TOMOHON, NORTH SULAWESI, INDONESIA – In a victory for animal lovers worldwide, officials on Friday banned the trade in dog and cat meat at an infamous Indonesian market where butchers openly bludgeoned and burned the animals alive with a blow-torch.
“We hope that Tomohon can be completely free from the trade of dogs and cats,” said Mr Edwin Roring, the secretary of Tomohon city. A 2021 opinion poll revealed that 93 per cent of Indonesians support a national ban on dog meat, and that only 4.5 per cent had ever eaten such meat. And yet more than 20,000 dogs and cats are slaughtered every week.
Humane Society International and Animal Friends Manado Indonesia , organisations that have campaigned for years to end the dog and cat meat trade in Indonesia, said it also posed a serious risk to human health.“We hope that one day there will be no more people in Tomohon eating dogs and cats,” said Mr Frank Delano Manus, an AFMI activist.
Four Paws has collected two million signatures calling for an end to the trade in dog and cat meat across Southeast Asia. It is estimated that 30 million dogs and cats, including stolen pets, are killed for the meat trade every year in Asia, including an estimated 10 million dogs in Southeast Asia alone, Four Paws said.“What can we do? It’s already a rule from the government, so we have to follow it,” Mr Melki Pongo, one of the traders, told BenarNews.
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