Cat meat restaurant turns into motorbike shop in Vietnam

The owners of a cat meat restaurant in Vietnam didn’t want to kill animals anymore and finally closed their doors on Tuesday. The animal welfare organization Four Paws rescued the remaining 25 animals at the restaurant, twenty cats and five dogs.

Four Paws, together with Change for Animals Foundation, is helping the couple set up a second-hand motorbike shop on the condition that they will never again engage in the cat and dog meat trade.

The restaurant was located in the city of Thai Binh, notorious for cat meat consumption, and claimed to serve around 240 animals a month, the majority of them cats, Four Paws said in a statement.

The rescued animals were taken to a sanctuary where they got medical care. They will be put up for adoption.

Every year, around five million dogs and one million cats are brutally slaughtered for their meat in Vietnam, according to Four Paws.

“Every year millions of dogs and cats – both healthy and sick, owned and stray – are violently captured from the streets in Vietnam, crammed into tiny cages and transported unchecked across the country, with journeys often lasting days,” Katherine Polak, veterinarian and Head of Four Paws Stray Animal Care in Southeast Asia, said.

“To feed the appetite for dog and cat meat, animals are also imported from neighboring China and Laos. This is not only incredibly cruel to the animals but also blatantly violates public health recommendations, especially in times like these,” Polak continued.

For the restaurant closure, rescue, and successful rehoming of the animals, Four Paws and Change for Animals Foundation worked with local members of the Cats Matter Too coalition, including Hanoi Pet Rescue, Paws for Compassion and Vietnam Cat Welfare.