Photo Credit: E. Vaughn

The Sun reports that a proposed legal ban on eating dogs and cats was blocked by officials in the UK’s Ministry of Justice. The reason? Member of Parliament Giles Watling was told by a source inside the Ministry it would be “culturally insensitive for the government to dictate to other nations what they should eat.”

The source added that the law would be difficult to enforce and the “current ban on transporting or exporting dog and cat meat suffices.”

Watling told The Sun:

Dogs are our companion animals. We do not eat them, and that is a very important message to send to the rest of the world. It’s not culturally insensitive because we’re not telling them what to do – we’re just telling them what we do. We shouldn’t be worrying about that, so I was surprised that was the MoJ’s objection.

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman spoke to The Sun and said, “We currently have some of the strongest animal welfare laws in the world. The government is currently considering whether any changes are needed in this area in the UK and will set out any plans in due course.”

The practice is already banned in Germany, Austria, Taiwan, South Australia and Hong Kong.

According to The Sun:

An estimated 30 million dogs a year are slaughtered to be eaten, across China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. Most are stolen off the street. Their meat is considered both a delicacy and a health tonic.

The Sun has a photograph on their website of the “Yulin Dog Meat Festival” which is held annually in China’s Guangxi province. It’s difficult to look at.

It is illegal to eat dog or cat meat in the US, but I was surprised to see how recently this legislation passed. The Federal Dog and Cat Meat Trade Prohibition Act was was signed into law in December 2018 as part of the 2018 Farm Bill.