What do you think of the cat-eating tradition? Eating exotic food is an old tradition in Guangdong. Older cats are said to taste best and are believed to keep those who eat them warm in the winter. Small food stalls and hot-pot restaurants still serve cat, though more and more young and well-educated people refuse to eat cats and dogs now. I'm definitely against such a bad tradition. Cats and dogs are pets for people. Eating cat meat is not generally accepted by the public. Besides, in terms of health, cats and their meat do not come from guaranteed sources so their safety cannot be assured. That's why we are calling on the public to refuse to eat cat and dog. How bad is the situation? On the news they claim thousands of cats are eaten in Guangdong every day. Because of the large demand in Guangdong, cats are being imported from other provinces such as Jiangsu , Anhui , Jiangxi and Hunan . On July 6, some animal protection activists stopped a truck in a Shanghai car park and found more than 800 cats in 42 small bamboo boxes. If they hadn't been found in time, the cats would have been delivered to Guangdong's restaurants. We were lucky to save those 800 cats. But how about those cats we don't know about? They may have been dead on arrival or dead on the dinner table. How does Shenzhen Cat work? I built a website called Shenzhen Cat Net in 2002 to share cute pictures and stories of my cats with other cat lovers. Gradually, over the last two years, Shenzhen Cat has started helping homeless cats by providing services such as medical treatment and sterilisation. Now we are looking at more areas, such as rescuing cats from traders and restaurants, calling for governments to legislate to prevent cruelty to animals, educating the public to reject cat meat restaurants and training volunteers. How do you rescue cats? In December 2002, some of us went to a Guangzhou hotel to protest about the cat meat on its hot-pot menu. It was the first time we tried to rescue cats from restaurants. Now we have around 1,000 volunteers. Every time we hear somewhere has cat meat on the menu, we organise people to go the place as soon as possible. A cat meatball restaurant in Shenzhen was forced to close in June last year after dozens of our volunteers demanded the owner set free any live cats on the premises. The media reported our protest and that was our most successful experience. Earlier this month, we raised money to pay for huge advertisements at bus stations in Shenzhen's booming centre to appeal the public to stop eating cats. What difficulties do you face? Many people have criticised our activities. Some even bought cats to slaughter in public to counter our appeals. We have been defined as extremists who ruin others' businesses. People accuse us of being selfish. They say we have no right to stop others eating cats because it is an old tradition. I know it will take years to fight against this strong idea.
