By Jung Min-ho
Following the closure of most dog meat shops at Moran Market in Seongnam, animal rights activists are now targeting one of the largest dog meat markets in Seoul.
According to the Dongdaemun-gu Office, one of the six dog meat sellers at Gyeongdong Market in central Seoul closed his business last month after officials convinced him to so do.
This came after animal rights activists’ constant demands for banning the dog meat trade there.
“We have already responded to about 100 petitions on the issue this year,” a district official said. “It would be more than 1,000, including unofficial petitions by phone calls.”
The demand puts officials in a bind, in which they can do little to solve the issue. That’s because the current livestock hygiene laws do not classify dogs as livestock, and consequently can’t ban killing and sale of dogs, which makes it difficult for them to regulate the industry.
The only thing meat dealers must be cautious of is animal protection laws, which bans killing animals for no particular reason, killing them in a cruel way and killing them in front of other animals of the same kind.
Well aware of the laws, sellers usually electrocute dogs out of view of other dogs, which is legal.
For now, the only thing the officials can do about the flood of complaints is to keep trying to convince the sellers to convert to other businesses.
Dog used to be a popular food in Korea. But the practice has been a source of controversy both here and outside the country as pet dogs have become ever more common among urban middle classes. Now, especially young people in cities consider dogs predominantly as pets rather than food.