Animal lovers staged a demonstration in Guangzhou on Wednesday to call for an end to the trade in cats for food, Information Times reported on Friday.

More than 40 people gathered outside the city's railway station carrying banners and yelling "Give up eating cats, cats are humans' friends, not food," it said.

The protest followed reports on Monday that thousands of cats were being shipped every day from Nanjing, Jiangsu province, to Guangzhou, where they ended up in restaurants.

"We want to appeal to people to stop eating cats," protestor Chen Xiaosu said.

Zhu Risheng, a representative of the Guangzhou pet association, told China Daily on Friday: "Efforts to stop people eating cats began years ago, but now the situation is getting worse."

Nanjing has long been a trading hub for cats, but news of it has only recently reached the media, he said.

Regular events are held to promote the need to care for pets, but many people lack a consciousness of it, he said.

On Thursday, dozens of people submitted a letter to the office of the Guangdong government in Beijing, urging it to crack down on traders and restaurants, despite their businesses being legal.

Zhang Yuanlong, a lawyer from Guangzhou, said: "China has no laws to protect pets, so eating cats is legal."

An official from Guangzhou railway station said it could do nothing to help the protestors, as all the cats were transported with the required certificates.

A spokesman for the provincial health department said it will not intervene unless there is a report of the cats causing illness or disease.

Zhang Yuanlong said the Guangdong people's congress should consider introducing regulations to deter the trade in cats for food.

Liu Yujie, a doctor, said she was surprised people choose to eat cats, as she thinks they offer little nutritional value.

(China Daily December 20, 2008)