Korea - Dog and Cat Meat

[Guest guest]

http://members.tripod.com/~animom/koreandogs.html

 

If I told you In South Korea, it is common to eat dogs. This is not done in a

humane manner, but by torturing them to death by hanging, strangulation, and

beatings with such objects as bricks, large rocks, heavy rod-like objects and

electrocution. They do this for long periods of time in order to terrorize and

cause great suffering to the animal. They die a very slow and painful death.

This brutal execution is done to dogs, because many South Koreans believe the

flesh from a dog who is tortured to death has aphrodisiac qualities and tastes

better. Some South Koreans torture cats by hitting them on the head repeatedly

with hammers, by placing them in sacks which are then pounded on the ground, or

by other methods that produce slow and painful death. Dead cats are cooked

along with ginger, dates and chestnuts to make a brown paste or " Liquid

Cat " which is foolishly thought by many South Koreans to be a remedy for

rheumatism and joint problems, "

 

http://www.animal-lib.org.au/lists/korea/korea.shtml

 

The Treatment of Dogs

and Cats in Korea

Should the brutal

treatment and death of a dog or cat concern us more than if the same were done

to a cow, or a sheep, or a chicken. It shouldn't, but

animals that the " Western world " looks upon as companion animals are

treated very differently in Korea.

Many Koreans still believe that if one

eats dog meat from dogs that have been tortured to death, it will make them

more sexually active. The marketing of dog meat as a health food was initiated

and perpetuated by the dog meat dealers to keep their billion dollar businesses

going. The rationale behind savagely beating a dog to death lies in the

primitiveness that when a dog is beaten they produce high levels of adrenaline

hence the selling of their meat as a kind of " natural " viagra for impotence and vitality!

This adrenaline rush is achieved by

hanging dogs from ropes on trees and leaving them to slowly strangle to death,

and then while still alive, their fur is blowtorched off.

Cats do not hold any position of affection

in Korean society. They are not eaten as dogs are but many attempts have been

made to eradicate them, not by humane methods, but rather by beating the

animals to death in sacks or, in some cases, boiling them alive in large

pressure cookers to supply the insatiable demand for another " herbal "

remedy – although clearly animals do not fall into this category.

The Korean government does not enforce its

animal welfare laws so people make an assumption that farming dogs,

slaughtering them and selling their meat is legal. It is not. The sale and cooking of dogs is illegal under Korea's food and sanitation laws.

 

http://www.idausa.org/news/currentnews/activists_stage_bark_in.html

 

South Korea’s

laws prohibiting the consumption of dogs and cats have been routinely ignored

and disregarded by law enforcement. Korea’s

Ministry for the Office of Government Policy Coordination announced in January

that it was to begin inspecting dog meat for sanitation, thus giving dog meat

its seal of approval. The Government promised that it was backing away from

this deplorable plan in February after being inundated with thousands of

letters, phone calls, and e-mails from concerned citizens and animal

protectionists around the world. However, the Government is once again leaning

toward supporting the Ministry’s back door efforts to legalize dog

meat.

 

Before dogs are killed for meat, they are often strung up by their legs and

beaten. Dog butchers extol the virtues of their product, linking the adrenaline

rush dogs experience as they are bludgeoned to death to enhanced male virility.

Cats fare no better—viewed as pest animals, they are boiled alive so

their “juices” can be extracted for supposed health tonics which

butchers claim can be used to treat rheumatism.

 

“It’s inconceivable that as the rest of the modern world is

strengthening animal protection laws, the Korean Government is allowing

‘man’s best friends’ to be boiled alive, beaten, butchered,

and eaten under its knowing watch,” says IDA president and founder Elliot

M. Katz, DVM.

 

For more information on IDA and its Korean Animals Campaign, please visit

www.IDAUSA.org. For more information on Animal Freedom Korea, please visit

www.animalkorea.org.

 

 

http://www.oozemagazine.co.uk/korea.htm

Scandal in South Korea

You may find

this article extremely harrowing

It

sounds mediaeval doesn't it, a country where dogs and cats, loved as companion

animals around the globe, are served up as a 'gourmet' food. Yet this is the

reality today in South Korea.

Many

Koreans claim that eating dogs is a long tradition although others believe that

eating dogs only began as a result of the Korean war,

when starvation was rife. The popularity today has come about because dog

dealers and restaurants began to invent stories about the health benefits to be

gained from eating dog meat.

In order to meet the demand for dog meat (estimated at

2-2.8 million dogs and cats per year), farms exist throughout the country to

breed these animals for slaughter. Dog meat, at £15 Sterling per kilo, costs more than beef and is eaten more than lamb.

 

Dogs can

commonly be seen in Korean markets being killed (hopefully) by hammer blows to the head before being skinned. Sometimes

the dog is electrified instead, with electrodes fixed to the tongue. Yet

another favoured method is slow strangulation by hanging. The flesh is then

singed by a blowtorch to improve its appearance. On some occasions, the animal

remains alive throughout, eventually dying from shock. This is all performed in

full view of other dogs crammed in cages awaiting the same fate.

The Koreans actually believe

that the adrenaline released into the dogs' bloodstreams by their sheer terror

and agony will increase the sexual potency of the consumer.

Shocking

eye-witness testimony

Not

surprisingly, photographs of this form of " slaughter " are difficult

to obtain. The following is an account from an eye-witness,

" The reason why dogs are beaten for so long is that

there is a belief that the slower & more painful the death is, the more

potent the dog's meat will be. Killing the dog slowly causes the dog's

adrenaline to flow, and this flow of adrenaline throughout the dog is believed

to increase the aphrodisiac power of the meat. While the dog is slowly being

killed, it is of course screaming in pain, and trying to resist the grip of the

man doing the killing. One method is to tie the dog from his hind legs upside

down. (All other accounts say that the dog is hung from the neck). The man or

men than beat the dog's body all over with clubs or

bats. Beating it this way is said to do two things. One is to increase the flow

of adrenalin and the other is to tenderize the meat.

" While the dog is being beaten, it gets to the point

where it urinates and defecates on itself,

and the urine & faeces typically flow down the

dog's body, getting in its eyes and causing more pain. Eventually, during this

intensive beating, blood flows out of the dog's mouth and nose due to internal

bleeding, and it finally dies. This beating process has no set time....It can

be a few minutes or it can take an hour, depending on the man doing the killing

and how much he is into the belief that beating it slowly is best for a quality

aphrodisiac. I hope this clarifies why the dogs are beaten first. In a large

facility, the dogs may not be hung by their hind legs. Instead the man enters

the large dog cage, selects the dog, grabs it, and while holding it by the

neck, begins to beat it in the head in order to crush the skull. Of course,

there are so many methods of beating the dogs because there is no regulation on

this. "

CATS

Although cats are eaten in South Korea, it is more usual for them to be rendered into a " medicine "

to treat rheumatism and arthritis. Unlike dogs, cats are not bred on specialist

farms. This would not be cost effective when there are always starving strays.

These are collected in sacks and, if lucky, are beaten to death with either a

stick or hammer blows to the head. More commonly, they are boiled alive with

herbs (sometimes after having their limbs broken to reduce their ability to

struggle) until their flesh liquifies. The resulting

" liquid cat " (known as " Goyangi soju " ) is then sold in small sachets. An average size

cat, when cooked with dates, herbs and chestnuts, will produce 20-25 of these

sachets.

Shocking

Eye-witness Testimony

The following is an

eye-witness account, reported to the Korean Animal Protection Society (KAPS) by

one of its members, Miss Mun Juyoung.

 

" While passing by the Kyoung-il

Health Food Restaurant, Miss Mun looked in through

the window and saw a middle aged women walking slowly among the rows of hissing

and boiling cauldrons. In her arms she held a cat, who

seemed undisturbed by the water on the floor or the stream so thick in the air.

Stopping at one of the hot kettles, the women sniffed once and dropped the cat

in to the boiling water. Hideously scalded by the boiling water the cat

screamed and clawed its way out but, the blank-faced woman, pushed it back in

the water with a stick over and over again until the cat finally lost

consciousness. The woman fished it out once more, the cat mewing and whimpering

in pain, whereupon the woman pushed it back in for the final time. "