Description: THIS IS OUR PROBLEM TOO. PUSH OUR GOVERNMENT TO PUT MORE PRESSURE ON CHINA TO STOP THE SUFFERING AND THIS VIRUS OUTBREAK THREAT!
Today 11-20-06 CNN REPORTS:
HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- In a bustling market in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, dogs, cats, chickens, frogs, snakes, turtles and palm civets are stacked on top of each other in crates, wire cages and water buckets ready for sale.
Customers peer at the caged animals before choosing their meal of the day. They watch as the butcher cuts up the animal with knives and machetes, spreading blood, guts, faeces and urine all over the market floor.
People from South China believe that eating wild animals is good for their health and vitality, and gulping down such exotic fare as cobra and Asiatic brush tailed porcupine is seen as a symbol of social status.
Indeed, there is a saying in South China that "anything with four legs, except a chair, and anything that flies, except an aeroplane, can be eaten."
One especially famous dish is the "Dragon-Tiger-Phoenix Soup," a brew made up of snake, cat and chicken.
South China offers the most exotic fare from all over the globe -- by some accounts at least 60 species can be found in any one market --thrusting together microorganisms, animals and humans who normally would never meet.
This thriving trade gives the manufacturing hub that straddles the Pearl River Delta the unenviable title of being the "petri dish" of the world.
"Animals arrive at these markets stressed, diseased, dying and dead," Animals Asia, a Hong Kong-based charity dedicated to ending cruelty for animals in the region, says on its Web site.
"These animals have no free access to food and water or shelter from the elements and are mixed indiscriminately."
It was from just such a market in a village near the provincial capital of Guangzhou that researchers believe the deadly SARS virus originated in 2003, with civet cats high on the list of suspects.
The respiratory disease, which killed 774 people and sickened 8,098 in 30 nations, sparked panic in nearby Hong Kong, with most of its 7 million residents donning masks in a bid not to be infected when someone coughed or sneezed.
Public campaigns warned Hong Kongers to wave good-bye instead of shaking hands and to avoid touching elevator buttons and escalator handrails.
But SARS was not an isolated outbreak.
South China has long been the epicenter of pandemic flus, giving birth to three or four global outbreaks a century.
The Asian flu of 1957 and the Hong Kong flu of 1968 are both believed to have originated in southern China, while the Russian flu of 1977, which appeared in the city of Anshan, was widely thought to be a re-emergence of the 1957 flu.
And some experts, including Kennedy Shortridge, who worked in Hong Kong for many years and teaches at New Zealand's Auckland University, believe the Spanish flu of 1918 spread along the Chinese coast and was carried to America by Chinese immigrants.
That flu alone killed one in 60 of the world's people at the time.
All these flu pandemics can be traced to viruses caught from birds. Virologists believe the flu jumped species when ducks were domesticated in South China 3,000 years ago.
With their weak immune systems, ducks become flu incubators, with the virus then jumping to pigs and mutating to a form people can catch.
Living cheek to jowl
While live animal markets can be found all over Asia, South China is unique because so many people live so close together, with a very traditional way of life abutting a glittering modern China.
Guangdong province has become China's most populous area, with migrants swelling the population to 110 million people. Across the province, for every square kilometer there are 618 people living on top of each other in towering blocks.
In Guangzhou, the New Baiyun International Airport handles nearly 500 flights a day, serviced by multi-lane highways and 5-star hotels that have sprouted in empty fields, making it a flu heartland.
Outside the city limits, farmers eat, sleep and work in teeming and cramped quarters with ducks, chickens and pigs in traditional and often squalid conditions, creating a toxic brew that can easily spread to the modern China, and to the rest of the world.
This is also a place where dietary staples and traditional Chinese medicine like turtle shell are in hot demand. Early on, a lack of regulations, record-keeping and research between Hong Kong and China, and a suppression of information by Beijing, stunted any efforts to clamp down on outbreaks.
But in many ways, SARS was a wake-up call to China, scaring authorities into action.
After seeing the rapid toll SARS took on the economy and public sentiment in 2003, health experts told a conference in Bangkok last year that China is now getting serious about stopping the spread of AIDS.
Last year China began offering voluntary testing and counseling and free medication for the poor.
China says around 840,000 people are infected with HIV/AIDS, but the United Nations has said the number could be higher.
As Chinese authorities begin realizing the importance of preventing flu epidemics and other diseases, health experts say they face difficult challenges.
The number of animals held in captivity is rising as is the transport of animals, all of which allows viruses to make the jump with more opportunity, Malik Peiris, a professor of microbiology at the University of Hong Kong, told CNN.
China's millions of migrant workers, who make a beeline for the prosperous south and are difficult to keep track of, could further spread viruses.
Experts say China needs to monitor what is happening on the ground and learn more about the ecology of animals that are farmed to avoid future pandemics.
"By doing surveillance we know what is circulating, we know what is out there, and which are most serious contenders," says Peiris.
Copy and Paste this link in your Browser to Help Animal Asia
http://www.animalsasia.org/index.php?module=3&menupos=1&lg=en Review These animals have been suffering for years and we can help to stop it. This is clearly wrong. Please do what you can to help. Enough is Enough of the pain and suffering. These animals need your help now and you can help to stop the spread of disease by not contrbuting to the purchase of fur and to demand from our government more action to stop Chinas Food Markets of Horror!.
Copy and Paste this link in your Browser to Help Animal Asia
http://www.animalsasia.org/index.php?module=3&menupos=1&lg=enDirections HORRORS OF THE CHINESE FUR TRADE:
Peta-Chinas Shocking Dog and Cat Fur Trade. Whose skin are you in? Learn the shocking truth behind Chinas dog and cat fur trade. Warning: There are some heart breaking images in this video below. To watch click on the link below or copy and Paste this link into your browser:
Click Here to Watch Video
http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=jcruel_china_dog
The majority of fur products–some 85%–are imported from China, where animal welfare regulations are non-existent. A recent report produced by an international coalition of animal advocacy organizations revealed horrific conditions on Chinese fur farms. Investigators found workers attempting to stun animals by repeatedly slamming them against the ground or bashing their heads with clubs. Such unreliable methods left many animals fully conscious, visibly blinking and breathing for as long as ten minutes after their fur was ripped from their bodies. Learn more about the investigation’s findings. Anyone who buys or wears fur is directly responsible for the suffering of these animals and millions more just like them.
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http://www.animalsasia.org/index.php?module=3&menupos=1&lg=enIngredients Whilst some countries in Asia such as Hong Kong, the Philippines and Taiwan have banned the practice of dog eating, evidence shows that in China, the biggest dog eating country in the world, it continues to thrive.
It is estimated that up to 10 million dogs are slaughtered every year in China, many deliberately slowly and cruelly in the belief that torture equals taste, whilst all suffer the stress and pain of being farmed in concentrated numbers before being killed in a variety of ways which rarely ensures a quick and humane death.
Animals Asia field investigators have witnessed trucks loaded with anything up to 2,000 dogs per truck arriving at the wholesale Hua Nam Wild Animal Market in Guangzhou. These poor animals have spent 3 days and 3 nights, squashed together in tiny cages, unable to move, without food, water or shelter. The dogs are then brutally lifted by the neck and hurled into a pen by a man wielding a metal tongs. Here they fight through fear, hunger and desperation to survive whilst awaiting a horrendously slow death in order to provide meat for restaurants in Guangzhou.
Diseases such as parvo virus, canine distemper and leptospirosis are rife and spread like wildfire in dogs whose immune systems are already low due to depression and starvation. We often witness a large number of dead and diseased dogs and cats which have been pulled out of the cages and slung by the side.
The dog meat trade is becoming increasingly industrialized and is even promoted by the government in some provinces. Huge dog farms have been developed and the importation of giant gentle breeds, like the St. Bernard, which is cross bred with the local Chinese mongrel to produce a fast growing, docile “meat dog” that can be slaughtered at 4 months. Livestock sections of large bookshops stock books and VCDs on dog farming which promote horrific slaughter methods, in the misguided belief that the more the dog suffers the better the meat will taste. Consequently, vacuum packed and canned dog meat are becoming increasingly available in some supermarkets.
Investigations also reveal that the fur from slaughtered dogs is now entering local and international markets and being used as trim for fashion items, or for trinkets such as keyrings and hair accessories.
Animals Asia has examined arguments ranging from those referring to culture, to those which state that, as long as the animal does not suffer, then eating dog meat is no different to eating the meat of other domestically raised animals such as pork, chicken and beef. However, we believe that to advocate humane slaughter for dogs would legitimize the practice and undermine the tireless and effective work of those Asian countries that have recently outlawed the practice. Time and time again, dogs across the world have proved their unique qualities and how valuable they can be in partnership with people. We believe that they should not be part of the food chain.
The scale of the cruelty is immense, but our recent survey on China’s largest internet portal - Sina.com - had over 5,000 responses and showed that many Chinese people are passionately against the idea of eating our “best friends”.
Education is the key to ending their misery and Animals Asia needs your help as we tackle the problem with positive programmes like Doctor Dog and brand new initiatives like the China distribution of 40,000 VCDs of our innovative inhouse film Dr. Eddie: Friend or Food? - inspiring and compelling a reconsideration of attitudes at a grass roots level.
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