YULIN (China) — Dog meat lovers are returning in full force for a season of feasting in the southern Chinese city of Yulin despite pressure rising across the country to end the trade after the Covid-19 pandemic focused attention on China’s meat consumption.

“The scale of the dog meat trade in Yulin is pretty much the same compared to previous years,” said animal welfare advocate Yu Dezhi. Mr Yu surveyed the city, in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, in May.

The central government has banned the wildlife trade to curb the transmission of animal diseases to humans after the new coronavirus was suspected to have originated in bats and then jumped to people through an intermediary animal.

The southern cities of Shenzhen and Zhuhai went a step further and banned the eating of dogs and cats.

In May, during the ensuing debate over what meat is fit for the dining table, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs banned the farming of dogs for meat, saying dogs were “pets, not livestock”.

But there is no national ban on dog meat consumption and the practice, while not prevalent, continues in some places.

Animal welfare activists say that the dog meat sold in the trade mostly comes from stolen dogs or strays, sometimes darted with poison. They urge China to end the practice with an animal cruelty act.

According to a 2016 survey by the Humane Society International, an animal rights group, more than half of the respondents said the dog meat trade should be completely banned. But eating dog has continued among a minority of people in China, as well as in South Korea, Vietnam and Switzerland.

In China, Yulin has drawn activists’ ire after a few restaurants launched the Lychee and Dog Meat Festival in 2009. Some have flown to Yulin to buy dogs from traders to save them from the slaughterhouse and have directly confronted vendors.

The local government has never admitted to holding a dog meat festival, saying only a few restaurants and members of the public take part.

The Humane Society International has called on members of the public to appeal to the Guangxi government to ban the trade on public health grounds, saying the origin of the meat is unclear and could pose health risks.

“Attitudes and appetites about dogs have changed and so now it is time for Yulin’s dog slaughterhouses to lay down the butcher’s knife and consign the festival to the history books,” said Mr Peter Li, a China policy specialist at the advocacy group.

Mr Yu, director of the Beijing-based Capital Animal Welfare Association who visited Yulin recently, said he was optimistic that change was happening for the better.

“From our research, it’s obvious that among our next generation, or the one after that, nearly nobody will eat dogs, so that industry is bound to disappear,” Yu said. SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST