South Korea banned dog meat. So what happens to dogs?

When he does not preach the Word of God, the Reverend Joe Yong-Bong is raising dogs for slaughter.

However, the business is not going well. In fact, it’s on the verge of becoming illegal.

“Last summer we have been trying to sell our dogs, but traders are just still hesitant,” says G -J Joe, 60 years old, BBC tells. “None has appeared.”

In 2024, the government of South Korea applied a national ban on the sale of dog meat for consumption. The landmark legislation, which was accepted last January, gives farmers as a d -Joe by February 2027 to close their operations and sell their other animals.

But many say that this is not enough time to end an industry that has supported the livelihood for generations – and that the authorities have not yet invented adequate precautions for farmers or approximately half a million dogs in captivity.

Even those who support the prohibition, including experts and defenders of animal rights, have put in place the problems surrounding its implementation – including the difficulty of recovering dogs, which, after being rescued from the floor of the murder, are now facing the increasingly unknown threat of euthanasia.

In the middle of the grace period, dog farmers find themselves with hundreds of practically unwell animals, farms that cannot be closed, and little resources to put food on the table.

“People suffer,” says G -n Joe, who is also president of the Korean Edil Dog Association, a group representing the industry. “We are in debt, we cannot pay it, and some cannot even … find a new job.

“This is a hopeless situation.”

Chan-Woo has 18 months to get rid of 600 dogs.

Then the 33-year-old farmer-Coro agreed to anonymize the fear of the reverse response-faced with a sentence of up to two years in prison.

“Realistically, even on my farm, I can’t process the number of dogs I have during this time,” he says. “At that moment I invested all my assets (on the farm) – and yet they do not even accept the dogs.”

Under “They”, Chan-WU does not only mean traders and butchers who, before the ban, would buy an average of half a dozen dogs a week.

He also refers to the activists and authorities for animal rights, who believed so hard to ban the dog’s meat trade, have no clear plan for what to do with residual animals – of which there are nearly 500,000, according to government forecasts.

“They (the authorities) have passed the law without real plan and now they say they can’t even take the dogs.”

Lee Sanging, campaign manager at Humane World for Animals Korea (HWAK), sounds these problems.

“Although the ban on dog meat has passed, both the government and civilian groups are still struggling with how to save the other dogs,” he says. “An area that is still missing is the discussion about the dogs left behind.”

A spokesman for the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA) told the BBC that if the farm owners give up their dogs, local authorities would take over property and manage them in shelters.

However, their conversion was a challenge.

As the weight is equal to the profit in the dog meat industry, farms tend to favor the greater breeds. But in the highly urban society of South Korea, where many people live in apartment complexes, ambitious pet owners often want the opposite.

There is also a social stigma associated with dogs that come from meat farms, explains G -n -Lee because of the concerns of the disease and the trauma. The question is further complicated by the fact that many are pure or mixed tosa-in, a breed that is classified as “dangerous” in South Korea and requires government approval to keep it as a pet.

Meanwhile, rescue shelters have already been overcrowded.

This perfect storm of obstacles points to a perverted irony: that countless so -called. Rescue dogs, with nowhere else, now face the prospect of being euthanized.

“It’s just incredible,” says Chan-Wo.

“Because the law was made according to the requests of these groups, I assumed that they also developed a solution for dogs – as they would take responsibility for them. But now I hear that even animal rights say euthanasia is the only option.”

Cho Hee-Kyung, the head of the Korean Animal Association, gave way in September 2024 that while the rights groups would try to save as many animals as possible, there would be “dogs left”.

“If the other dogs become” lost and abandoned animals “, then it is heartbreaking, but they will be euthanized,” she said.

The government seeks to harden these concerns weeks later, saying that euthanizing animals are “certainly” are not part of their plan.

More recently, Mafra told the BBC that it invests about $ 6 billion in Korean earned ($ 4.3 million; $ 3.2 million) a year to expand animal shelters and maintain private facilities and offer up to $ 600,000, won a dog ($ 450; £ 324) to farmers who closed their business early.

But Chun Mun-Sun, Director of the Service for Veterinary Education at the National University of Seoul, agrees that the wider government plan for residual dogs is largely missing.

“There must be a specific discussion on how to” throw away “dogs,” she says.

“Both adoption and euthanasia must be on the table.

Some are looking for decisions further, sending animals abroad to more desired adoptive parents in countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.

In 2023, a team of HWAK saved about 200 dogs from a farm in Asan – all have been sent to Canada and the United States ever since.

The former owner of this farm, 74-year-old Jan Yong-so, told the BBC that as he was watching the rescuers load his dogs into their trucks, he was surprised by the level of compassion they showed.

“When I saw how they deal with animals – as they deal with humans, so gentle and with love – it really moved me,” he said.

“We don’t treat them like that. For us, breeding dogs was just a way to get a living. But these animal group people treat dogs as if they were people with dignity, and that really touched my heart.”

However, Jan has hurried to add that he did not approve of the ban on breeding dog meat.

“If the dog is forbidden because dogs are animals, then why is it good to eat other animals such as cows, pigs or chicken?” he said. “That’s the same. These things exist in nature so that people can live.”

Eating a dog is not the same as eating other meats, according to Gi Chun. She points out that dog meat carries a greater risk in terms of food and hygiene safety – especially in South Korea, where it is not integrated into the official, regulated meat production system.

And as the consumption rate has been hesitant through the history of Korea, it has become increasingly so much in recent years.

A 2024 government survey found that only 8% of the respondents said they had tried dog meat in the previous 12 months – from 27% in 2015. About 7% said they would continue to eat it until February 2027, and about 3.3% said they would continue after the ban came into full effect.

Meanwhile, since June 2025, 623 of 1537 dogs dog farms in South Korea have been closed.

“With the development of society and culture, South Korean society has already decided to stop producing dog meat,” says Gi Chun.

Still, for many, there remains a cornerstone of an industry on which they have built their lives.

Each member of the BBC dog meat trade speaks with expressive uncertainty about how they will last now when their long -term livelihood is considered illegal.

Some say they have put up with the life of poverty, noting that they were born during the Korean War and knew how to live hungry. Others have suggested that trade can go underground.

However, many agree that for the younger farmers, repression is particularly worrying.

“Young people in this industry are really facing a gloomy reality,” says G -n Joe. “Because they cannot sell dogs, they also cannot close quickly. They are stuck without having no way forward or back.”

Chan-IO recalls that when he started working in the industry decade ago, at 23, “the perception of dog meat was not so negative.”

“Still,” he adds, “There were some comments from the people around me, so even then I was aware that I couldn’t do it for the rest of my life.”

The ban came faster than he expected – and from his announcement, he said that “the living has become incredibly uncertain.”

“All we hope is that the grace period can be extended, so the process (to deal with other dogs) can happen more gradual.”

Many others hope for the same. But since the meat industry is drawn from under the feet of those who have fallen into this, Joe cannot help, but speculate with a gloomy thought: that some farmers may not withstand uncertainty much longer.

“At the moment, people are still behaving, hoping that something can change – maybe the period of grace will be extended,” he says. “But by 2027, I really believe that something awful will happen.

“There are so many people whose life has fully figured out.”