The suffering of dogs destined for consumption by humans in Korea has been documented many times. They are crammed into tiny cages, deprived of water and proper food, beaten and hanged – sometimes they are even burnt alive.
 

On March 24th this year, the municipality of Seoul released the Dog Meat Hygiene Management Policy, a document that lists dogs as livestock. It plans to recommend amendments of the national laws on Livestock Products Processing to formally include dogs as livestock. Korean animal protection groups gathered in front of Seoul city hall on March 25th and 26th to protest this move.
For years Korean groups have worked on public education campaigns to promote the concept that dogs are not food. They are asking for support from other communities, particularly Asian communities, with the hope that countries that have already banned the consumption of dog and cat meat (including Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines) and those where this is not a major issue (including Singapore, Japan and India) could help to persuade the Korean government not to legalise this animal abuse.
 

The sanitary inspection of over five hundred dog meat selling places has already begun in Seoul. However, the Seoul government still states that it will hold public hearings in May which they say will be a just and fair process of gathering public opinion.
Avian flu is spreading throughout the country, and the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MFAFF) is unable to deal with other issues due to their focus on decontamination, quarantine and slaughter of chickens.
 

Korean animal groups had two meetings, on the 14th and 18th of April, with Seoul Municipality’s Food and Drug Administration which is primarily responsible for implementing the Dog Meat Hygiene Management Policy. So far, the Seoul metropolitan government is showing no signs of changing its position on legalising dog meat. Even though they admit that large scale dog farming will cause the overuse of antibiotics, as it has in other species, they still say that this bill is meant to improve public health. This is a major inconsistency in their policy.
They insist on pushing sanitary inspection because, according to them, citizens are eating dog meat, which is why it is necessary. The sanitary inspection includes the testing for levels of antibiotics and toxic metals in dog meat, according to a city official. If these are found the offending restaurants will be closed, and the city will set a baseline for safe levels. It is clear that all their efforts are towards promoting legalisation of the distribution and selling of dog meat. The officials also said that after the city set the baseline and submitted the inspection report to the central government, the city would officially propose a bill that would permit slaughtering of dogs and dog meat trade. On April 22nd we also visited the government of Gyeonggi-Do as we had heard that this local government also plans sanitary supervision for dog meat restaurants.
 

According to a 2004 report by Korea’s MFAFF, it is estimated that some 2 million dogs are raised for meat and about the same number are slaughtered every year for consumption in Korea. Another survey shows about 20 thousand dogs are traded every day for meat across Korea.
Whenever bird flu breaks out in Korea, a great number of chickens, ducks and pigs are buried alive. We are worried that if dogs are classified as livestock, those in bird flu outbreak areas may be buried alive as well.
 

CARE, KAAP and other animal groups will continue to campaign to prevent the legalisation of dog eating and the listing of dogs as livestock.