Tag: dog meat

ROK Drop favorite Andrew Salmon has an article in the Korea Times about the upcoming release of a documentary about the dog meat industry in Korea:

On Saturday evening, I attended a film screening at a coffee shop arranged by the Seoul branch of the Asian-American Journalists’ Association. The location was comfortable and the company convivial, but the film was not your typical Saturday night bubble-gum viewing. In fact, it was harrowing.

The film was a documentary covering Korea’s dog-meat trade from all angles. Dog farmers – whose demeanors ranged from coolly professional to savagely inhumane – showed their facilities, activities and doomed charges. A pusillanimous National Assembly adviser prattled about the threat to the “national image” if the trade were legalized. An impotent local official accompanied animal rights activists on an inspection visit to a dog farm, where he was turned away at the gate and ended up apologizing to the farmer. Consumers and chefs discussed canine cuisine.

Most traumatically, the documentary captured footage of diseased, wounded dogs in cages; dead puppies being hurled into the trash; livestock slaughtered with blunt instrument strikes to the skull; and packs of dogs crammed into tiny cages for transport from Jeju to mainland markets.

These sequences are benchmarks for under-cover filmmaking. If we accept Sir Max Hastings’ definition of a journalist’s role (“Cause trouble!”), this was fine journalism. It is a challenging film that deserves to be widely viewed and debated. It wrought behavioral change in me: I have eaten dog meat in the past, but after watching this film, won’t again. (Though, having watched it, I reached the opposite conclusion of the animal-rights activists who helped make the film: I am convinced that the sector needs to be fully legalized, so related slaughter and butchery can be properly regulated.)  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but the major point Mr. Salmon makes in his article is that this documentary was not funded by any major news network, but instead crowd sourcing.  I don’t know if crowd sourcing is the answer to better journalism in this era of fake news?

A member of Save Korean Dogs, an activist group opposing the dog meat trade, stages a solo rally in Seoul on July 11, 2017, to express the group’s objection to eating dog meat and call for the government to enact a law prohibiting dog-meat consumption. (Yonhap)

Here is the latest from animal rights activist trying to stop the dog meat industry in South Korea:

Following the closure of most dog meat shops at Moran Market in Seongnam, animal rights activists are now targeting one of the largest dog meat markets in Seoul.

According to the Dongdaemun-gu Office, one of the six dog meat sellers at Gyeongdong Market in central Seoul closed his business last month after officials convinced him to so do.

This came after animal rights activists’ constant demands for banning the dog meat trade there.

“We have already responded to about 100 petitions on the issue this year,” a district official said. “It would be more than 1,000, including unofficial petitions by phone calls.”

The demand puts officials in a bind, in which they can do little to solve the issue. That’s because the current livestock hygiene laws do not classify dogs as livestock, and consequently can’t ban killing and sale of dogs, which makes it difficult for them to regulate the industry.

The only thing meat dealers must be cautious of is animal protection laws, which bans killing animals for no particular reason, killing them in a cruel way and killing them in front of other animals of the same kind.

Well aware of the laws, sellers usually electrocute dogs out of view of other dogs, which is legal.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but my biggest problem with dog farming in South Korea is that some of these farmers are very inhumane with dogs raised in small cages and then beaten to death to better tenderize the meat.

The Korean government may soon regulate the Korean dog meat industry

The South Korean government’s moves toward regulating the dog meat industry have people on both sides of the issue foaming at the mouth.

Last week, the South Korean cabinet announced it would draw up rules prohibiting the brutal slaughter of dogs for food and push laws that set guidelines on hygienic processing and sale of dog meat.

The moves are seen in South Korea as an attempt to police an industry that while drawing international scorn is a tradition in many parts of Korean culture.

To legalize the dog meat trade, the law on livestock slaughtering should be revised to include dogs, the Korea Times quoted an unnamed senior government official as saying.

But last week’s decision is only intended at thoroughly controlling the hygiene standard of dog meat, which is considered as food in reality.

While South Korea has laws against several methods of killing dogs, it doesn’t outlaw dog meat sale or consumption.

Not everyone is happy about this:

The issue flared during the 2002 World Cup, when soccer’s international governing body called on South Korea to stop the practice.

Animal-rights groups reacted swiftly to the government’s move to regulate the trade.

Setting a hygiene standard on dog meat means nothing but legalizing the dog meat industry, the Korea Animal Protection Society stated in a news release.

We cannot believe the government is moving to legalize the dog-eating practice of some Koreans, which is not only harmful for national interests but also disgraceful and reproachable.

I don’t eat dog meat and probably never will but I think that eating dog meat here is something paticular to Korean culture just like eating beef is part of American culture. In some areas of the world such as India eating beef is frowned upon. In other areas eating pork is frowned upon. Other countries eat horses. There is a lot of differences in cuisine all across the world. So if Koreans want to eat dog they should not be prevented from doing so and those of us who do not eat dog meat should not judge Koreans negatively for doing so. It just something particular to their culture.

However, something we can judge them on is how they butcher the dogs. It is really inhumane to beat a dog to death just to get the adrenaline flowing into the meat before butchering. In the 2ID area of northern Kyongi province there are a lot of farms that butcher dogs and it is sickening to hear the dogs getting beat to death while in the field pulling night time guard duty. So if the Korean government wants to regulate something they should regulate the treatment of the dogs but should allow people to eat dog if they want to as long as the butchering process is humane. I however don’t expect much to change. I’m sure the next time I go to the field I will hear more yelping dogs.