Thousands of dogs may have died today. Perhaps they were electrocuted, or they might have met their end the traditional way, by hanging. They would have ended up as dog meat, which people throughout Korea still eat. Dog meat restaurants are everywhere, even though processing dog meat is supposed to be illegal.
But don't get the wrong impression. Most Koreans would rather that this disgraceful industry did not exist. So, to those foreigners who feel hate towards Korea for the dog-meat trade, please realize that many Koreans are embarrassed about it. They certainly do not want dog eating to be perceived as part of their national identity.
Observers might believe that cleaning up the industry is what is needed, and that legalization is the answer. And they might believe that legalizing dog meat will minimize the suffering that dogs go through. Well, since when has real life been that simple?
Legalization will only expand the industry, increase the suffering involved, give official endorsement to brutality, and pass on the same problems and the shame to the next generation of Koreans.
Don't believe the lie that only certain types of dogs are bred for eating. Any dog can end up as dog meat. The yellow dogs, regarded by some Koreans as "junk dogs," are supposed to be a special breed for eating. But they are no different from any other dog. There is no such thing as a special dog that is adapted to living its entire life in a cage, that does not suffer while being deprived of basic needs, and that is conditioned for brutal slaughtering.
Don't let the propaganda suck you in. The misinformation spread around about the dog meat industry in Korea is designed to placate those people who don't like to think very deeply. It gives them the comfort of vague excuses and the illusion that some control is in place.
KARA focuses a lot of energy on fighting against the dog-meat industry. This is not just for the dogs. The dog meat issue is a major flash-point for animal rights issues in general in Korea, so a victory against the dog-meat industry should bring about a victory for the protection of other animals in Korea.
Because of the importance of the dog meat issue in Korea we have devoted a whole menu section to it. Please look under Dog Meat Issue in the main menu for all dog-meat related material.
KARA is a volunteer organization that relies on support from the community. You can help us by donating so that we can continue to fight for the protection and rights of animals in Korea.
Besides the donate button, if you have a PayPal account, you can use the send by email function to send a donation to donate@animalrightskorea.org. This saves us paying a fee to PayPal.
101 White-Vill, 208-43 Budam-Dong, Jongno-Gu, SEOUL, 110-817. Tel: 02-3482-0999 / Fax: 02-3482-8835 (Intl. dial 82 first) Address in Korean: 서울시 종로구 부암동 208-43 화이트빌 101호
WFL Endangered Stream Live: Tails of Asia
This Tails of Asia program is hosted by Katia Louise for WFL Endangered Stream Live. This has articulate and knowledgeable guests and a wealth of information about the fur trade, specifically in relation to dogs and cats. Have a listen here or head over to the WFL site. The WFL site also has plenty of extra information, links and resources.
Few people seem to perceive fully as yet that the most far-reaching
consequence of the establishment of the common origin of all species is
ethical; that it logically involved a re-adjustment of altruistic morals
by enlarging as a necessity of rightness the application of what has
been called “The Golden Rule” beyond the area of mere mankind to
that of the whole animal kingdom.
Thomas Hardy
They are not brethren; they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
Henry Beston
The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but rather, "Can they suffer?
Jeremy Bentham
I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.
Henry David Thoreau
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favour freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are people who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Frederick Douglass
I know, in my soul, that to eat a creature who is raised to be eaten, and who never has a chance to be a real being, is unhealthy. It's like...you're just eating misery. You're eating a bitter life.
Alice Walker
As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.
Pythagoras
Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they're only animals.
Theodor Adorno
We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.
William Ralph Inge
In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings see oppression vividly when they're the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought.
Isaac Bashevis Singer
All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals.
Peter Singer
A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.
Leo Tolstoy
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
Mahatma Gandhi
Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.
Thomas Edison
Animals are my friends... and I don't eat my friends.
George Bernard Shaw
The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.
Charles Darwin
I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.
Leonardo Da Vinci
Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.
