The owner of a Vietnamese restaurant closed it down after expressing moral objections to the practice of slaughtering cats for a soup recipe. According to Metro UK, around 300 cats were killed each month for a soup recipe.
According to the Humane Society International, the owner, Pham Quoc Doanh, tore down the sign advertising cat meat, or “thit meo,” outside his Gia Bao restaurant in early December.
Almost two dozen cats that were about to be slaughtered have been saved as a result of the restaurant’s closure.
“Before selling cat meat at this restaurant I served other normal food and drinks. However, the income was not enough to cover the living cost of my family. It was then I tried selling cat meat since there was no other available restaurant serving this in the area,” Doanh, who is a father of two children, said, according to reports in the British media.
According to the Humane Society International, around a million cats, including stolen pets and strays, are slaughtered for meat in Vietnam each year.
Instead, the Humane Society International gave him a one-time grant to open a grocery store.
How were cats slaughtered in the past?
The restaurant owner claimed that he drowned the cats by holding them in a bucket of water with a stick. “I felt sorry for them when I saw them suffering during slaughtering. It was all about money since I had to make money for my whole family,” he said.
“For a while now I have felt a genuine desire to leave the cruel cat meat business and switch to something else as soon as possible. When I think of all the thousands of cats I’ve slaughtered and served up here over the years, it’s upsetting. Cat theft is so common in Vietnam that I know many of the cats sold here were someone’s loved family companion, and I feel very sorry about that,” he said, further stating that he is thankful that he is no longer a part of this “brutal and crime-fuelled trade”.
