The management of stray animals has always been a complex issue of urban management.
In October 23, the Rottweiler dog bite incident in Chongzhou, Chengdu, made some people target the attack on stray dogs in the city, and some communities even issued notices that stray animals would be hunted. A series of measures have caused heated discussions on the Internet, and even a hot search topic has appeared on Weibo calling for the whole people to stop the cruel killing of stray cats and dogs. In the same month, at the Chongqing Institute of International Business and Economics, a security guard used violent means to catch and beat a small yellow dog chasing students to death, which continued to ferment the turmoil.
The problem of conflict caused by stray animals seems to be intensifying.
In between, there are the conflicts between the rising number of stray animals and the unbearable community residents, the confrontation between animal abusers and animal protectors, the contrast between the continuous abandonment and the overwhelm of rescue agencies, and even the friction between different animal protectors, such as the "difference of the way" between bird protectors and stray cat protectors - in the 2020 translation of "Stray Cat Wars", the author Marat, an international ornithological researcher, once said, "From the perspective of ecological protection, The best thing to do is to use all means to wipe stray cats off the surface. ”
In the blind spot of extensive management, there is a gray industrial chain of catching, selling, slaughtering, and eating stray cats and dogs.
In October 2022, Han Jiali, a post-90s girl who had raised her cat for 7 years, was taken away by a cat thief in the middle of the night with a fishing net in the style of a long pole. Wanting to find Dabai, she investigated and monitored again and again, followed the trajectory of the cat thief, and accidentally dug out an industrial chain that made a profit by hunting cats.
Han Jiali still can't forget the scene of walking into the slaughterhouse for the first time. It was a shack built on an uninhabited hillside in Dali County, Foshan City, Guangdong Province, and if you get closer, a smell of blood will enter your nose.
When you walk into the shed, you will see blood and cat hair scattered all over the ground. Thousands of cats are kept in wooden cages, mostly stray cats, but also domestic cats with collars and bells. Some cats have worn out their claws because they are frightened, and some cats have broken their arms and legs and even bulged their eyes because the space is too narrow. Around the wooden cage, there are various slaughtering machines, including hair removal machines and meat cooking machines. A few meters away, there is a freezer with slaughtered cat carcass. It won't be long before these cats will circulate to restaurants, farms, markets, and tables as **.
Cat and dog dealers do a cost-free business, only need an unlicensed car, a trap cage and a mesh bag to easily catch a cat that can be sold for 20 yuan at a market price.
Since that day, Han Jiali has insisted on tracking cats and cars at her own expense, reporting the illegal slaughter and illegal transportation without quarantine in these black dens (these behaviors violate the Food Safety Law of the People's Republic of China (revised in 2015) and the Measures for the Administration of Animal Quarantine). A year later, she has successfully cracked down on 15 cat carts and more than 20 slaughterhouses.
Most of the cats that have been successfully rescued have two destinations. The first is to be treated by law enforcement officers in accordance with the law enforcement requirements of the Animal Epidemic Prevention Law, and the second is to be sent to the animal protection base in batches to carry out a series of actions such as medical treatment, feeding, and adoption of these animals.
But the ** and rescue expenses of cats and dogs are not a small amount, and Liu Xiaowu, the youth education project commissioner of its ** (the first animal protection public welfare ** association in Chinese mainland), revealed to the "Houlang Research Institute".Many stray animal protection bases she knows have financial difficulties after receiving animals from cats, cars, dogs, and cars, and can only rely on fixed volunteer groups or spontaneous donations from netizens to maintain them. "The source is continuous, and it can't be saved, and frankly, (donations) are a drop in the bucket. ”
Since April 2011, when volunteers intercepted a truck carrying 520 dogs near the Zhangjiawan toll station on the Beijing-Harbin Expressway, the crackdown on the animal black industry chain has been underway. It's been 13 years, "Han Jiali is not the first, and she must not be the last." Liu Xiaowu said, "The most important support for everyone must be the strict law enforcement after the local law enforcement departments receive clues about the violation." If all localities can strictly follow the requirements of the Food Safety Law and the Animal Epidemic Prevention Law to strictly investigate illegal transportation, illegal slaughtering and other illegal acts, then it must be a society of good governance that the broadest masses of the people like to see. Liu Xiaowu sighed, "I think Han Jiali has a very right idea, that is, to act together, public welfare is not one person's best, but everyone's ability." ”
Not long ago, she opened an account in the name of "Please don't eat my big white", sharing the pictures and situations she saw in the slaughterhouse, "Expose this dark and cruel industry to the public, let the whole people supervise and report it, and the cat and dog dealers have nowhere to escape." ”
Returning to that complex issue, how can we solve the problem of "stray animals"?
"It is not realistic to rely on any one person or one 'institution' alone, and it requires the cooperation of the whole society. ”Liu Xiaowu mentioned that on the one hand, it will help the existing stray animal rescue bases, group guards and volunteers to comprehensively promote TNR for stray animals (TNR is the stray cat and dog sterilization program, trapping, neutering and release); On the other hand, it is necessary to strictly control the threshold of the pet market from the laws and regulations to stop disorderly breeding and trading; At the same time, abandonment, abuse and other acts are punished by law; At the same time, in terms of public publicity and youth education, it emphasizes "treating animals with kindness and respecting life".
And how does an individual get involved in a complex social issue and try to unite actors from various fields to act? "Houlang Research Institute" chatted with Han Jiali about her experience on this road. The following is Han Jiali's story.
Seven years ago, I was quite lonely in Shanghai by myself, hoping to have a cat by my side, so I adopted a white cat called Dabai.
It's quiet and gentle, it never hurts, and it listens to you. At the end of work, when there is any social, work and family pressure, and no one can talk to you, it will take the initiative to approach and accompany you.
Dabai and I live in an old neighborhood in Shanghai's Changning District. Dabai likes to bask in the sun outside the window, and many neighbors around him know him, and when I go out, I usually entrust it to the people I live with to take care of.
The cats raised by the beauties, the small fish and the big white (right).
On September 24, 2022, I came back from an errand out of town, and I couldn't get a response no matter how much I shouted. At first I thought it was taken away by a neighbor, but I inquired around, and no one I knew took Dabai away. I felt something was wrong and immediately went to check the surveillance.
In surveillance,I saw a man riding an electric scooter at 4 a.m. with a fishing net in the style of a long pole and lassing Dabai. The scene of Dabai struggling in the net broke my heart. I thought, I live in downtown Shanghai, and there are cat thieves, what are you kidding?
In order to find Dabai, I spent days following the route of this cat thief and running to 7 police stations.
Through the final surveillance, I saw that the cat thief and a man like him, riding an electric car and carrying a sack, converged in Qibao Town, Shanghai. They walked into a car wash shed, because it was covered by trees, the surveillance did not capture it, and they should be making a deal. Half an hour later, a truck more than four meters in length drove out, stuffed with cats.
The police told me that the truck should have left Shanghai and that they could not provide any more clues. In this way, the clue that Dabai was stolen was completely interrupted.
But I still have the illusion of luck, hoping that Dabai will run away from him, or that the cat thief will show mercy to him if he sees it as cute and gentle.
At that time, my career was not going very well, and I had already taken a leave of absence, so I decided to devote all my time to this matter. I'm constantly looking up all sorts of information about the cat trade on the Internet, and I'm also asking around some cat groups to try to find some clues.
In the early morning of September 30, 2022, according to the clues of netizens, I came to a cemetery in Zhangjiagang, squatted to the cat thief for 6 days, and found a cat hoarding spot. That was the first time I saw a cat cage. When I opened the cage, these cats who were frightened by the brutality were very scared, and they didn't leave, and they couldn't be persuaded to leave, because they had given up hope for their own lives, and I was very uncomfortable to see.
I learned that these cats were to be transported to Foshan, Guangdong, where there is a town called Dali, and there is a very famous cat hoarding farm in the town. I bought a plane ticket and flew to Foshan, Guangdong.
In Guangdong, I heard the local Didi brother say that there will be a trading market for cats, and there will be a trade for eating cats. At that time, I was stunned, I can eat so much, why eat cats? In our concept, when I was a child, I thought that cats were catching mice, and when I grew up, I felt that cats would be with us, and I never knew that someone would eat **. And they can also form a cat car overnight, one by one to Guangdong, Guangxi, a year to calculate about millions of cats.
At the end of October last year, I learned that cat traffickers were trading under a viaduct in Foshan. I drove to the bottom of the viaduct by myself. At first I didn't squat until the evening, when it was already dark, almost.
At eight or nine o'clockI heard the sound of a car coming, and then I heard the miserable screams of many cats. I hid in the grass and saw two large trucks with a length of 4-6 meters from other provinces driving up, both with cats. A few people got out of the car, holding flashlights, sneaking around. In fact, they have ghosts in their own hearts, and they all know that this is a shady industry, so they all choose these remote places where no one passes.
The cat car found by Han Jiali.
There is next to the big truck.
Seven or eight local pick-up trucks, loaded with their own required number of cats, were weighed on site. The whole transaction process may take an hour or two, everyone is leaving, and the big truck is empty.
I chased the pickup trucks for about half an hour, all the way to a slaughterhouse on the top of a hill. There is no one living on the top of the mountain, it is all an abandoned place. They stopped under a shack, and there were about five or six men. And I drove a car by myself, and the police were not there, so I didn't dare to approach or report it, so in order to keep it safe, I went back (down the mountain) first.
This was the first time I discovered a black den. Later, I went to the Internet to check and see what department I could go to to consult and report. At the beginning, I asked the Animal Supervision Office, and the staff told me that this place is under the jurisdiction of the agricultural and rural law enforcement department, and these places are illegally smuggled without quarantine and slaughtered without permission, and there is a law enforcement department that manages them.
With the help of the police, I got the ** of the Foshan Agricultural and Rural Law Enforcement Department, found the staff of this department, and walked into the black den with the police.
I can't forget the first time I entered the den.
At that time, it was already more than 2 o'clock in the morning, it was quite large, there was no one inside, and there were dozens of wooden cages as far as the eye could see, and there were 15-20 cats in one cage, which was close to one in total. Most of them may be stray cats, but there are also some breed cats, as well as those with bells and collars. When I approached the cage, a cat begged me to touch it, stretched out its hand to me, and its eyes followed me wherever I went.
Around the cage where they were kept, there were all slaughtering machines. There was a hair removal machine underneath, all of which was cat hair left after killing the cat, as well as some iron hooks and blood water. There was a freezer in the corner of the shack, and I squinted and opened it, and it was full of their slaughtered, frozen cat flesh, as well as severed limbs, wrapped in black plastic bags.
No matter how brave I was, I didn't dare to look at it, I could only cry.
Because when these cats were sent to Guangdong, they had already been transported for two or three days, and there would be some (health and safety) problems during the transportation process, and there would be more deaths, which would easily spread some diseases among the population. So after I reported it, the law enforcement officers told me that according to the Animal Epidemic Prevention Law and local regulations, they will treat the cats harmlessly, and the cats in the general slaughterhouse will not survive and will be killed directly. I can only feed them milk. I said, all I can do is get you guys to have a good meal.
In the process of processing, the staff of the Agriculture and Rural Law Enforcement Bureau told me that this black industry has existed for more than 40 years. It's unbelievable, I didn't even know that those stray animals that no one cared for were actually eaten, killed, and exchanged for money. Such an industrial chain existed before I was born, and it is still so perfect.
It turns out that I am also a heartless person, and I may usually help some stray cats be sterilized, and I will feed the cats I often see in the community, but they suddenly disappeared, and I am quite indifferent, and I will not care so much if I run to **. It turned out that the cat, who might have said hello on the way to work before, suffered such a brutal situation, which hit me hard.
Han Jiali and stray cats.
I wonder if my indifference has connived at the existence of this industry? I'm also angry,How can there be such a brutal industry that not only harms animals, but also harms the food safety of our consumers? And it has been rampant for so long?
I'm also a bit stubborn, so I'm going to figure it out.
I stayed in Guangdong on and off for 4 months, and during that time, I stayed in hotels, sometimes at other people's homes. Every day when I get up, I race against time to inquire and find evidence. I have little time to sleep, I have no appetite for eating, I can't even gain weight, I am 1.64 meters tall, and my weight has never exceeded 100 pounds.
Some enthusiastic citizens will send me a private message on social **, saying that they have found a cat hoarding spot in a certain location. When I get a clue, I go to the field to find out. If I see someone trading, I follow them and follow them to the place where they are illegally slaughtered and transported, and I do not rule out any clues that can reveal them.
There are some distinguishing features of the cat cart. If it is a large cat car, both sides will be covered with black or blue non-woven fabric to prevent others from seeing. The roof of the car is empty because of the air flow to keep the animals alive. And small trucks with cats, like the local cat dealers, cover the left and right sides with leather cloth. Why do you want to cover it? I'm afraid that others will see it.
On the cat cart, I was most afraid to see the cats die, and they were locked up in a cramped cage, with broken arms and legs, and very badly injured, and their squeezed eyeballs bulging out. It's miserable.
Not to mention slaughter dens. When they chose a location, they chose abandoned and uninhabited houses, and there would be a very bloody smell in the vicinity. And there will be sounds, screams.
A shack with a cat cage.
Every time I found a black den, I would crouch outside and wait for the police to come, listening to their miserable cries for help, and the sound of being hurt, my heart was in pain, and my body would tremble. When I looked at the hundreds of cats in the iron cage that I didn't have time to slaughter, and looked at me with glowing eyes, I wanted to save them. But I couldn't do anything about it at the time, because I needed to understand what this processing point was going to do with these catsOnly by exposing and reporting this to the public, and the whole people to report and supervise, can (so that cat dealers) have nowhere to escape. Saving one when you see one is not the solution to the root cause.
I can only say sorry to them, because I have to get the whole process and evidence, and I can only sacrifice you on this difficult road.
Generally, it takes half a month to a month to crack down on a den.
Originally, I thought that the cat dealers would be older, but in fact, some of them are very young, and there is one who is the same age as me and has been working for more than ten years. They are more from towns and villages, and some of them have a lower level of education. It is often done in a family or village unit, and a family or a village do this together. It's all your own people who bring your own people, and if it's an outsider, they won't bring you.
Cat dealers are buying and selling without capital.
For example, some cats are free-range, and there are self-built houses in the countryside, the yard is very large, and the range of cat activities is also large. When the cat thief passes by and sees these cats, he will take those professional cat trapping tools with us when we sleep at night - put the sparrows in the trap cage, let the sparrows make sounds to stimulate the cat's instinct, and wait for the cats to rush into the trap cage and catch them directly. In one night, they will be able to catch.
Thirty or forty. Before dawn, they packed the stolen cats in sacks, took them to the place where they stocked them, and waited for the cat cart to come and sell them to the cat dealers who collected them.
I have investigated cat thieves who sell cats, and it can be close to 4 yuan a pound in the peak season. Then the dealer who collects the cat will increase the price and sell it to the ** wholesaler in Guangdong, which can reach a pound of yuan. Then it circulates to restaurants, farms, and enters the market, and it will reach about a dozen yuan. In a food stall in Guangdong, a boss told me that there is a dish made with cats as ingredients, called "Dragon and Tiger Fight", the dragon is a snake, the tiger is a cat, the colder the day, the more people eat, it is said that this dish can play a great role in supplementing people. The ** of this store is weighed by the pound, more than 20 yuan a catty. There are also restaurants that will cut off the cat's limbs and heads, and use ** to pass off rabbit meat, and some are used to pass off beef and mutton, ham sausages, this kind of processed meat, I don't know how much this market ** is.
Slaughter cats in dens.
Many cat dealers have already bought BMWs and villas. I once asked some cat dealers why they did this, and he said that they would lose money by doing anything else, and this would make a lot of money. I said that you have mutilated so many lives, earned so much, and improved your own life, you can also stop and change to other industries. But they didn't listen. They are all unscrupulous people who want to get money, money is better than everything, there is no concept and respect for life, including (and do not care) to endanger the safety of our consumption food, as long as he does not eat it, it doesn't matter.
And they know how to exploit loopholes in the law.
In such illegal transportation, often only the driver is there, and the boss is not there, and the driver will collude with the boss and say, "I don't know, I'm just a driver." If the staff of the Law Enforcement Bureau catches the boss who slaughtered without permission at the scene, and the boss admits it, then there can be an administrative penalty. But some bosses won't admit it, and will say that they are a part-time worker and very cunning.
Some of the staff will confiscate their machines, but they will think that they are okay and can earn them back tomorrow. Sometimes if the attitude of the staff is not very tough, they let them move the machine by themselves, which creates an opportunity for them to continue slaughtering, and find another nest to continue to do [this], so that they do not lose very much.
Some cat dealers will say, "I didn't break any serious regulations, I slaughtered cats and dogs, not giant pandas, nor golden snub-nosed monkeys protected by the state, can you manage it?" ”
That's why I'm going to expose the black dens, I have limited personal ability, and I'm a girl, so I can only expose what I see to the public. I believe that by joining forces with the people, there will definitely be a way to stop them.
So far, I have followed the clues and hit twenty dens and a dozen vehicles. I was so persistent, the cat dealers were surprised, and other people's reports were the longest.
Three or four months, but I've been going on for a year, they say I'm like a madman, my cat is long dead, it's no longer there, and they say that I'm "going to take revenge on them, it should be over, but you don't stop." ”
It also made me known to almost all the cat dealers in the country.
I've had times when I wanted to give up. Last year, basically every time I came to visit my aunt, I was on my way to chase them. Sometimes I feel powerless because I feel unwell. But the one that hit me the most was the betrayal of my companions.
At that time, I had just arrived in Guangdong, and I didn't know anyone, and my driving skills were not good. I met a boy who was 10 years younger than me, and he helped me solve some problems and said, "Sister, it's not safe for you to come here alone, if there is anything to find me." I thought that others were more simple and simple, so I told him that my cat was stolen, I had some clues, I wanted to report them, and I needed someone to drive, and he said, "It's okay, I can participate, help you, you pay my salary." ”
At that time, I thought that this young man was really good, and he could take the initiative to help you solve some problems in an unfamiliar environment, and in addition to money, he also had a sense of social responsibility and was willing to do this, so my vigilance was lowered.
In December 22, I found an illegally transported cat car in a high-speed service area in Guangdong, and I was about to report it to **, when the car suddenly rushed towards my car and hit it 5 times in a row, and the front of the car was dented.
I called the police and made a record with the cat dealer at the police station, and because we had to coordinate, we added WeChat to each other. Unexpectedly, the cat dealer later told me, "I already knew how you beat (hit) me", and said "that young man sold you", "he said you are very bad, you are very poisonous, let's stay away from you".
I found out that the boy I paid for had betrayed me, and he told the cat dealer all my identity and pursuit methods for money. On the day of the settlement negotiations, he went to dinner with the cat dealer in front of me. I almost despaired. Later, I sent a WeChat message to scold him, saying that you have accompanied me through the scene, know my pain, and know that these stray animals are subjected to such a brutal situation, how can you still be so inhumane? It's good for me, it's good for animals, can you do this kind of thing? But he didn't reply. The cat dealers didn't beat me, and they didn't expect that the educated young man, who was 10 years younger than me, would kill me.
At that time, I really wanted to back down. But when I went to bed late at night, I dreamed of the cats that were alive in the slaughterhouse, and I remember the eyes of these furry children. I have promised them on the spot that I will not be able to take you back to where you were born, but as a human being, I will help you get justice.
Cats in cages.
I felt that I couldn't forget what I came to Guangdong for. For me, cats like family have suffered such cruel things and fallen into the hands of bad people, as a person with emotions, conscience and responsibility, I don't want to be indifferent, I don't want to pretend that nothing happens. If I don't do it, all this will be reduced to zero, which is tantamount to conniving at the existence of this industry.
This year, most of my energy was devoted to cracking down on the black industry, and I continued to go to every city, from Guangdong to Zhangjiagang, Suzhou, and Hangzhou, although I had less family companionship, and I got along with friends less, and I didn't have time to do what I was interested in and wanted to learn. But I found that the attitude of every law enforcement department is very nice, and their attitude towards me is very positive, and they all want to severely crack down on these illegal industry personnel who endanger our food safety and harm animal lives to make money, which is a good direction. More people have also participated after understanding the truth, including the owners of stolen cats and people who care about animals, and now I have them all around me.
Four or five little friends. All of this gives me some hope and motivation to move forward.
On October 12, 23, we successfully intercepted a cat car in the urban area of Zhangjiagang. If you can find some rescue bases that can accept social supervision and can openly house these stray animals, you can not only give an explanation to the agricultural and rural law enforcement departments, but also have a chance to live.
When I made a successful report for the first time, the boss of the Taicang Mengtaiqi Cat and Dog Manor Base helped the cat open the cage. I told him that I will continue to crack down on cat dealers and get rid of them, which requires your manpower and the intervention of all parties, not only to rescue but also to crack down on exposing, and to get involved. The boss said that there was no problem, and he was very cooperative, and he was very active in helping if he needed a car or a person. And people pay for their own gas, without complaints. They are also animal lovers, and I am relieved.
The cats were eventually placed at the Moteage Cat and Dog Manor base. Many people who have disappeared from their domestic cats know the news and come looking for it. I remember a girl in Changshu who raised a 3-year-old puppet, which was very expensive, thousands of yuan. She saw ** and immediately came over. Together with my grandmother, I searched for them one by one, and finally found them. Crying all the way and saying, thank you to us very much, she was really scared to death, she has been trying to find a way, and she can't find it in the post. She said that she had already given up, and she never dared to imagine that she could find it in such a place.
Seeing such a scene, I feel very happy and envious of her. This tear of hers is a happy ending that after how much torture and pain she has experienced, she will no longer be in pain. I've been through this process, but I'm a cat and I've been slaughtered and eaten.
Thinking back to a year ago, the first time I walked to a remote place with no surveillance and no one passing by, I will never forget that feeling. Those scenes with blood and brutality were carried out in this kind of dark night.
Now every time I come home from the slaughterhouse, I hold my cat and feel that it is so lucky that it has someone to pay attention to and eat and drink. By the way, its name is Xiaobai, and it is Dabai's daughter.
Dabai's daughter, Xiaobai.
The ** in the article is provided by the interviewee, and the cover image is from Unsplash. ）
WeChat *** Houlang Research Institute" (ID: youth36kr), author: Yang Xiaotong, Wei Weizi, 36 Krypton is authorized to publish.