Commoditising our Wildlife Heritage

Where will this ever end? (That's a rhetorical question - you don't have to answer it) ; I know exactly where this ends and also have a pretty good idea when it will end too, if the commoditising speciesists of the world have their way. 

Click on this link : Trading in Misery


I hardly know where to begin to refute the crap written here - there's just so much of it. Karen Trendler at least seems to have the right idea. But let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start).

"A decent and responsible trade in lion bones". How can a trade in the bones from the apex carnivore of Africa - a magnificent majestic animal who deserves nothing less than to be left in peace, unimpeded in his natural ecosystem - be either "decent" or "responsible"? Doesn't make sense. 

Am I hearing right - we do this to feed the surging demand in Asia, otherwise poaching will increase? Has anyone ever heard of allowing shoot on sight policies when it comes to apprehending poachers? What about the reintroduction of the death penalty for poaching? It would certainly raise the stakes if you were caught -  nothing like paying with your life, as a deterrant. Oh sorry - we're supposed to be "civilised" aren't we? Take a good hard look at the atrocities - the genocide - that mankind is wreaking on animals as we speak, and tell me we're civilised. 

And we can't re-educate the Chinese can we? That would be "imperialist". That's the problem with humans - once they have bullshit in their brains, it's almost impossible to change their minds. Tell the Chinese to go and grind up their finger nails - it's the same stuff as rhino horn and won't cost a cent. They're already carning away on pigs - let them grind up pig bones, and leave the lions alone. I already have a big enough bone (sorry) to pick with the world's pig (and other "food animal") producers for the way they treat their animals, so I'm not condoning what they do, but if it's impossible to change the Chinese mind about lion bones, I presume it's equally impossible to change their minds about consuming pork - and they are the world's biggest pork consumers. So let a scientist carry out an analysis of lion bones and pig bones and tell the Chinese that they are exactly the same at a molecular level and will achieve exactly the same (i.e. nothing) once in powder form. 

Since when is education not the cure for stupidity? OK OK - I admit some people are sooo stupid you will have to repeat the same message 95 times, but eventually they'll get it. Remember - they had to hear the original bullshit a few dozen times before they started to believe it, so there's hope yet that the damage can be undone.

Lion bones are sought as a replacement for tiger bones because of the demise in the region's tiger populations.  

Well Ѓϋ©Ж me! I'm breathless with amazement!!!! 

How the hell do the Chinese think the tiger population got to its demise in the first place. FFS!!! There are nearly 1.4 billion of the Chinese and they now want to switch their attention to the last 18- 25 000 lions left on the African continent. And many South Africans are so greedy they'd sell their grandmothers - and all of our wildlife heritage, as long as there's a buyer throwing enough money at them. We have a weak currency - you don't even have to throw a lot of money at them.

This link is to an article entitled "90% drop in Africa's lion population in the last 20 years. Does anyone care?"
http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/africa-lions.html#cr

In the section dealing with elephant poaching, the author notes:  "In addressing the appalling losses through poaching of these two species Richard Leakey spearheaded a massive campaign to combat the poaching and also harnessing the huge attention and funding that his efforts and those of many others generated. This all resulted in dramatically reducing the poaching in Kenya, international bans on ivory and rhino horn and species protection policies that are still much in place today where these species exist."
(Prof Richard Leakey needs no introduction.).

That's the way to deal with poaching! You don't legalise the trade in farmed wild animals because certain humans can't reconcile themselves with not using the products of their bodies, and other humans are so damned greedy that they will stop at nothing until the population is decimated. And when that happens they will fix their avaricious gaze on the next project of plunder.

The barbarity of hunting ranched lion. Intensive "factory farming" of food animals is bad enough, but now we want to to farm our wild heritage. How stressful do we think it might be for lion to be "farmed" and hunted? Under what disgusting conditions? Lions are irrepressibly wild and free in their genetics, and we are going to farm them? Why should anyone care about stress? Because cortisol in the chronic stress reaction compromises the immune response, resulting in illness from opportunistic pathogens that would otherwise be kept at bay. And mans response? Antibiotics - which is exactly why the "food farms" have to ply the animals continually with antibiotics. Filthy conditions, overcrowding, stress, illness - geddit? It's a causal chain-reaction.

Quoting from the ILRI (International Livestock Research Institute) News, (http://www.ilri.org/ilrinews/index.php/archives/8455) I will leave the postscript to Jimmy Smith, the ILRI Director General : "Animal source foods are the biggest contributor to food-borne disease, Smith said. Diseases transmitted from livestock and livestock products kill more people each year than HIV or malaria. Indeed, one new human disease emerges every 2 months; and 20 percent of these are transmitted from livestock."

Big black mark for factory farming. And we want to do the same to wildlife?

Chicken Carnage

Here's what South Africa does with its chickens once they are past their laying prime :

Click link
SPCA Uncovers horrors of SA poultry industry


It seems almost impossible to penetrate the thick skulls of the food industry movers and shakers, that the animals they kill and maim are able to feel pain. They are sentient beings. Like us.

But because we have a culture of eating animal flesh, they become a "commodity" and can be "processed" for  profit. I don't think there's any other reason they are processed. Certainly, it's not to feed the starving millions - au contraire! It seems clear that meat - all meat - is rapidly becoming beyond the reach of the lower classes, and moving into the preserve of the upper middle classes and above.

Already you can read discussions where it is being mooted that meat portions in future will become smaller and more expensive as the world's population rises. Obviously this is under the impression that everyone will continue to be able to afford meat in future, which is not so.

And if it were no longer profitable to "process" chickens and other meat, do we fondly imagine the meat producer industry would continue to do so? Of course not. Profit is the bottom line.

I'm making a point to no longer purchase eggs or chickens from any local retail outlets from now on.

Our NSPCA is to be thanked for publicizing this, and similar issues.

Clueless Foie Gras Gorgers

That's "Gorgers", not "gorgeous". There's a difference - and these people are anything but gorgeous.

I speak of this evening's Sky News bulletin where it is noted that a ban has been imposed on cultivating or serving foie gras on the menu in restaurants in California. And not a moment too soon! Can it be that the lawmakers have had a rare moment of sanity?

The news insert should be commended in showing in graphic detail and describing how foie gras comes into existence. I saw geese being grabbed roughly around the neck and having a feed bulb shoved deep down their throats. The commentary noted that they are force fed until the liver is enlarged and diseased and then they are killed and the liver is served as a delicacy.

Three comments come to mind - one from the chef of a restaurant, who noted that he's not used to being told what he can or cannot eat or serve up. He finds this "strange". The other two comments come from indignant diners who  obviously have had their feathers ruffled, and who also think they own the earth and everything in and on it. That's the problem with having a lot of money - you start to get delusions of grandeur, and disrespect every other living thing while your head is inserted firmly where the sun doesn't (and will NEVER) shine.
 
Anyway - one distinguished gentleman gorger pontificated on between splutters of indignant rage that foie gras is "one of the great culinary treats that civilisation has created.... and I don't think the way they are being fed is inhumane". I rest my case. What did I say in a previous blog, "commoditising our wildlife heritage"? "Take a good hard look at the ..genocide - that mankind is wreaking on animals as we speak, and tell me we're civilised."

Remind me WHY exactly we decided it might be a delicacy to shove a pipe down a goose's throat and feed it until the liver was diseased, and then eat it? Who was the debauched sicko who dreamed this little one up? Seems to go back as far as 2500 BC and the ancient Romans - must have had a brain fart somewhere in our history. Thank goodness for the very small minority of wonderful people - the majority are a most debauched and morally corrupt species, aren't they?

The other comment was from a particularly ignorant and self-important old (she looked old - must be the meat and sundry crap she shovels down her throat) female gorgorette. There's a saying "you are what you eat". She looked a bit like an indignant goose - with apologies to the geese. Her face wobbled and her creases vibrated, her wattles flapped as she prated on - and this is what she came up with "it's a bunch of uninformed people who have no idea what happens on a foie gras farm". Yes, yes - quite.

She obviously wasn't watching the picture inserts - how could she? She was stuffing her flabby face while the news item was still in the studios. But it was priceless - 20 seconds after everyone watching Sky News has been given a graphic lesson in how to f^%k up geese completely en-route to being served up on a plate, she tells the world we don't know about "foie gras farming". I love it.

Tell you what Madam Crease-Face and Sir Pompous Git. Let's forget about your social climbing status and play "Do unto Others". This is the way the game is played : I grab you each by your scrawny wattled flabby throat and stuff a feeding tube down it. I then squeeze the feeder bulb and inject copious quantities of food down your throat until you vomit. Then I do it again - and again - and again (are we starting to get the picture?) until you have a grossly enlarged and diseased liver.

Then (and this is a bit of a diversion from the norm because we'd die for your diner's comments, dahling), I cut your liver out while you are alive (we'll put you on a machine to keep you with us - temporarily), and we serve your liver up to you and your fat jolly gorger fellows on a plate with a little garnish and some novo-cuisine sauce splatters - with a nice chianti (that's for the Hannibal Lectors amongst us).

When you have finished, you can fill in a diner satisfaction card, and then we pull the plug out of the machine.

This seems fair, surely? Are you not willing to understand the little inconveniences your dinner undergoes before it ends up on your plate? Ignorant cretins.

But they won't give up without a fight - they're considering underground private "supper clubs", bring your own and have it served up to you for a "forkage" fee, or bring it in from out-of-state. I would love the US activists to investigate the legalities of these, and see if there are ways to spoil their supper with a $1000 fine (not that these  self-centred idiots would notice the effect of a paltry fine like this, on their bank balances).

Does wealth always go hand in hand with stupidity?

Mugabe Tyranny Spreads to Animals

Yes - you heard right. The disgusting tyrant and racist Robert Mugabe has now included the Zimbabwe wildlife heritage in his one size fits all "land reform" grabs, taking over 1000 square miles of nature preserve in South Eastern Zimbabwe and issuing 25 of his ZANU-PF party political buddies with land leases and hunting permits.

Goodbye elephant, zebra, giraffe and the 2nd largest surviving population of black rhino. Goodbye antelope, birds and small animals.

And when that stupid STUPID man eventually notices, he will have a barren wilderness left. And no doubt he'll then blame the "British Imperialists" or somesuch. Assholes like Mugabe never take responsibility for their fuckups.

See the following :
Zimbabwe Wildlife Threatened

I just wish there was something in Zimbabwe that the Americans needed (like oil). Maybe then, they'd get up and do something useful like invade Zimbabwe and assist in sweeping away one of the greatest menaces alive today in Africa (there are a few in Africa).

It's a crying disgrace that a man like Mugabe has been left to decimate the country, the population and now the natural heritage, and nary a word is said by the rest of the world.