Content note: this article describes animal cruelty, and two of the photos show dead or injured dogs. Those images are hidden behind a blur and open only if you choose to view them.
The Yulin Dog Meat Festival is an annual event held around the summer solstice, roughly 21 June, in the city of Yulin in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of southern China. For about ten days, restaurants and market stalls promote dog meat, often alongside lychees and strong liquor. It has become the world’s best-known flashpoint in the argument over the dog meat trade, drawing petitions with millions of signatures and drawing activists who travel to Yulin each year to buy and rescue animals.
This page explains what the festival is, how many animals are thought to be involved, why campaigners object, what Chinese authorities have done, and how people who care about the issue can help without spreading misinformation.
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A recent event, not an ancient tradition
One of the most common beliefs about Yulin is that it is a centuries-old custom. It is not. Dog meat has been eaten in parts of southern China for a long time, but the festival itself dates only to 2009 or 2010. Several accounts say it was created by local dog traders as a marketing event to lift sales during the solstice period, when eating dog was said to bring good health and luck.
The city government has kept its distance. In 2014 Yulin officials told the state news agency Xinhua that they did not officially endorse the festival and that only a small share of residents took part. Officials were also reported to have barred government employees from attending and to have closed some markets and slaughterhouses. At the same time, authorities have said that eating dog meat is not prohibited by national law, which they argue leaves them with little legal basis to stop it.
How many dogs are killed?
The figure most often quoted is 10,000 dogs, sometimes with cats included. That number comes from early BBC reporting and campaign groups and reflects estimates from the festival’s first years. Numbers since then appear to have fallen sharply, though nobody publishes an official count:
- Around 2009–2013: estimates of up to 10,000 dogs per festival.
- 2015: some sources estimated around 1,000.
- 2018: Humane Society International estimated about 3,000.
- China overall: an estimated 10 million dogs a year are eaten across the country, which puts Yulin in perspective; the festival is a symbol rather than the bulk of the trade.
So when older posts and petitions say that 10,000 dogs and cats were killed in 2016, that figure should be read as a campaign estimate rather than a verified total.
Dogs packed into stacked wire cages for transport and sale. Long journeys in crowded crates, often without water, are among the welfare concerns most frequently documented by animal-protection groups.
The welfare concerns
Campaigners raise several distinct problems, and it helps to separate them.
Where the dogs come from
China has very few large-scale dog farms, and investigators have long argued that many animals in the trade are strays or stolen pets. Activists at Yulin regularly report seeing dogs still wearing collars. Pet theft is a real crime with real victims, and it is one reason why opposition to the festival is strong inside China, not just abroad.
Transport and handling
Dogs are typically trucked long distances in tightly packed cages, and campaign groups have documented animals arriving dehydrated, injured or dead. Vendors insist the animals are killed humanely. Activists, however, have filmed beatings and describe animals being scalded or skinned while still alive; these accounts are difficult to verify independently, but the transport conditions are well documented in photographs and video.
Public health
Moving large numbers of unvaccinated animals of unknown origin across provinces creates a risk of spreading rabies, which still kills people in China every year, and other diseases. This argument became much louder during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Opinion inside China
It is easy to frame Yulin as China against the West, but that picture is wrong. Pet ownership has boomed among China’s urban middle class, and many of the most committed activists at Yulin are Chinese volunteers who drive hundreds of kilometres to intercept trucks and buy dogs. A 2016 poll by the Horizon research group reportedly found that 64 percent of Chinese respondents wanted the festival ended, and in the same year a National People’s Congress deputy, Zhen Xiaohe, proposed a ban on the dog meat trade that won wide online support. A 2025 survey commissioned by Humane World for Animals found that 88 percent of Yulin residents said a ban would not inconvenience them.
Rescues have become part of the story. Activists say they saved about 1,000 dogs in 2016 and more than 1,300 in 2017, often by paying traders. Critics point out that buying animals can also put money into the trade, which is why many groups now focus on policy rather than purchases.
A trader on the phone beside a motorbike loaded with caged dogs. Small-scale dealers like this supply much of the trade, which makes it hard for authorities to regulate.
What changed in 2020
The pandemic shifted official policy more than years of protest. In early 2020 Yulin announced restrictions on its dog meat market as part of its COVID-19 response. In spring 2020 Shenzhen became the first Chinese city to ban eating dogs and cats, as part of wider wildlife rules. Weeks before that year’s festival, China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs published a list of livestock that left dogs out, describing them as companion animals used for search and rescue, guiding the blind and keeping people company.
That reclassification did not explicitly make eating dog illegal, so the trade remains in a grey area. The festival still went ahead in 2020 and in later years, though with smaller crowds and lower reported numbers.
How to help responsibly
- Support established groups. Organisations such as Humane World for Animals (formerly Humane Society International) work with Chinese partners on dog-farm closures, pet-theft enforcement and rehoming.
- Check petitions before signing. Large international petitions have helped keep the issue visible, but some sites collect personal data or donations with little accountability. Sign through organisations you can verify.
- Share accurate figures. Inflated numbers are easy for critics to dismiss. Quoting estimates with their source makes the case stronger.
- Avoid blaming a whole nation. Many of the people fighting hardest against Yulin are Chinese. Campaigns that target culture or ethnicity tend to backfire.
- Adopt. Some rescued Yulin dogs are rehomed abroad through recognised charities.
The festival’s future will probably be decided by changing attitudes within China, by enforcement against pet theft and illegal transport, and by whether national law eventually catches up with the 2020 decision that dogs are companions, not livestock.
Sources: Wikipedia: Yulin Dog Meat Festival; CBS News: China’s dog meat festival (2015–2016); South China Morning Post: Dogs are pets, not food, says Chinese agriculture ministry (2020); BBC News: Yulin festival coverage (2016); Daily Petition campaign page (2017). Photos as circulated by animal-welfare campaigners.
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