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Shanghai stalls serve up cat dressed as mutton

Shanghai street vendors are using the meat from stray cats to supplement mutton to make kebabs, an animal welfare organization said on Friday.
/ Source: Reuters

Shanghai street vendors are using the meat from stray cats to supplement mutton to make kebabs, an animal welfare organization said on Friday.

The Shanghai Small Animal Association has just completed a one-year investigation in which kebab samples, mostly lamb but sometimes rabbit, tested positively for cat meat.

Although cats are a delicacy in wealthy Guangdong province in the south, diners elsewhere in China tend towards more conventional meat, prompting some street vendors to pass cat meat off as mutton in a city where stray cats are two a penny.

“There’s no way of protecting cats here, no laws that defend their rights,” said Li Ruohai, director of the Shanghai Small Animal Association.

“Actually the problem is both dogs and cats. There’s around 100,000 stray cats and dogs in the city, so people take them by force. It’s a big problem.”

Li said the problem began with Shanghai residents who bought cats as pets, or received them as presents, but soon tired of them.