New “anti-dog meat” groups favoring legalization perplex veteran campaigners

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  September 2013: (Actually published on October 8,  2013)

LONDON,  OAKLAND,  HONG KONG,  PHUKET–– Months of question-provoking activity by entities using the names No To Dog Meat and World Protection for Cats & Dogs in the Meat Trade took a twist on September 20,  2013 with an apparent split between them,  announced on Facebook.

Julia de Cadenet,  founder of World Protection for Cats & Dogs in the Meat Trade,  told ANIMAL PEOPLE on August 20,  2013 that she favors legislation to recognize dogs and cats as “meat animals,”  so that the dog and cat meat trade can be regulated.  This differs from the position of almost every other charity campaigning against dog and cat consumption.

De Cadenet was the most prominent of an ever-changing cast of names associated with both No To Dog Meat and World Protection for Cats & Dogs in the Meat Trade.  However,  distancing herself somewhat from No To Dog Meat,  De Cadenet told ANIMAL PEOPLE on August 20, 2013 that NTDM was actually the project of an Australian journalist named Michelle Brown.

Animals Asia Foundation founder Jill Robinson told ANIMAL PEOPLE that she had participated in a long telephone discussion with British activist Ali Dolloso,  who seemed to be representing No To Dog Meat at that time,  but Robinson said she was later told by Brown that Dolloso did not speak for NTDM.

Alleging that “No To Dog Meat’s chief executive officer Ms. Julia de Cadenet had placed defamatory and lurid comments and/or posts since May 2013,”  someone claiming to represent NTDM issued an apology and retraction on September 20,  2013 for the comments and postings in question,  but said de Cadenet “remains the sole owner and sole director of the World Protection for Cats and Dogs in the Meat Trade from which No To Dog Meat works as an awareness campaigner.”

Developing online prominence in connection with a march against dog-eating promoted in May 2013,  No To Dog Meat was flamboyantly critical of other organizations campaigning against the dog meat industry,  including the Hong Kong-based Animals Asia Foundation and the Thai-based Soi Dog Foundation.  The Animals Asia Foundation,  though focused on rescuing moon bears from bile farms in China and Vietnam, has also campaigned against consumption of dogs and cats since inception in 2000.  The Soi Dog Foundation has since mid-2012 coordinated an international campaign against dog trafficking from Thailand to meat markets in Vietnam and Laos,  and has rescued thousands of dogs from trucks intercepted at Thai border crossings.

Soi Dog Foundation president John Dalley brought No To Dog Meat to the attention of ANIMAL PEOPLE in early July 2013,  after NTDM allegedly urged donors to boycott Soi Dog. ANIMAL PEOPLE found that only one longtime anti- dog meat campaigner of note,  International Aid for Korean Animals founder Kyenan Kum,  appeared to endorse No To Dog Meat.  Kum’s elder sister,  Daigu pharmacist Sunnan Kum,  founded the Korean Animal Protection Society,   the first post-World War II Korean humane society,  in 1982.  Kyenan Kum,  an artist living in Oakland,  California,  founded IAKA to help support KAPS.

But as of September 2013,  the KAPS shelter had reportedly closed,  KAPS had not responded to inquiries,  although Sunnan Kum’s daughter Sueyoun Cho was said to be in Daigu to wrap up the organization’s affairs,  and the IAKA board had not met in several years.

Kyenan Kum affirmed to ANIMAL PEOPLE that she supported both No To Dog Meat and World Protection for Dogs & Cats in the Meat Trade.  Kyenan Kum did not explain,  however,  despite repeatedly being asked,  how she reconciles de Cadenet’s views with the often adamantly expressed previous position of both Kum sisters that dogs and cats must not be recognized  as “meat animals.”

Fashionable London address

World Protection For Dogs and Cats In The Meat Trade “seems to have been set up only this May,”  observed Paul Littlefair,  Asia representative for the Royal SPCA of Britain.  “It is not a registered charity but a business,  trading out of office space in Cavendish Square, one of the most expensive parts of Marylebone/Mayfair.  A second company [registered to De Cadenet],  Film & Business Ltd.,  is at the same address.  Interestingly her registered companies info gives two wildly different dates of birth [for de Cadenet]: 1964 and 1973.”

Both companies are located in a building which provides mailing addresses and reception services to numerous companies whose actual physical locations are elsewhere.  De Cadenet told ANIMAL PEOPLE that she actually lives in France,  and that Film & Business Ltd. is primarily engaged in helping people in the film industry to obtain visas to work in the U.S. and Europe.

De Cadenet claimed to be working “very closely” with the Office International des Epizooties,  also known as the World Organization for Animal Health,  to establish  international standards for commerce in dogs and cats by the meat trade,   and said “We work very closely with the International Slaughter Association.”

There appears to be no such entity,  but the name is sometimes used to mean the British-based Humane Slaughter Association.

“I am totally against the practice of eating dogs and cats,”  de Cadenet asserted.  “I am a vegetarian.  I know that this is the position of the OIE:   first standardization is raised on a global level.  Only then can dogs and cats ever be humanely slaughtered.  Then you would look at regulations for raising them and slaughtering them.  The EU would have something to say about the slaughtering standards and regulations.  I have been lobbying on U.K. to Europe live transport,”  de Cadent added,  explaining that she favors live transport by the shortest routes,  as does the British Farmers Union.  Compassion In World Farming and the Royal SPCA oppose any live exports.

“We have to consider how British farmers are going to make a living,”  de Cadenet said.  De Cadenet then postulated that it is also necessary to consider how South Korean dog meat farmers are going to make a living.

Recent research by the organization Korea Animal Rights Advocates found that very few South Korean dog meat farmers made a living at it.  Most raise on average only eight dogs at a time,  as a sideline to other types of agriculture.

“I have never come across this person,”  RSPCA director of communications David Bowles told ANIMAL PEOPLE,  “but I do attend OIE and know what is happening there,  and can tell you that there is no plan in the OIE for any standards on dog meat.  This would have to go through their animal welfare committee and then plenary,  and there has never been any discussion on this at all at any meeting,  or any proposal from any country.”

Agreed Compassion in World Farming chief executive Philip Lymbery,  “I have not come across this individual.”