Recently, the Yangzhou Court in Jiangsu Province, China, published an auction announcement on Alibaba's asset auction website, announcing that a three-year-old dragon li cat will be auctioned starting at a price of 500 yuan. According to relevant personnel, the cat's owner was unable to repay debts, leading to the cat being put up for auction.
The auction page on Alibaba Asset Auction indicates that the cat will be auctioned starting at 10:00 AM on September 3, with a starting bid of 500 RMB. Currently, one person has already registered for the auction. It is introduced that the auctioned item is a male dragon li cat, which has not been neutered. The cat has been seized by the Yangzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone Court and is currently kept at the Happy Pet Store.
The auction notice also states that the court has entrusted Suzhou Nongrun Asset Management Co., Ltd. to handle inquiries and organize viewings of the item during the auction period. On August 16, a staff member from the asset management company explained to Jiupai News that the cat's owner was subjected to court enforcement due to debts, which resulted in the cat being auctioned. The cat was born in 2022, and when it was only a few months old, the owner's assets were already under court seizure. Since then, the cat has been fostered at the pet store.
"According to the pet market trend, dragon li cats aren't really valuable, but there's no choice—the auction starting price is 500 yuan. The cost of fostering this cat is quite high; the pet store said it can exceed ten thousand yuan per year," the staff member said. "There are many pet auctions on Alibaba. This isn't actually very unusual." They added, "During the auction, the foster fee does not need to be paid by the winning bidder."
Back in 2017, a judicial auction initiated by the Zhangjiagang City Court in Jiangsu Province involved twelve pet cats. Except for a golden shaded cat with a starting price of 2,000 yuan that received no bids, the other eleven cats were successfully sold. At the same time, the Taicang City Court in Suzhou also auctioned five pet cats. The reason for enforcement in all these cases was that the owners were blacklisted as defaulters—they owed debts they couldn't repay and had no other executable assets, ultimately settling debts "with cats."
