China, November 27, 2009 - THE cat is out of the bag for a store in China which is licensed to sell flowers, birds, fish and worms.
Instead, it was discovered that the owner had for the last six months been catching stray cats or stealing them from owners for sale to restaurants throughout the country.
Animal rights activists got wind of the trader’s activities and with the help of police managed to save 800 of the feline creatures from ending up on the dining table.
The cats, locked up in iron cages in a store in northern China’s Tianjin municipality, would have been transported to Guangzhou, Guangdong province, and slaughtered.
But 30 residents rallied for nearly 24 hours, negotiating with the trader and the police, to free the animals.
Qin Xiaona, chief of the Beijing-based Capital Animal Welfare Association, who rushed to Tianjin as word spread, alleged it was obvious most of the cats were stolen.
“The police told us that the trader bought the cats. But the trader was unable to provide receipts to prove any of the 800 purchases.”
Qin said the cats were suffocating in the cages and many of them would have died on the way to Guangzhou.
Police have given the volunteers a room in a nearby school to house the cats, many of which are in need of urgent medical care.
