Stalls at a livestock market in southern China that sell hundreds of cats and dogs were shut down after a pet owner traced his missing cat there, according to a report by South China Morning Post.
The Pengjiang district government in Jiangmen, in Guangdong province, shut down the stalls at Yuanhui Livestock Trade Market. Authorities raided the market after receiving reports that stolen cats were being sold.
About 235 cats were rescued, and were given health checks by the city’s animal disease prevention and control centre.
“To put the cats in better care, we have negotiated with the volunteers (animal cruelty activists) to transfer the cats to a professional organization.” the government announced on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like service. “At the same time, our market supervising department is organizing a check on all markets in the city.”
The authorities were tipped by a cat owner in Shanghai. He realized his pet had gone missing and used GPS technology to track the cat, later on located it at the Guangdong market.
The following day, activists Liu Ling and Chen Yu arrived at the market to investigate, then the government officials dropped by later that day.
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