BEIJING, China - Chinese police have reportedly intercepted a lorry carrying 500 cats destined for the cooking pot.
There has been extra security on China’s roads ahead of next week's
once-in-a-decade leadership change. Police officers in the city of
Xuzhou pulled over the lorry when they noticed it had out-of-town
licence plates.
According to The Telegraph, the lorry was carrying dozens of rusty iron cages filled with cats.
In
recent years, the appetite for cat meat in the south of China has
created a supply chain that reaches across the country, the paper said.
According to the paper, a notorious Cantonese dish is 'Tiger and Dragon Locked in Battle', a hot pot of cat and snake meat.
The
appetite for the dish has already made cats scarce and costly in the
southern region of Guangdong, and restaurants in the province have had
to look elsewhere for a steady supply.
There is no law in China against selling cats, since cats are not regarded as household possessions. Cat snatchers generally make around 10 yuan (£1) per cat and sell them to middlemen who then arrange transport to the south.
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