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Jeju Governor Won Hee-Ryong

Below is Jeju-do Province’s response to our petition: Jeju-do Province, South Korea, Shut down the illegal dog meat farms, slaughterhouses and markets.

It looks like they have attached an English translation file (.hwp file) to the response on e-People, but we could not open the file. Therefore, please find below our translation of their response:

“Hello, The controversy over utilizing dogs as food in Korea has been going on for a long period of time. As the number of companion animals exceeds 10 million in recent years, dogs have become part of the family with people, rather than just animals, and overall awareness of companion animals has improved and negative perceptions of dog meat consumption are spreading. However, dogs are not included in the livestock products prescribed by the Livestock Product Sanitary Control Act, so even if a dog is slaughtered for meat, it is not covered by the slaughtering, processing and sales regulations for livestock products stipulated by the Act. Since the dog meat industry has already been around for a long time, it is not going to be easy to ban by law within a short period of time. This is Korea’s homework to solve step by step through policy and social consensus at the pan-government level.

Jeju-do Province will do its best to realize animal protection and welfare in the future, and thank you for your interest in our animal protection policy.”

We find the response simply staggering. Just because a practice is an old or entrenched one, doesn’t mean it is right or that quick action shouldn’t be taken to ban it. This is the kind of shameful, profoundly indifferent and irresponsible attitude that we have come to expect from Korean government, and should be a national embarrassment to all Korean citizens.

Please take action and send your petition through e-People today. If they have to address and respond to hundreds, thousands or hundreds of thousands of petitions on this issue; then perhaps they will finally be put under enough pressure to take action to bring this horrific animal cruelty to an end.

Our campaign is still effective because now they are aware that the eyes of the world are watching what’s going on in their county’s dog meat industry. Let’s keep up the pressure by taking action!

Dog truck from Jeju, South Korea.

Below is our comments on the satisfaction survey regarding their response:

We are not satisfied with the response to our petition, due to the following key reasons:

it fails to substantiate and evidence what direct actions Jeju-do is taking to enforce existing laws to disrupt the entrenched dog meat trade in South Korea. We have not been provided, in this response, with any evidence of any direct actions taken by Jeju-do, such as recorded information relating to inspections, monitoring and actual enforcement action taken against violators, in relation to dog meat farming, slaughterhouses and businesses selling dog meat and dog meat products (such as dog elixir and dog soju);

it fails to show what actions Jeju-do is taking with regard to proposing amendments to existing legislation or bringing in new legislation to address and end the dog and cat meat trade, and

it fails to formally acknowledge the existence of the illicit dog and cat meat trade within South Korea and the problems this poses to human health, animal welfare and organized crime, which has been widely documented by both domestic and international NGO’s and animal charities (and has also been raised as an international area of concern by many western governments with South Korea and its diplomatic missions).