Olympic Athletes Asked to Help End Slaughter of Dogs, Cats for Food in South Korea

Animal lovers are appealing to Olympic athletes from 161 nations due in Seoul this summer to help end the slaughter of dogs and cats to feed South Korea’s gourmets.

They will offer to take the sportsmen and women to markets near the Seoul Games where they say the animals are cruelly killed before being served as delicacies in restaurants.

They also plan to urge Olympic athletes and officials to write to the South Korean government in a bid to end the killing.

“What is happening here is a crime of inhumanity,” said Dave Dawson, Southeast Asia coordinator of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), during a recent fact-finding visit.

‘An Awful Thing’

“It’s an awful thing to do to friends, to serve them up on a plate,” added Dawson, saying his group will ensure that Olympic athletes are informed of the situation.

The South Korean government, concerned about this threat to its international image, is at pains to point out that killing dogs and cats for consumption was outlawed in 1984 and that restaurants were “recommended” not to serve dog meat.

Trade and Industry Minister Ahn Byong Wha recently wrote Dawson, “The majority of Koreans view the practice of killing and eating these animals as shameful as well as cruel.

“The small number of people who still willfully indulge in this illegal activity do so out of the public eye, well aware of its disgrace.”

An Information Ministry official said the government believes that “even where illegal restaurants still exist, the cruel methods of killing the animals are no longer used and that fewer and fewer people are eating such dishes.”

Many Have Eaten Dog

A poll commissioned by the Animal Welfare fund, which has close links with the World Wildlife Fund, found that a quarter of South Korea’s 40-million population had eaten dog. One in 10 had eaten cat.

The dog-soup trade is likely to remain a secret to Olympic visitors unless they stray into the back alleys of the capital and read Korean.

Restaurants with large signs advertising Poshintang (healthy soup) used to be prominent on main thoroughfares, but now they have moved to more discreet sites.

They also have smaller signs reading Poyangtang, another euphemism to get around government restrictions, roughly translated as “nourishing soup.”

The Animal Welfare group says it has evidence that dogs are slowly suffocated, because the adrenaline is thought to tenderize the meat.

Served in a Soup

Cooked slices of dog meat are then served up in a soup, flavored with garlic, spices and sesame, believed to enhance sexual stamina.

Kae soju is an alcoholic drink made from a whole dog boiled with herbs and spices for 48 hours. Koreans drink it as a tonic in the hot, energy-sapping summer.

Cats are killed by blows to the head, according to Dawson, who has visited South Korea several times to gather evidence.

Alternatively, he says, they are thrown live into boiling water to produce go yangi soju --a drink taken by the elderly as a cure for rheumatism or arthritis.

Government health official Lee Sang Suk said restaurants have been advised not to serve dog meat. If they ignore this, they are warned for a first offense and risk seeing their licenses revoked for subsequent violations.

No General Legislation

Dawson said IFAW hired a leading Seoul law firm that found that there was no general legislation in South Korea regarding cruelty to animals. He said the ministry’s guidelines refer only to large towns and tourist areas.

“We are not protesting about the sort of meat people eat,” Dawson said. “It’s the cruelty--tantamount to torturing animals.”

Previous IFAW campaigns were aimed at halting the killing of dogs for food in the Philippines and the killing of Canadian baby seals.