Tens of thousands of dogs are set to be killed and eaten at this year's Yulin Dog Meat Festival held in southern China in June 2016. Despite protests to boycott the annual event by human rights activists, up to 15,000 animals are expected to be slaughtered during the summer solstice event.
The Yulin Dog Meat Festival, otherwise known as the Lychee and Dog Meat Festival, is an annual event during which dogs and cats are sold and slaughtered for their meat. It takes place on 20 June in Yulin, a city in China Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The tradition reportedly began in the 1990s, but the festival is thought to have begun in 2010 to mark the astronomical midsummer.?
While Westerners often react in outrage to the idea of eating man's best friend, the Chinese tradition of eating dog meat dates back to around 500 years.