Over 1,000 Starving Dogs Found Dying Inside Man's Home in South Korea

Over 1,000 starving dogs were found dead or in extremely dire conditions inside a man's home in South Korea. Local sources indicate the suspect was involved in animal hoarding in exchange for payment from unidentified dog farmers. Other reports suggest the man engaged in recovering abandoned dogs before starving them to death, a violation in the country's animal protection laws.

South Koreans reportedly own millions of dogs and acts, with the canines being the highest. However, the country witnessed a rise in dog abandonment or animal cruelty cases in the past several years. In 2019, non-profit animal charity organizations rescued caged dogs, ending a notorious dog meat market in Busan, a practice that has spanned for the past six decades.

Man Starves Dogs to Death

The South Korean police is investigating a man, in his 60s, for charges of alleged violation of the animal protection law. This comes after the dead dogs were found on his house in Yangpyeong in Gyeonggpi Province, South Korea. The man confessed he "collected abandoned dogs" and intentionally starved them to death, according to The Korea Herald.

However, animal rights activists claim the suspect was paid by dog breeders to get disown dogs that are unable to get pregnant or whose commercial value has decreased. A representative of the animal rights group Care informed cable news channel MBN that dog farmers paid the man 10,000 South Korean won (7.60 US dollars) per dog for the purposes of taking care of them, as cited by the herald.

Lead of the Case

A breakthrough that led to the location of the suspect came when a resident in the area was looking for his or her lost dog but eventually found the house full of dead dogs on Saturday, March 4, and reported it to the local police.

According to a Care staff, who observed the gruesome site, the dead bodies had rotten and created a sort of layer on the ground, consisting of multiple dead dogs piled on top of each other. Amongst the fatalities, only four dogs manage to survive from the house and are currently under treatment, the South Korean newspaper adds.

South Korea Dog Meat Market

In addition to dog abandonment, South Korea is reportedly known for its wide dog meat market.

According to the Humane Society International (HSI) in October 2022, a new survey finds that over 50% of South Koreans in their 20s, who have ate dog meat in the past year, felt social pressure to engage in such act from their elders such as their father or senior colleagues at work.

Amongst these respondents, 54% reported they ate dog meat due to the said pressure, with increased cases of up to 57.4% in urban areas. In spite of this figure, the refusal to eat dog meat is still very high nationwide, the HIS adds.