With the Yulin festival starting this week, celebs released a PSA to put an end to the barbaric practice of slaughtering dogs and cats for their meat.
Matt Damon, Rooney and Kate Mara, Alicia Silverstone, Joaquin Phoenix, Russell Simmons, Pamela Anderson and other stars teamed up alongside Marc Ching, the founder of Los Angeles-based Animal Wellness Project, in a video urging countries to put an end to the violent act of killing animals for the sake of their meat.
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“This is built upon the belief that if you torture or abuse the animal, it makes the meat taste better or that it gives health benefit to who eats it,” Ching says in the PSA. “Whether or not you think it is something to be eaten or on the menu, cruelty and torture and violence is wrong.”
The Yulin festival came about in recent years to encourage people to eat dog and cat meat, as some believe it helps cool the blood during the hot months. These people also believe the more an animal suffers, the greater the benefit. Dogs are hung upside down, beaten to death, skinned alive and have boiling water poured on them, among other forms of torture. It is reported 10 million dogs die annually.
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But China’s Yulin isn’t the only place that consumes dog meat. Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, South Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
Here is the video. (Warning it is graphic)
