These are not the stories one wishes to see. Alas, AFP has written up this one, so here goes.
Animal activists are combing a forest in eastern China for more than 1,000 kittens rescued from a meat supplier only to be let loose by local authorities, an organiser said Monday.
That’s the lede. What it tells us is that, apparently, people eat kittens (if you believe everything you hear in the news). It also tells us that in some cases, local authorities, who don’t want to raise 1,000 kittens (and why would they deny themselves that bit of heaven???), will let all of them loose in the forest.
This is reportedly what happened in Wuxi, Jiangsu province last week.
Animal protection volunteers and local police intercepted a truck “filled with cats” destined for dinner plates last week, said an activist surnamed Ni from the Wuxi Small Animal Protection Association in eastern Jiangsu province.
But local government officials released the felines — some as young as four months old — into a nearby mountain forest to fend for themselves, Ni said.
“They were being sent to Guangzhou to be eaten by people,” he told AFP.
“We didn’t want to release them, our volunteers had places to keep them. It’s definitely irresponsible.”
The story really doesn’t get better from here. Fifty or so kittens have been rescued, but some have been run over by cars, etc.
It’s an unforgiving world we live in. If only more people grew up with copious cat gifs.
Chinese officials ‘set 1,000 cats loose in forest’ (AFP, image via) (H/T Alicia)
they will live to regret releasing cats into the forest when they have a devastating feral cat population – poor kitties
Agree with that, they’ll decimate the small wild animal population in that forest, like birds, rodents, frogs, lizards… Fucking idiots don’t think about protecting the environment or the consequences of releasing animals into the wild.
I await the day they release an animal with a deadly pandemic virus or the zombie apocalypse.
Vast majority of the citizenry are decent well meaning folks – its the “Ling Dao” in charge thats inhumane & brain dead.