A Chinese woman named Li Jinbang posted a photo of her boiling a dead cat into soup on a social network. The Internet hate campaign that ensued has sparked a debate over whether it should be legal to eat cats and dogs.
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The post sounded like a joke, but Li Jinbang wasn’t kidding. “Hey look, I managed to catch a tiger and ate it,” she said. The 21-year-old then posted photos of her stripping off the fur and cutting it into pieces for her soup.
When the Internet started to share her photos though, she became defensive, especially since she apparently had photos of the cat in a cage looking perfectly healthy.
After a massive online hate campaign, Jinbang wrote later that the cat was hit by a car and she did it a favor by putting it out of its misery. “It was a perfectly lawful killing and I killed the cat and ate it without doing anything illegal,” she wrote.
Jinbang hails from the Guangdong province in Southeast China, which is know for exotic fare. Overseas visitors rarely see cooked cat on menus, but it is popular in the rural areas according to reports. Legislation was written in 2012 which made eating cats and dogs illegal, punishable with a 15 day jail sentence.
Apparently that has done little to stem the rising popularity of the animals being used as food.
Most of the parts of the cat are said to be edible, with a special emphasis on their feet. Cat heads are reportedly rarely used.
So, how about it? Should it be legal to eat cats and dogs? Why, or why not? Leave your comments below.
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