South Korea prohibited canine meat. So what occurs to the pet dogs?

When he isn’t teaching words of God, Reverend Joo Yeong-bong is increasing pet dogs for massacre.

Company is not working out though. Actually, it gets on the edge of coming to be unlawful.

“Because last summertime we have actually been attempting to market our pet dogs, yet the investors simply maintain being reluctant,” Mr Joo, 60, informs the BBC. “Not a solitary one has actually appeared.”

In 2024, the South Oriental federal government applied an across the country restriction on the sale of canine meat for intake. The site regulation, which was passed last January, offers farmers like Mr Joo up until February 2027 to shutter their procedures and sell their continuing to be pets.

However numerous state that isn’t adequate time to eliminate a market which has actually propped up incomes for generations– which authorities still have not generate ample safeguards for farmers or the approximated half a million pet dogs in bondage.

Also those that sustain the restriction, consisting of specialists and pet civil liberties supporters, have actually flagged concerns around its enforcement– consisting of the trouble of rehoming pet dogs that, having actually been conserved from the kill flooring, currently deal with the progressively most likely hazard of mercy killing.

Midway via the moratorium, canine farmers are locating themselves with numerous basically unsellable pets, ranches that can not be shut, and little methods of placing food on the table.

“Individuals are enduring,” states Mr Joo, that is likewise head of state of the Korean Organization of Edible Dogs, a team standing for the market. “We’re sinking in the red, can not pay it off, and some can not also … locate brand-new job.

“It’s a helpless circumstance.”

Chan-woo has 18 months to do away with 600 pet dogs.

Afterwards, the 33-year-old meat farmer– that we consented to anonymise for anxiety of reaction– deals with a charge of as much as 2 years behind bars.

“Reasonably, also simply on my ranch, I can not refine the variety of pet dogs I have in that time,” he states. “Now I have actually spent every one of my possessions [into the farm] – and yet they are not also taking the pet dogs.”

By “they”, Chan-woo does not simply suggest the investors and butchers that, before the restriction, would certainly get approximately six pet dogs each week.

He’s likewise describing the pet civil liberties protestors and authorities that in his sight, having actually combated so tough to disallow the canine meat profession, have no clear prepare for what to do with the remaining pets– of which there are close to 500,000, according to federal government price quotes.

“They [the authorities] passed the legislation with no genuine strategy, and currently they’re claiming they can not also take the pet dogs.”

Lee Sangkyung, a project supervisor at Humane Globe for Animals Korea (Hwak), mirrors these worries.

“Although the canine meat restriction has actually passed, both the federal government and public teams are still facing exactly how to save the continuing to be pet dogs,” he states. “One location that still really feels doing not have is the conversation around the pet dogs that have actually been left.”

An agent from the Ministry of Farming, Food and Rural Matters (Mafra) informed the BBC that if ranch proprietors quit their pet dogs, city governments would certainly presume possession and handle them in sanctuaries.

Rehoming them, nonetheless, has actually verified difficult.

Because weight equates to revenue in the canine meat market, ranches have a tendency to favour bigger types. However in South Korea’s extremely urbanised culture, where lots of people stay in apartment building, striving pet dog proprietors typically desire the contrary.

There is likewise a social preconception related to pet dogs that originate from meat ranches, Mr Lee discusses, as a result of worries of illness and injury. The problem is even more made complex by the truth that numerous are either pure or blended tosa-inu, a type that is identified as “hazardous” in South Korea and needs federal government authorization to maintain as a family pet.

At the same time, rescue sanctuaries are currently jammed.

This excellent tornado of challenges indicate a villainous paradox: that numerous supposed rescue pet dogs, with no place else to go, currently deal with the possibility of being euthanised.

“It’s simply extraordinary,” states Chan-woo.

“Because the legislation was made according to the needs of these teams, I thought they had actually likewise exercised an option for the pet dogs – like they would certainly take obligation for them. Today I listen to that also the pet civil liberties teams state mercy killing is the only choice.”

Cho Hee-kyung, head of the Oriental Pet Well-being Organization, yielded in September 2024 that while civil liberties teams would certainly attempt to rescue as numerous pets as feasible, there would certainly “be pet dogs left over”.

“If continuing to be pet dogs end up being ‘shed and deserted pets’ after that it’s heartbreaking yet they will certainly be euthanised,” she stated.

The federal government looked for to toughen up these worries weeks later on, claiming that euthanising pets was “definitely” not component of their strategy.

A lot more lately, Mafra informed the BBC it was spending concerning 6bn Oriental won ($ 4.3 m; ₤ 3.2 m) yearly to broaden pet sanctuaries and assistance personal centers, and would certainly provide to 600,000 Oriental won per canine ($ 450; ₤ 324) to farmers that close their services early.

However Chun Myung-Sun, supervisor of the Workplace of Vet Clinical Education And Learning at Seoul National College, concurs that the federal government’s more comprehensive prepare for remaining pet dogs is mostly doing not have.

“There requires to be a concrete conversation concerning exactly how to ‘get rid of’ of the pet dogs,” she states.

“Both fostering and mercy killing must get on the table. [But] if we have actually gone to the initiative of saving pet dogs from terrible massacre just to euthanise them, it’s easy to understand that individuals would certainly really feel sad and mad.”

Some have actually tried to find remedies even more afield, sending out the pets overseas to extra ready adopters in nations like Canada, UK and the USA.

In 2023, a group from Hwak saved some 200 pet dogs from a ranch in Asan city– every one of which have actually given that been sent out to Canada and the United States.

The previous proprietor of that ranch, 74-year-old Yang Jong-tae, informed the BBC that as he viewed the rescuers filling his pet dogs right into their vehicles, he was amazed by the degree of concern they revealed.

“When I saw exactly how they dealt with the pets – like they were managing individuals, so delicately and adoringly – it truly relocated me,” he stated.

“We do not treat them like that. For us, increasing pet dogs was simply a means to earn a living. However those individuals from the pet team dealt with the pet dogs like they were people with self-respect, which truly touched my heart.”

Mr Yang sped up to include, nonetheless, that he the restriction on canine meat farming.

“If canine meat is prohibited since pet dogs are pets, after that why is it all right to consume various other pets like cows, pigs or hen?” he stated. “It coincides point. These points exist in nature for individuals to survive.”

Consuming canine is not the like consuming various other meats, according to Ms Chun. She mentions that canine meat lugs even more danger from a food security and health viewpoint – particularly in South Korea, where it has actually not been incorporated right into the official, controlled meat manufacturing system.

And while intake prices have actually varied throughout Korea’s background, it has actually ended up being progressively frowned on in the last few years.

A federal government survey from 2024 discovered just 8% of participants stated they had actually attempted canine meat in the previous year– below 27% in 2015. Concerning 7% stated they would certainly maintain consuming it up till February 2027, and concerning 3.3% stated they would certainly proceed after the restriction entered into complete impact.

At the same time, since June 2025, 623 of South Korea’s 1,537 canine ranches had actually shut.

“As culture and society have actually progressed, South Oriental culture has actually currently decided to quit generating canine meat,” Ms Chun states.

And yet for numerous it continues to be the foundation of a market on which they have actually developed their lives.

Every participant of the canine meat profession the BBC talked with shared unpredictability concerning exactly how they would certainly sustain themselves since their long time resources has actually been regarded unlawful.

Some state they have actually surrendered themselves to lives of destitution, keeping in mind that they were birthed throughout the Oriental Battle and recognized exactly how to live starving. Others recommended that the profession might hole up.

Numerous concur, nonetheless, that for more youthful farmers the suppression is especially fretting.

“Youths in this market are truly dealing with a stark truth,” Mr Joo states. “Because they can not market the pet dogs, they can not close down rapidly either. They’re stuck, without method onward or back.”

Chan-woo remembers that when he began operating in the market a years back, at 23, “The assumption of canine meat had not been that unfavorable”.

“Still,” he includes, “There were some remarks from individuals around me, so also at that time I realized that it had not been something I might provide for the remainder of my life.”

The restriction came quicker than he anticipated– and given that its statement, he states, “Earning a living has actually ended up being exceptionally unclear”.

“All we’re wishing for currently is that the moratorium can be prolonged to make sure that the procedure [of dealing with the remaining dogs] can take place extra slowly.”

Numerous others are wishing for the very same. However as the canine meat market is taken out from under the feet of those that have actually pertained to rely on it, Mr Joo can not assist yet guess on a grim idea: that some farmers might not have the ability to withstand the unpredictability for a lot longer.

“Now, individuals are still hanging on, wishing something could transform– perhaps the moratorium will certainly be prolonged,” he states. “However by 2027, I genuinely think something horrible will certainly take place.

“There are many individuals whose lives have actually entirely deciphered.”