Dogs in Slaughterhouse!

[gurdip]

Hi All,

A raid on Manikengo Yak Slaughterhouse in Ganzi Prefecture, China recently revealed a large number of animals other than yaks,
including dogs and horses!

Here is one link to the news report, "Tibetan Nomads Set Fire to Chinese Slaughterhouse in Sichuan" :

http://phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id= ... in+Sichuan

Cheers

Gurdip

[forficula]

I think the saying is "Young dog ,old cat" or maybe the reverse,but it beats the hell out of the other old Chinese favorite dish of rat embryos.

[gurdip]

Rat embryos!? Ugghhh! Where did you read that! But I suppose that is hardly surprising, given that their other delicacies include lightly fried, but still living, fish and monkey brains (also from a living animal).

Fear Factor won't work in China!

[amran]

acquired taste maybe.

still i guess whatever meat when cooked will eventually taste like chicken.

[forficula]

Rat embryos!? Ugghhh! Where did you read that! But I suppose that is hardly surprising, given that their other delicacies include lightly fried, but still living, fish and monkey brains (also from a living animal).

Fear Factor won't work in China!

Read it Gurdip?? I saw it first hand.And I also saw in a restuarant in the New Territories (part of Hong Kong) a table specially altered for the monkey brains bit. I thought the hole in the center of the table was for some sort of heater to keep stuff warm until my Chinese host showed me the straps under the table to hold poor old monkey.
But dont get me wrong here,I'm not picking on our Chinese friends,all nations have some peculiar ideas when it comes to food.Think of the torture involved in producing foie gras from Goose livers,think of the harvesting of frog legs from the poor live froggie.At least the Chinese suffered famine so often that all types of food had to be eaten(especially during the Long March ) The question is where does necessity stop and a craving for the exotic take over?

[gurdip]

That sight must have made you sick! It may interest you to know that the monkey brains delicacy also exists in Egypt.

I suppose each society has its own notion of "conventional" when it comes to food. I recall a news articles once about a group of Thai workers who were arrested for slaughtering a dog for its meat. They could not understand why the public had reacted with disgust when meat from other animals was freely available for consumption. One animal (e.g. dogs, cats horses) is kept for sense gratification, and another ends up on the plate. If you ask me, there is no real need for meat when we can live very happily and healthily eating veggies.

[sandesh]

I know of several meat eating friends who often go to places (like guangzhou, vietnam, thailand, hong kong and kowloon) to sample even stranger meats. Apart from the obvious cruelty, they get their kicks from partaking of meats of endangered species like sharks, tortoises, snakes, lizards, pangolins, rare snails, crocodiles, etc.

And when asked why they do it, they'd answer "better to taste them before they become extinct".

[forficula]

Thats interesting Gurdip,never suspected the Egyptians of eating monkey brains.I've eaten calf and sheep brains [ in the interests of science of course ,May Yin,please put down that shotgun :lol: ] 'spose its just squeamish not being able to try other proteins.Can't say that I agree with your friends Sandesh, especially on the shark bit.We have had a big problem off our Atlantic Coast where sharks have had their fins cut off [while still living ] and the creatures just dumped back into the sea.Thousands of them.All this to satisfy some headbanger who wants shark fin soup.

[May Yin]

May Yin,please put down that shotgun :lol:

Huh?!!! Wat did I say? :?

What shotgun? :? :?

[May Yin]

May Yin,please put down that shotgun :lol:

Huh?!!! Wat did I say? :?

What shotgun? :? :?

Ah I get it now. Just read your other post about that counselling thingie. :lol:

Btw what do calf and sheep brains taste like? Yucch! Just thinking about it --- Can't be good ...

[amran]

Thats interesting Gurdip,never suspected the Egyptians of eating monkey brains.

weren't just egyptians. i've seen footage from seamy parts of saudi arabia and iraq (before the gulf war). supposedly brain food, literally.

[sandesh]

Can't say that I agree with your friends Sandesh, especially on the shark bit.

Yes, a really stupid reason to eat those endangered species. I mean eating animals is one thing, but this apathy, the total lack of compassion and decency really rub me the wrong way.

I mean Jesus Christ on a bike with a sidecar some people really ... :evil:

[Eco Man]

"Jesus Christ on a bike with a sidecar ... "

Huh? :?

[Danial]

Thats interesting Gurdip,never suspected the Egyptians of eating monkey brains.I've eaten calf and sheep brains [ in the interests of science of course ,May Yin,please put down that shotgun :lol: ] 'spose its just squeamish not being able to try other proteins.Can't say that I agree with your friends Sandesh, especially on the shark bit.We have had a big problem off our Atlantic Coast where sharks have had their fins cut off [while still living ] and the creatures just dumped back into the sea.Thousands of them.All this to satisfy some headbanger who wants shark fin soup.

Ecuador: Fins for sale

The Independent
June 25, 2006
By Stephen Khan

One of the world's most cherished and fragile ecosystems is threatened by the growing popularity of a delicacy being served in some of Britain's leading restaurants.

Elaborate soup dishes made with sharks' fins cost more than £100 a bowl, but that has not prevented them from becoming common on the menus of upmarket Chinese eateries.

And that could spell disaster for the delicate balance of wildlife in the Galapagos Islands, the Pacific archipelago made famous by Charles Darwin, who based his ground-breaking theory of evolution on the diversity of wildlife he found there. Now, though, that diversity is at risk.

Despite bans on the trade in fins, conservationists believe that in the past five years the fins of more than 1.7 million sharks have been exported from Ecuador - and the Galapagos region accounted for more than 80 per cent of those.

Ecologists and scientists are now battling to ensure the sharks and unique ecology of the Galapagos survive. Leonor Stjepic of the Galapagos Conservation Trust yesterday warned that the shark populations of the islands' waters were in dramatic decline. And the popularity of shark fin dishes around the world were to blame, she added. Traditionally, shark's fin soups were the dish of choice for wealthy Chinese and were served at weddings. But the rapid growth of China's wealthy middle class and the spreading popularity of specialist Chinese food have seen demand rocket.

Shark's fin is now the star ingredient in some of Britain's top Chinese restaurants. The fins bring little in the way of flavour, but chefs stew them until the cartilage softens and takes on a noodle-like consistency.

Widely regarded as one of the finest restaurants in the UK, Kai of Mayfair, in London, was dubbed the home of the "world's most expensive soup" when it unveiled its Buddha Jumps Over the Wall last year. At £108, it includes Japanese flower mushroom, sea cucumber, dried scallops, chicken, Hunan ham, pork, ginseng and, of course, shark's fin.

Staff at the restaurant could not say which part of the world the fins were sourced from. But ecosystems on the other side of the globe are paying a high price for such luxuries. It has been estimated that as many as 100 million sharks may be dying each year so their fins can end up in soup. And the waters around the Galapagos are prime fishing ground for sharks.

Many are illegally "finned", as the rest of the animal is worth little. This sees the shark lifted from the water by fishermen who cut off the fins and then plunge the bloodied animal back into the water, where it slowly bleeds to death. The practice is wreaking havoc on the marine reserve that surrounds the Galapagos and is home to 33 shark species. Of those, the hammerhead, the blue, the thresher, the black tip, the mako and the Galapagos are being hit hardest.

Graham Watkins, executive director of the Charles Darwin Foundation, yesterday warned of the effects of the depletion of shark stocks. "The removal of sharks would have a terrible impact," he told The Independent on Sunday. "They are predators at the top of the ecosystem."

He added that evidence suggested numbers were in free fall, and that would have implications for thousands of other species in the region. "In the past few years, the shark fin trade in Ecuador has been completely out of control, with large volumes of fins originating in the Galapagos Islands," said a recent report into the trade by the US environmental agency Wild Aid.

The remote islands have a distinctly different biological make-up from the rest of Latin America. An astonishing variety of animals, such as pink flamingos, finches, penguins, tortoises and iguanas, have evolved in ways that are unique to the Galapagos.

The issue has even attracted the support of Ecuador's national football team, who today take on England in the World Cup. "Just as soccer brought us together, let's come together for the sharks," the team said. "Play fair for the sharks."