• Police have reportedly pounced on a crime gang stealing pet cats and selling their meat for human consumption
• The thieves placed flapping and chirping sparrows inside a wire bag with a remote-controlled trap mechanism to lure and catch the cats

Police in eastern China have shut down a crime group using live sparrows to lure and trap cats for sale as meat for human consumption, an international animal welfare organisation has revealed.

Nearly 150 cats, crammed into 11 cages, and 31 sparrows used as bait were rescued from a location in Jinan, the capital of Shandong province, last Thursday by police acting on a tip-off from animal rights activists, according to Humane Society International (HSI).

The cats, which had mainly been people's pets, are believed to have been caught by the thieves who placed flapping and chirping sparrows inside a wire bag with a remote controlled trap mechanism.

Police have detained several members of the gang and their investigation is ongoing.

Huang Ziyang from a local HSI-supported Chinese animal protection group called Vshine was at the scene after the police raid. He said most of the cats appeared well bred and are believed to be stolen pets. Already, two local Jinan residents have identified their stolen pets among the rescued cats.

"It was shocking to see the state they were in, many of them were emaciated and crying out," said Huang.

"I saw one pet owner who came in to see if her cat was among them and she was drenched in tears. I felt sorry for her. It's her family!" he added.

China has no animal cruelty protection laws which could be used to prosecute the suspects, but they could face penalties under a number of other laws for hunting the sparrows, a protected species in China, property theft and for violations of animal epidemic prevention rules.

"We had been tracking this gang of cat thieves and meat traders for a while before we finally found the place they stored all the cats they stole off the streets," Huang said.

"Sparrows have been a common tool used by cat thieves," he added.

The cats had been earmarked for shipment to southern China, where a declining number of people still consume cat meat, despite improved public awareness about the cruelty of the pet meat trade.

Although dogs and cats are only eaten infrequently by a small percentage of people in mainland China, it is estimated that around 10 million dogs and four million cats are killed for human consumption each year across the nation, according to HSI.

Without national laws to protect all animals, the country's regulation of animal welfare is based on local rules and regulations.

In 2020, two major cities in southern China, Shenzhen and Zhuhai, banned the consumption of dog and cat meat, which a poll of 378 million people in mainland China by news site ifeng.com showed strong support from nearly 75 per cent of respondents.

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