DOG MEAT FARM, SOUTH KOREA (2019)

Despite a decline in dog meat consumption in South Korea, an estimated 2.5 million dogs are still bred and confined in appalling conditions on thousands of farms across the country, to be killed for human consumption. 

For years, Humane Society International has been working tirelessly with South Korean authorities and local farmers, toward the closure and transition of those farms to more humane income streams (to read more about this process, head to HSI’s website). Each time a farm is closed, up to hundreds of dogs are rescued and flown to Canada and the US for adoption.

In the summer 2019, I was invited by Humane Society International to visit Farm 15, during their vaccination campaign. There, about 90 dogs and puppies lived miserable lives, awaiting their fate. All the dogs were rescued and flown to Canada where they went through further quarantine, vetting, and rehabilitation, and many have already been adopted. I photographed a few of the dogs as they waited transfer to shelter partners (scroll down for the portraits).

I was told by the team at HSI that this farm was unlike any other farm they had visited. The farmer was younger than farmers usually are, and he seemed to take a relatively good care of his dogs. He provided litters with frozen bottles of water to keep them cool, covered cages with tarps and panels to protect the dogs from the intense summer sun. He fed and supplied water to all the dogs, many of whom seemed fairly socialized.

When I realized he had named some of the dogs, I asked him to show me the dogs in question, and explain why he had named them. “Because I fight them!”, the farmer told me with a huge smile, pointing at some of his Tosas.

The farmer has agreed to never work with animals again, and planned on purchasing machinery so he could freelance on construction sites. Farm 15 was destroyed.

This is an ongoing project with Humane Society International.