A Vietnamese restaurant has shut down following the owner’s moral objections to the practice of slaughtering cats for soup. The Gia Bao restaurant used to kill approximately 300 cats monthly for a traditional cat meat soup. The owner, Pham Quoc Doanh, decided to close the establishment, removing the cat meat sign in early December. Nearly two dozen cats, intended for slaughter, were saved due to the restaurant’s closure.
Pham Quoc Doanh shared that before venturing into cat meat, the restaurant served conventional food and beverages, but the income was insufficient to support his family’s living costs. With no other restaurants offering cat meat in the area, he turned to this practice. As a father of two children, Doanh expressed remorse for the cat slaughtering process, stating that he felt sorry for the animals during the procedure. Financial constraints initially led him to the cat meat business.
The Humane Society International, which aims to protect animals, granted Doanh a one-time sum to establish a grocery shop as an alternative business.
Vietnam annually witnesses the slaughter of around a million cats, including stolen pets and strays, for their meat. The Humane Society International reported that common methods of cat slaughter involve drowning, among other cruel practices. Doanh confirmed that he drowned the cats by holding them with a stick in a bucket of water. Despite the emotional toll and acknowledging the prevalence of cat theft in Vietnam, he expressed gratitude for leaving the “brutal and crime-fuelled trade.”
