Beijing cat clean-up

by Sanjay Jha | August 8, 2008 at 01:18 am

997 views | 0 Recommendations | 24 comments

Beijing is all geared up to host the Olympics game and welcoming people from all over the world but it is bad time for Cats in the capital city.

Beijing is undergoing a massive street clean-up operation to get rid of the cat population with the start of the Olympic Games looming. But Beijing's animal activists are worried it will sweep China's unwanted pets straight onto the dinner table.

Deng Nainai is trying to protect as many of them as possible from the new measures.

She says she cares for over 200 abandoned cats which people just leave on her doorstep, but she said can not take anymore in.

"I wish that everyone would be responsible for their own cats and not discard them randomly. But 80 to 100 cats have still found their way to me," she said.

She claims the sale of cat meat in the capital's restaurants has risen since the operation began.

Cats and dogs are eaten in China and are bred for their meat in farms.

The authorities deny strays are likely to end up being eaten and insist unwanted animals are humanely put to sleep.

Zheng Ruifeng's from the Beijing Agricultural Bureau said strays cause a severe problem in the capital.

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umarket

at 05:55 on August 8th, 2008

While we saw lots of dogs at local meat markets around China, we never saw any cats. I didn't realize cat meat was also considered a delicacy of sorts. We were surprised at how big the stray cats were in Beijing - someone was certainly feeding the strays a lot! Now maybe I understand why...

Glad my photos from Beijing help,
Audrey

www.uncorneredmarket.com

Amy Judd

at 07:02 on August 8th, 2008

This is awful - how sad.

doublelibra

at 08:16 on August 8th, 2008

Stumbled one night onto this dead-end street with several stray cats loitering. Spotted the beautiful white cat while walking through a hutong.

doublelibra has contributed a photo to this story.

wamerupatagonia

at 08:18 on August 8th, 2008

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wamerupatagonia/

wamerupatagonia has contributed a photo to this story.

lalberal

at 09:48 on August 8th, 2008

Poor kitties!

janeloveguitar

at 09:52 on August 8th, 2008

janeloveguitar has contributed a photo to this story.

Chun

at 10:00 on August 8th, 2008

My son Tiaotiao was also a homeless cat on the street before. My wife and I brought him home when he was around 3 months old.

He is 1 year 4 months old , and such a handsome boy now.

Chun has contributed a photo to this story.

Saksith

at 12:20 on August 8th, 2008

You won't believe how long it actually took to capture that little kitty, which was not bigger than my camera (Canon EOS 300D). It was crawling and tumbling for minutes on the ground, even biting my shoes - until this finally came out! The next day my camera broke...!

btw nice written piece there!

Saksith has contributed a photo to this story.

atdevenish

at 16:52 on August 8th, 2008

This orange cat is a well-loved denizen of a hutong tea house where customers can play Chinese chess and even try the zither. The cat is almost 20 years old. (Try the alleys across the street and to the west of Yonghegong.)

atdevenish has contributed a photo to this story.

jacopo (not verified)

at 18:34 on August 8th, 2008

My God! this article is another perfect example of disinformation about China. What a shame.

Sorry, but I won't let you use my photos to illustrate such a lie.

inaturer

at 19:19 on August 8th, 2008

a cat in peking university

inaturer has contributed a photo to this story.

babadachi

at 19:51 on August 8th, 2008

This is one of two stray cats that visit us. He's JAWS and he has no teeth. He used to have only one. He developed a gum infection as a kitten and then a bigger male stray ripped up the side of his face. JAWS is a great cat.

babadachi has contributed a photo to this story.

Reinier Klok

at 02:13 on August 9th, 2008

a Beijing alleycat flees in one of a hutong's many trees.

Reinier Klok has contributed a photo to this story.

Snowman 雪人

at 19:54 on August 9th, 2008

This sleeply cat photo was taken almost 1 year before the Olympics in Beijing in the garden near forbidden city. I guess it is not there anymore now.

Snowman 雪人 has contributed a photo to this story.

Starnasia

at 22:17 on August 9th, 2008

Fall 2005 - Walking around my campus at bei shi da in Beijing - visiting with a neighbor's cat. So pretty.

Starnasia has contributed a photo to this story.

_dvd_1975

at 05:46 on August 10th, 2008

Shot in november.

_dvd_ has contributed a photo to this story.

dsobodash

at 19:17 on August 10th, 2008

This is kind of suspect. Cat is not eaten in Beijing. I have lived here for years, and even dog can only be found in Korean restaurants. Cats are raised or kidnapped and sold as meat in Guangdong Province, but that is thousands of miles away. It would be lik catching cats in Detroit to sell in Mexico City -- not very economical.

We did a story on some guys catching and selling strays as meat in Fujian last year. Most of the cat meat was bound for dishes in the south where it is used as a substitute for "tiger." Snake is the substitute for "dragon." It is fairly expensive, fetching even 30 yuan per jin (1.1 pounds or half a kilo) at the time we covered it. Compared to duck, which is 6 yuan per jin.

My photos were taken in the northeast corner of Ritan. Some of the park's maintainence crew took care of that cat and several others. The cats were there last month, but this week I found all the round was being torn up for maintainence, so they may have just gone off to another haunt.

ekstarr

at 08:47 on August 12th, 2008

this was a cool, really fat cat sitting outside a tea house in Beijing.

ekstarr has contributed a photo to this story.

sweetpigor

at 02:05 on August 13th, 2008

He isn't a wild cat, he is living in a restaurant as I known, but it hard to imagine how about 2 or more years......because most of people have no patience to take care of their cat such a long time.....
It's a main reason why there are so many cats in grandma Ding's house.

sweetpigor has contributed a photo to this story.

oooid

at 23:34 on August 13th, 2008

a lovely hairly catty,we found her in street,and now she has become a very very beauty!

oooid has contributed a photo to this story.

Jim m (not verified)

at 19:08 on August 17th, 2008

God bless this women who finds it in her heart to actually "BE" the saving grace of lives, discarted by the ones seeking grace for their own.

dinahcreates

at 19:55 on August 17th, 2008

Don't worry Jim, GOD got on the job!

iv-in-the-sky

at 06:36 on August 19th, 2008

I live in Beijing since 2000 and have been involved with China since long before. "Beijing is my Asian Home" this is a sentence that a lot of people have heard my voice saying in Chinese for kind of an advertising and notorious videoclip on tv when Beijing was getting prepared for the Olimpics... And while I was shooting a short introduction of foreigners living in China with some TV people, I just saw this beautiful cat watching me in the nearby of Nan LuguXiang Hutong... At that time I lived very close there...therefore many other cats are now on my pictures... luckily I've seen there are still several around and most of my friends, both Chinese and Foreigners, living in China, have adopted cats. Ivi - the Sardinian/Beijinger

iv-in-the-sky has contributed a photo to this story.