiangmen police told The Beijing News that they were continuing the investigation to gain proof that the animals were going to be killed and sold as food.

During the raid, authorities took 235 cats and turned them over to the city’s animal disease prevention and control centre for health checks. It’s unclear at this time what the fate of the dogs is.

As ABS-CBN reported, the local government accounted on Weibo, “To put the cats in better care, we have negotiated with the volunteers (animal cruelty activists) to transfer the cats to a professional organisation. At the same time, our market supervising department is organising a check on all markets in the city.”

While China’s Ministry of Agriculture shared last year, according to the news outlet, that the majority of the population didn’t want dogs to be labelled as livestock and treated as livestock animals are, there’s yet to be a nationwide ban on selling or slaughtering them.

However, in May, the city of Shenzhen did ban the sale and consumption of dog and cat meat! Hopefully other areas will follow suit and ban the sale for the consumption of all intelligent sentient beings, like dogs, pigs, cats, and cows.

To this day, dogs and cats (along with many other animals) are still being stolen from their owners, snatched from the streets, or bred and killed for food. Public outcry continues against the practice of killing and eating animals, particularly companion animals.

Source: The Animal Rescue Site Blog