Protestors call for ban on 'water boiled cat'

By Yang Lifei  |   2008-12-19  |     ONLINE EDITION

ABOUT 50 feline lovers in Beijing protested outside the Administrative Office of the Guangdong Province Government in the capital yesterday morning and asked that the province ban restaurants from serving dishes with living cats.

The gathering came after Beijing Evening News issued a report on Wednesday that 5,000 cats in wooden containers were transported from Nanjing, capital city of Jiangsu Province, to Guangdong by train on December 4. The cats were destined to end up in restaurants serving a dish called ``water boiled cat'' while they were still alive, the newspaper said.

The report aroused strong anger among cat lovers in Beijing and at 10am yesterday, about 50 people, mostly middle-aged women, gathered at the lobby of the Administrative Office of Guangdong Province Government in Beijing. They submitted an advocatory letter to an office employee surnamed Yang.

The women told Beijing Evening News they had been feeding abandoned felines in the city for years and were extremely anxious about the fate of these 5,000 cats.

``We want to get the attention of the Guangdong Province government and hope they do something to stop the practice,'' the group was quoted as saying.

Yang said he would forward the letter to the relevant department as soon as possible, but declined to give interviews as ``he was not authorized to do so.''

The protest ended at 11am when the cat lovers left the scene.
According to the report by Beijing Evening News on Wednesday, cat lovers in Nanjing had tried to rescue the animals by alerting police. However, their efforts proved in vain as the consignor had legal certificates.

A total of 10,000 cats are eaten every day in Guangdong restaurants, the report said.

To make ``water boiled cat,'' chefs first smash the cat's head to knock it unconscious and then stew it in boiling water. After removing the hair, chefs cut the meat into pieces to add into a soup, the newspaper said.