While this report is being written up, there are still many volunteers staying up over night looking after the cats, and in the morning many more will arrive at the warehouse to take their turn, and hopefully many more cats will be able to return to their homes all over the country. Many cats will be taken in by Wuhan Small Animal Protection Association (WSAPA www.590pet.com), and official donation pages have been setup especially for the rescued cats on Taobao by WSAPA. Because Taobao is a Chinese internal online shop, international donations are quite difficult to process, therefore, we have set up a donation page especially for this event.

DONATE NOW

Wuhan Small Animal Protection Association (WSAPA www.590pet.com) will be the beneficiary of the donations collected via this fundraiser page. Distribution and expenses of donations will be made transparent by WSAPA and published once ready.

Full Event Report - Aftercare Ongoing

14th January 2014

6:00PM Chairman Du Fan from Wuhan Small Animal Protection Association had received an eye witness report from people who has spotted a truck on the roadside near Wuhan Technology University on Baishazhou Road, Wuchang, with many cages of cats being loaded onto the truck. Du Fan immediately gathered 7 volunteers and headed towards the location of the truck. When they got there, the truck had already left and was on the way towards the Southern China cities where the cats would be sold for their meat and fur. Du Fan and the volunteers took two cars and started to chase the truck.

11:00 PM The truck was about to leave Hubei province, but volunteers finally caught up with the truck at a toll gate. With help from the traffic warden the truck was finally stopped at the toll. Volunteers called uopn local quarantine officers straight away. Upon arrival, officials from the local quarantine department checked the quarantine certificate for these cats carefully and announced that it had been forged, therefore the transportation of these cats was illegal. However, due to the truck’s origin being out of their range of control, they could only order the truck to be returned back to Wuhan, under the supervision of volunteers, and to be examined once again by the quarantine officers there.

On the way back to Wuhan, the truck was driving in front with Du Fan and the volunteers following behind. The truck driver had tried many times to speed up and get rid of them but failed to succeed.

15th January 2014

04:00 AM Everyone arrived at downtown Anshan in Jiangxia district but the truck driver refused to carry on and said he was feeling sick. Volunteers agreed to stop for a rest there, and waited for local officials during the break.

Local media and journalists arrived shortly and saw a truck with registration plates belonging to Anhui province parked on the roadside, loaded with countless tiny cages cramped with cats. According to the journalists’ initial count, there were roughly a hundred of cages on the truck. In the truck there were two males and one female, but they refused to answer questions or speak to the journalists.

During the initial unloading attempt by the activists at the current holding ground, a nearby market had caught fire, it was suspected that the cat dealers had set the market on fire to cause trouble and divert peoples attentions. Luckily the Jiangxia Animal Quarantine Department later ordered the truck to be relocated to new premises away from the fire.

All the cats were different breeds, cramped in tiny cages less than 20 cm in height and all of the cats seemed very weak. Volunteers told journalists that the quarantine certificate provided by the driver stated there were 2,800 cats and they were destined to Nanning, Guangxi province. The driver had told the volunteers that these cats were to be “domesticated then would be sold as pets”, but volunteers didn’t believe this story, knowing that these cats would not escape a certain death of horror if they were ever to reach their destination and would definitely be sold as meat.

11:00 The driver had called up their people and upon arrival they demanded the release of the truck and all the cats from volunteers, arguments started when their request was refused. The driver got in the truck and tried to flee, but he was stopped by volunteers.

Whilst the journalists’ were conducting an interview, a middle-aged man appeared at the scene, shouting with anger at the volunteers, accusing them of causing trouble. Although he didn’t reveal his identity, volunteers told the reporter that this angry man was the “owner” of the cats.

This man then went on to say that he, himself, had bought the cats from all over many towns and cities, but refused to say how much he had paid for them or where the cats were being driven to. He accused the volunteers of causing him money loss and said he would get it all back afterwards. He refused to comment on the forged quarantine certificate at all.

The Local Health Authority where the truck originated confirmed that the quarantine certificate was forged, and decided to detain the truck and all the cats while further investigation could be made. There were chances that the truck could still be released with all the cats if the “owner” provided supporting documents. Until now, all the cats have been cramped in the tiny cages for over 30 hours and volunteers had found many injured cats, even dead bodies inside the cages, so they started negotiating with the officials hoping they could let them unload the cats and provide them with food, water and essential care.

Their first few attempts got refused, but they didn’t give up and they kept on trying to negotiate. At the same time, thousands of Weibo posts had been published online, reposted and were circling on the the most popular microblog in China, many posted comments and accused Hongshan local officials of condoning crime if they let the truck go.

16th January 2014 Under the pressure of the volunteers, journalists and many more citizens all over China, the local officials agreed to hand over the cats to volunteers and local animal rescue groups to be taken care of.

Victory to the activists and volunteers

Volunteers were then facing the next stage of the rescue, finding a location as a temporary holding ground for all the cats while they separated the dead, injured and healthy ones putting the cats wearing collars to one side waiting to be found by their owners.

Eventually, volunteers found a local warehouse that agreed to provide space for housing the cats temporarily, and charging 1,000RMB (£100/$165) per day. Out of desperation, volunteers took the offer and moved all the cats to the location.

Instruction to the current housing location – 武汉救下的猫咪临时安置点指路详情

Upon arrival they immediately started unloading the cages and started checking on the cats as well as feeding them food and water. Until now, 40 hours have gone by, volunteers didn’t sleep or eat, and neither did the cats, they were fighting through the horror together.

More volunteers had been called upon and arrived at the warehouse, bringing with them supplies including food, water, crates, cages, feeding tubes, gloves, etc. Immediately they joined in with the operation, so they could take over and let some of the volunteers return home for some much needed rest and re-energising.

Many cats have now been moved into larger cages provided with food and water, but there are quite a lot of cats that didn’t make it. Among the dead cats, many were pregnant and gave birth to their kittens while cramped in the cages on the truck, some of their kittens were squeezed out prematurely caused by the pressure of the tiny space and weight of other cats in cages.

The operation of finding owners of some of the cats have begun. As the news spread, many people who had previously lost their cats made their way to the warehouse, some of them have actually found their lost cats after just a short searching around. Many cats had collars, and were identified to be from Beijing and Tianjin, as they belonged to the local cat carer community where groups of rescuers and volunteers took the responsibilities of looking after them from strays to domesticated cats. After hearing the updates about this, the local rescuers from Beijing and Tianjin were on their way to Wuhan via a 2 hour flight, with the hope to find the recent lost cats that disappeared from their community.

While this report is being written up, there are still many volunteers staying up over night looking after the cats and in the morning many more will arrive at the warehouse to take their turn, and hopefully many more cats will be able to return to their homes all over the country. Many cats will be taken in by Wuhan Small Animal Protection Association (WSAPA www.590pet.com), and official donation pages have been setup especially for the rescued cats on Taobao by WSAPA and Wuhan Cat (www.whcat.net). Because Taobao is a Chinese internal online shop, international donation would be quite difficult, therefore, we have set up a donation page especially for this event.

DONATE NOW

Wuhan Small Animal Protection Association (WSAPA www.590pet.com) who will be the beneficiary of the donations collected via this fundraiser page. Distribution and expenses of donations will be made transparent by WSAPA and published once ready.