Volunteers Celebrate Saving 500 Cats from Meat Trade

Volunteers in China are weary but grateful as they provide care for 500 cats rescued rescued from the meat trade. These cats were saved by chance when a police officer pulled the vehicle over in the city of Xuzhou after noticing it had out-of-town license plates.
Office Sun, who had been doing routine inspections along the roadway, began investigating when he heard crying coming from the back of a large agricultural vehicle. The driver told him that he was carrying rabbits, but when the office inspected the burlap bags in the back of the truck, he found hundreds of cats struggling for air and severely dehydrated.



A long standoff ensued as word went out to local animal rescue volunteers who began negotiating for the release of the cats. Although they had no legal standing to seize the animals, they refused to let the vehicle continue on. Haggling for custody of the cats stretched well into evening before the driver finally agreed to accept the equivalent of $800 for the cats.
Xuzhou Animal Rescuer Centre now has 1,000 animals in their shelter after this mass intervention. Some volunteers are reportedly getting ill from exhaustion, working around the clock for the cats, but they are determined to bring peace to these survivors. While some of the cats are settling in, others are still petrified of human contact. Their recovery will be long and the adoption process painstakingly slow.
Today the Harmony Fund has made a donation to help in the care of these cats as part of it’s year end international campaign Operation Holiday Kitty which will provide aid to an array of cat rescue efforts across the planet.


Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/volunteers-celebrate-saving-500-cats-from-meat-trade.html#ixzz2DT5QQTKh