Slog
News & ArtsFriday, March 8, 2013
Animals The Human Asteroid: Live Turtles Sold as Keychains
Posted by Charles Mudede on Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 8:04 AM
Chinese vendors have been selling pretty depressing keychains (two words I never thought I’d hear together) that consist of either a Brazil turtle or two small kingfish sealed inside a small plastic baggy. Each baggy, seven centimeters in length, is filled with colored liquid and the imprisoned animal(s) of choice. The vendors, who sell the baggies at the entrances to subways or train stations, claim the colored water is a “nutrient rich” solution that allows the live creatures shoved inside a seven centimeter bag to live for a few months, after which–if this story couldn’t get any more depressing–the animals die and, according to Helablog, “rumor has it…the cadavers are heated in the microwave for 15 seconds and eaten while enjoying an ice cold beer.”
The evidence:
Humans are to the animal kingdom what that asteroid was to the dinosaurs.
3
Last time I went to China there were tons of vendors next to the subway entrances (of both Shanghai and Beijing) selling puppies and kittens in tiny cages about the size of their tiny bodies. They were all white, and a friend informed me the Chinese favor white-colored animals are they are seen as more auspicious. They apparently bleach the animals' hair, and the animals often die within days you take them home due to massive skin, liver and kidney damage due to the bleaching.
7
This is so, so screwed up in every single way. I don't mean to be racist or flaunt my cultural ignorance, but what kind of society would nurture this sort of treatment of fellow animals? What kind of culture would allow it. This would never fly here in America. Television stations would be all over it and the public ire would shut it down.
Humans are the worst, bloodiest, most destructive, most dangerous animals on the planet. Charles is right. We are a plague on the world.
(And yeah, yeah. Factory farms and puppy mills and all that. We like to keep our animal cruelty out of sight. But this key-chain thing is front-and-center and takes animal imprisonment to new levels. The degree of compartmentalism needed to simultaneously be charmed and ignore the extreme cruelty of it is breathtaking.)
Humans are the worst, bloodiest, most destructive, most dangerous animals on the planet. Charles is right. We are a plague on the world.
(And yeah, yeah. Factory farms and puppy mills and all that. We like to keep our animal cruelty out of sight. But this key-chain thing is front-and-center and takes animal imprisonment to new levels. The degree of compartmentalism needed to simultaneously be charmed and ignore the extreme cruelty of it is breathtaking.)
8
How do they breathe? Turtles breathe air, and without something to oxygenate the "fluid", the fish shouldn't last very long.
9
Not cruelty related, but when walking in a market area in Jakarta my 3-year old found the box of very large turtles. He talked to them and wanted to feed them. I managed to get him to move on before he could notice the stack of turtle shells next to the scale and machette.
10
@ 8, air can permeate plastic. It's the reason why your food will eventually get freezer burn even if it's hermetically sealed in plastic. (It takes longer if it's thicker plastic, but it still happens.) It's slow, but it's enough to keep very small animals alive.
11
Ugh the racism when it comes to this shit is horrible. Its always the media bashing the way Asian cultures eat under the guise of animal rights, but look at our own fucked up culture. Turtle in a small bag vs baby cow in a cage so small it can't move vs chickens living on top of each other in hellish conditions. We're always so quick to judge Asian cultures for their treatment of animals but we think nothing of how our chicken nuggets came to be.
12
To continue from @10, reptiles have lower metabolic rates than mammals, so the amount oxygen they need per unit of body weight will be reduced. This wouldn't work for a mouse!
That's also why it's going to take the turtle weeks to starve to death.
They should use a snail. If you kept the keychain in the light a few hours a day, enough algae would grow on the plastic to keep the snail alive indefinitely.
That's also why it's going to take the turtle weeks to starve to death.
They should use a snail. If you kept the keychain in the light a few hours a day, enough algae would grow on the plastic to keep the snail alive indefinitely.
14
Haw haw haw, if God didn't want us to put animals in little plastic bags he wouldn't have made them so tiny and portable and tasty haw haw haw
15
@7
"(And yeah, yeah. Factory farms and puppy mills and all that..."
Can you not see that you are taking the convenient route of brushing aside our own culture's treatment of animals, so that you can feel superior to another society's culture?
Besides, the argument could be made that it's better, in some ways, to, er, wear your cruelty on your sleeve, than to conduct it in an institutionalized and industrialized factor out of sight.
"(And yeah, yeah. Factory farms and puppy mills and all that..."
Can you not see that you are taking the convenient route of brushing aside our own culture's treatment of animals, so that you can feel superior to another society's culture?
Besides, the argument could be made that it's better, in some ways, to, er, wear your cruelty on your sleeve, than to conduct it in an institutionalized and industrialized factor out of sight.
17
This gives me a sad.
and
"Cadaver," "corpse," etc., refer to human remains, no? I used to make that mistake back when I was a militant vegetarian, which is to say back when I was an asshole.
and
"Cadaver," "corpse," etc., refer to human remains, no? I used to make that mistake back when I was a militant vegetarian, which is to say back when I was an asshole.
19
@7
You're experiencing the same kind of shock with China right now as the rest of the planet did when news of Columbine, Sandy Hook or any of the others came out.
What kind of society allows children to be shot up in schools? Children! Their laws nurture this sort of treatment of their fellow man? It's easy and cheap to buy machines which extinguish life in this place? What kind of society do those people in the USA have? "The extreme cruelty of it is breathtaking"...
You're experiencing the same kind of shock with China right now as the rest of the planet did when news of Columbine, Sandy Hook or any of the others came out.
What kind of society allows children to be shot up in schools? Children! Their laws nurture this sort of treatment of their fellow man? It's easy and cheap to buy machines which extinguish life in this place? What kind of society do those people in the USA have? "The extreme cruelty of it is breathtaking"...
20
I literally can't think about this for very long or hard because it makes me want to throw up.
I hate humans.
I hate humans.
22
@ 21, true, but not all of us are participating. Likely many Chinese aren't either, but the fact that this is all in public without apparent condemnation is remarkable.
23
I'm sure someone who has actually studied this would have more to say, but different societies must go through these phases at different times. Western society has had puh-LENTY of egregious, front-and-center animal cruelty over the centuries. It's just not in vogue right now.
24
Take a stroll through the reptile aisle at PetCo sometime and you will see disease-ridden animals that will probably die within a year. You will probably see a few that are already dead but their rotting carcasses have gone unnoticed by the staff. They may live in a glass box instead of a bag and you don't eat them when they die (mostly because you have the luxury of not having to worry about such things, just as you have the luxury to buy an animal as a novelty pet in the first place), but our culture is not that far removed from this sort of thing.
25
can we leave off the accusations of racism and hypocrisy?
they're living animals trapped in KEYCHAINS, the most useless item the world has ever produced. they're not turtles being slaughtered for food.
it's ok to say this sucks, and stop there. you don't have to 1st reform the US food industry to be able to do so.
they're living animals trapped in KEYCHAINS, the most useless item the world has ever produced. they're not turtles being slaughtered for food.
it's ok to say this sucks, and stop there. you don't have to 1st reform the US food industry to be able to do so.
26
25 so turtle key chain =bad but cow skin belt = good? It is hypocrisy for one culture that treats animals as objects to be horrified at another culture who treats animals as objects. "Omg check out how horrible those Chinese are using turtles as key chains, why can't they just stick to have leather on their key chains like us civilized westerns?"
27
@26 You're missing @25's point. Granted, it's not "nice" to slaughter animals for their meat and leather. However, when they are slaughtered, it is typically quick, efficient and serves a purpose.
Allowing live animals to die slowly over a long time in a useless bauble is cruel and inhuman torture. There is a difference. And you don't have to use comparative morality to know that it is wrong.
Allowing live animals to die slowly over a long time in a useless bauble is cruel and inhuman torture. There is a difference. And you don't have to use comparative morality to know that it is wrong.
28
@27 if you think animals in the west don't suffer before they are killed you are fooling yourself. This is EXACTLY my point, we think nothing about how our culture causes pain and suffering to animals because it is familiar to us, ie the norm. Then when another culture causes pain and suffering to animals that is not the norm to our culture we accuses we get horrified and get up on our high horse. If you eat meat in America, wear animals skins or fur or use animal by product you have no right to get indignant over this because the only difference between the Chinese person with the turtle key chain and you is at least the Chinese person has to acknowledged how he is treating he animal, while you get to be completely ignorant of it.
29
@j2patter is correct. Animals slaughtered for food in the West do not live pain-free lives and are not killed humanely. Their lives are a nightmare. Arguing that their experience is less of a nightmare because it's supposedly less "public" really doesn't cut it in this day and age.
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