I interrupt my regularly scheduled apocalyptic programming to report more good news out of China.

By a strong of luck, a truck carrying 600 cats fattened for slaughter crashed on route to the restaurant where they would be served as fleshy delicacies, regardless of the hideous and nauseating condition which they typically arrive in the long and torturous ride to Hell’s Kitchen. Unfortunately, and 100 feline victims died in the crash, some escaped to an indeterminate fate.

But experienced Chinese animal activists rushed to the scene to save hundreds of survivors, liberated them from the truck at their own response, and are caring for them until all can be adopted.

An activist reports that the response by compassionate Chinese citizens was swift and decisive. We can safely assume all surviving cats will be adopted and homed, and while some may remain round and fat, they will likely lead comfortable and content lives, experience  experience human love rather than hate, and die of natural causes rather than being murdered, butchered, and stabbed with knives and forks before shoved down the pipes of human gluttony and indifference.

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RT News, January, 17, 2013

Cats being cared for after truck crash

Up to 600 plump white cats escaped death when the truck carrying them to be slaughtered crashed and they were rescued by animal rights activists in central China.

Volunteers hauled the cats from the overturned lorry in the central city of Changsha. Around one hundred felines, however, died in the accident while others escaped, says Xu Chenxin of the Changsha Small Animal Protection Association.

The cats, most of them plump and white, were heading to restaurants in the southern Guandong province, the China Daily reported.

“It was easy to tell they were meant to be eaten, from looking at the crates you could tell their owners didn’t care if they were alive or dead. When I arrived, the truck was piled high with more than 50 crates. The cats had travelled for days, without water or food, and the smell was dreadful” Xu told AFP on Monday.

The volunteer group which recued the felines negotiated with one of the trucks drivers to buy the animals for 10,000 yuan ($1,600) and they were now awaiting adoption.

“We’ve already had inquiries from families across Changsha,” said Xu.

Activists often come to the rescue of animals in China. In one of the biggest occasions they bought around 500 dogs intended for the dining table from a convoy of trucks on a highway in Beijing in 2011.

China does not have laws to protect non-endangered animals such as cats and dogs. Although cats are not commonly served up as dinner in Chinese restaurants, some establishments, especially in the south, will put cat on the menu.

AFP Photo/China Out