At the end of  2019, the outbreak of coronavirus raged through the globe. The international community commonly believed that the epidemic had been caused by eating wild animals. Genlin, the founder of WDA, decided to leverage this news as the entry point. He wrote to the high ranking officials of China’s government calling on the realization of “No wild animal meat for health. No dog and cat meat for morality.”

One month after the reply above, Shenzhen Municipal People’s Congress Standing Committee passed “Shenzhen Special Economic Region Regulation on a Comprehensive Ban on the Consumption of Wild Animals”, which explicitly prohibited the eating of dogs and cats.

On 8 April 2020,China Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs announced “National Catalogue of Livestock and Poultry Genetic Resources”, “specializing” dogs as companion animals.

On 1 May 2020, Shenzhen and Zhuhai officially outlawed the eating of dog meat.

On 21 May, 2020, Chen Yong, representative of the National People’s Congress of the DAB, and Liang Zhixiang, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, quoted WDA’s white paper and data, and proposed the bill “Continue to enhance the country’s civilized and friendly image; ban the consumption of cats and dogs.” Deterrent penalties to combat the theft of cats and dogs for food.

According to a survey conducted by WDA in 2015, 20-30 million dogs are slaughtered and eaten in Asia each year. China accounts for half of them, and nearly 70% of them are pet dogs stolen. WDA successfully promoted China’s legislation to ban dog meat, which undoubtedly saved thousands of suffering dogs.

Before the outbreak, most people in China only considered human issues.There was no concept of dog and cat welfare at all. At that time, many animal protection organizations estimated that outlawing the eating of dogs and cats in China would take at least 40 years. Genlin disagreed: “The high-speed rail that Western countries took 30 years to build, China surpassed it in less than 10 years. This is called China’s speed. How could it have to wait 40 years for banning dog and cat meat? As long as the time is right, the Chinese government will definitely act decisively, banning dog and cat meat at a speed beyond imagination. So I have great hopes for China.”

Facts have proved that as soon as the time comes, China’s animal protection policy can make innovations overnight!