BEIJING: 12/20/08 (Associated Press) Some 40 animal lovers in Beijing have staged a protest demanding the southern Guangdong province halt what they denounced as the 'shameful' and 'cruel slaughter' of cats for food.
Thousands of cats across the country have been caught in the past week by traders and transported to Guangdong to be killed for food, said the protesters gathering to meet a representative of the Guangdong government stationed in Beijing.

'We are very angry because the cats are being skinned and then cooked alive. We must make them correct this uncivilised behaviour,' said Mr Wang Hongyao, who represented the group in submitting a letter to the Guangdong office.

The protesters urged the provincial government to crack down on cat traders and places that serve cat meat, although no law stipulates that it is illegal to eat cats. It is common for cats to be eaten in some parts of China.

The demonstrators held up banners saying 'Cooking cats alive! Shame on Guangdong!' and 'Resolutely oppose cruel slaughter' during the meeting.

Many of the protesters in Beijing were retirees who said they have been caring for stray cats.

'These cats, they are like our children,' said Ms Cui Qingzhen, 56. She has been feeding street cats for six years.

Protests such as this were almost non-existent in the past. It was the latest clash between age-old traditions and the new sensibilities made possible by China's growing affluence. Pet ownership was once rare because the Communist Party condemned it as bourgeois and most people simply could not afford a cat or dog.

The protesters' indignation was whipped up by recent reports in Chinese newspapers. On Monday, the Southern Metropolis Daily ran a story that said about 1,000 cats were transported by train to Guangdong each day.

A photo showed a cat with green eyes peering from a crowded crate. Other pictures showed cats being skinned in restaurant kitchens. Some people in Nanjing 'fish for cats', often stealing pets, the report said.

Cats from Shanghai, Hangzhou and other places in the northern regions were also being rounded up, the Chengdu Business Daily reported last week. The paper said people in Guangdong eat 10,000 cats a day.

One cat owner in Guangzhou said people were afraid to let their pets leave the house for fear that they would be stolen.

'It's never been this bad. Who knows, it might be because of the bad economy. I've heard that there are cat-nabbing syndicates from Hunan that are rounding up cats,' said the man, who would only give his surname, Lai, because he feared the cat business might be run by gangsters.

Animal protection groups have occasionally ambushed truck convoys loaded with caged cats bound for Guangdong. In one recent case, hundreds of cats escaped after their cages were opened, though hundreds more remained penned in the vehicles.

Ms Lai Xiaoyu, who was involved in the attempted 'rescue', said the authorities could not stop the cat shipment because the traders said the animals were to be raised as pets.

'There's a famous soup called Dragon, Tiger And Phoenix,' said Professor Zhu Huilian, who teaches nutrition and food safety at Sun Yat Sen University in Guangzhou. 'It involves cooking snake, cat and chicken together. In winter, more people (in Guangdong) eat cats as they believe it's extra nutritious.'