China's Yulin dog meat festival begins amid protests by animal rights activists

Residents of China's southern city Yulin have begun an annual dog meat festival despite worldwide pressure from animal rights activists to cancel the event.

The 10-day festival celebrates the summer solstice by eating dog meat and lychee fruit, pegged on the belief that dog meat is good for the body in warm weather.

Thousands of canines are killed during so-called "lychee and fog meat festival", sparking fury among dog lovers, who every year confront those who buy, sell and eat canines.

But festival-goers have remained defiant and the event began on June 21.

When it first launched in 2010 up to 15,000 dogs were killed during the festival, according to animal protection group Humane Society International.

Chinese and international pressure has seen this figure reduced to around 3,000 dogs.

In recent years, animal rights activists have raided slaughterhouses and intercepted truckloads of dogs in efforts to limit the number of animals killed, Reuters reports.

Activists say the dog meat trade is inhumane and unhygienic, pointing to videos of dogs caught with wire lassos, transported in tiny cages and slaughtered with metal rods.

But one resident told Reuters the festival was still a "popular custom".

Wang Yue said: "Yulin's so-called lychee and dog meat festival is just a popular custom of ours. Popular customs themselves cannot be right or wrong.

"Those scenes of bloody dog slaughter that you see online, I want to say that the killing of any animal will be bloody. I hope people can look at this objectively."

Dog meat is a traditional food in some areas of southern China.

However, Humane Society International said in a statement the festival was "manufactured" by the dog meat traders and that dog meat was not part of mainstream food culture in China.

The event is not sanctioned by Yulin authorities, but police said their efforts to "maintain stability" had reduced the number of activists in the city this year.

Opinions on Chinese social media were divided.

Calls from animal lovers to boycott or cancel the festival provoked a defence of local tradition and accusations that activists were disturbing public order.

International animal rights groups say putting pressure on the dog meat trade has become harder after China stepped up scrutiny of foreign groups by requiring them to register with police.

Chinese activists are trying new tactics to convince authorities to end the dog meat trade.

Zhang Huahua, a university professor at the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou province, complained to Yulin authorities that the festival infringed environmental protection regulations.

"The messy slaughter of numerous dogs transported to Yulin without inspection severely damages public order, popular custom and the environment," Zhang said in a letter.

Authorities told Zhang her letter would be processed in line with regulations.