TOMOHON, Indonesia (AP) – Authorities yesterday announced the end of the “brutally cruel” dog and cat meat slaughter at a notorious animal market on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi following a years-long campaign by local activists and world celebrities.
The Tomohon Extreme Market will become the first such market in Indonesia to go dog and cat meat-free, according to the anti-animal cruelty group Humane Society International, or HSI.
Images of dogs and cats being bludgeoned and blow-torched while still alive had sparked outrage.
The permanent end of the slaughter and trade was announced yesterday by the mayor of the city of Tomohon, Caroll Senduk. HSI said they will be rescuing all the remaining live dogs and cats from the slaughterhouse suppliers and taking them to sanctuaries.
The Tomohon Extreme Market had previously been touted as a tourist attraction and a destination that also sells cat meat and the carcasses of wild and protected species such as bats, snakes and other reptiles.
HSI and Indonesian groups operating under the banner of Dog Meat Free Indonesia are campaigning to end the trade in live dogs for human consumption as rabies could spread to humans during the slaughter or contact with infected meat. The welfare groups called the treatment of the animals at the markets “brutally cruell”, generating sympathy among Indonesians and around the world.
International actors and celebrities in 2018 appealed to President Joko Widodo to close the markets, saying if Indonesia joined other Asian nations that have already banned the trade, it would be “celebrated globally” and end a stain on the country’s reputation.
Actress Cameron Diaz, talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, talent spotter Simon Cowell, comedian Ricky Gervais and Indonesian pop singer Anggun are among the more than 90 celebrities listed in the letter.
“These animals, many of them stolen pets, are subjected to crude and brutal methods of capture, transport and slaughter, and the immense suffering and fear they must endure is heartbreaking and absolutely shocking,” the letter said, prompting Indonesia’s central government to issue a regulation saying that dog meat is not food and thus local administrations should act to ban the trade
Karanganyar district in Central Java became the first to issue a formal ban in 2019, followed by other regions in 2020 and 2021. Most recently, authorities in Jakarta, announced in March they have banned the dog and cat meat trades.
PHOTO: AFP