Thank you for contacting PETA.

We share your concern over live markets where dogs and cats are killed for their flesh. PETA has actively campaigned to eliminate live markets around the world.

The atrocities inflicted on dogs and cats who are slaughtered for human consumption are shockingly cruel. Dogs are often still conscious as they are strung up by their necks and beaten violently in order to increase the flow of adrenaline in their flesh because this is believed to increase the virility of men who eat it. Many dogs and cats who await nightmarish deaths in live markets are crammed into crowded cages without any food or water for days on end. Live markets are also responsible for the spread of many diseases, some of which are deadly to humans; the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2002 and 2003, which claimed more than 900 lives in 26 countries in merely nine months, was linked to live markets inGuangdong province in China.

You can help by writing letters to prime ministers, agriculture ministers, and embassies of countries—including China and South Korea—that have live markets. Urge them to develop enforceable animal protection laws that explicitly prohibit the beating, hanging, electrocution, burning, live boiling, and all other forms of torture of dogs and cats before and during slaughter. We also encourage you to write letters to the editors of newspapers and magazines about the cruelty of live markets and the health hazards that they pose. For letter-writing tips, please visithttp://www.PETA.org/actioncenter/letter-writing-guide.asp. For more ideas about ways to help, go to http://www.AnimalsAsia.org/index.php?module=3&lg=en and http://www.wspa-international.org/campaigns.asp?campaignType=21.

Please remember that the billions of cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals more commonly raised and slaughtered for food also suffer terribly. Many people outraged by images of dogs strung up and having their throats slit may not realize that the same things are done to cows, pigs, and other animals in slaughterhouses while those animals writhe and scream in fear and pain. This is why PETA is fighting to protect all animals from being cruelly treated and killed for their flesh by advocating vegetarianism. To learn more, please visit http://www.GoVeg.comand http://www.VegCooking.com.

Thanks for caring and for everything that you do to help animals!

Sincerely,

Paul J. Smith
Correspondence Assistant
The PETA Foundation
http://www.PETA.org/