Post by stano40 on Jul 14, 2007 13:31:35 GMT -5
WARNING! THIS STORY IS GRAPHIC IN NATURE AND MAY BE DISTURBING TO SOME READERS
China
Tesco’s continues to kill turtles
Tesco’s continues to kill turtles
Tesco owned stores in China continue to profit from the appalling cruelty inflicted on turtles.
Ordinary people in the UK, pension funds and institutional investors are, according to the vegetarian campaigning group Viva, unknowingly profiting from Tesco's appalling animal welfare standards in its 39-store Hymall operation in China. For nearly two years, the supermarket giant has ignored evidence and appeals from some of the world's biggest wildlife organisations and continues to sell live turtles for human consumption.
Because of their slow metabolism, turtles are extremely difficult to kill. The species now on sale by Tesco is the Chinese soft shell turtle which is butchered by shop assistants in front of customers by cutting of the animal's head with a knife - if they can get it out of the shell. The head can live for up to an hour after separation from the body, so the assistant smashes the severed head with a hammer! Tesco also sell turtles for customers to kill at home in any way they choose, usually by boiling alive or by removing the shell and cutting strips of flesh as required from the still living animal - for 'freshness'.
Tesco have ignored reptile experts' evidence of cruelty and statements that the trade in turtles is contributing to the decimation of wild stocks. Tesco say their turtles are farmed in the Shanghai River but reptile biologist, Clifford Warwick, regarded as one of the world's leading authorities on captive reptile behaviour claims this is impossible to monitor and believes that most animals are collected from the wild in China and, as numbers collapse, increasingly from across the Far East.
"China has no animal welfare standards of any kind", says Justin Kerswell, Viva's campaigns manager, "and Tesco are happy to take advantage of that. They claim they demand 'high standards of animal welfare' but you couldn't get worse welfare than this. They excuse it as being part of Chinese culture. Thanks largely to our patron Heather Mills; the EU has just voted to ban all cat and dog fur from China because of the abject cruelty of skinning animals alive. The British people have made a stand against cruelty China, so has the EU and yet here is Tesco excusing it. Obviously every little helps when it comes to profit."
After Viva's - and other animal welfare organisations - intervention in this campaign, Tesco have agreed to drop the sale of one of the two species of turtle it was selling, after claiming for two years that they too were farmed and there was nothing wrong with the trade. Imported in large numbers from the US, red eared terrapins were mostly wild-caught according to research from California.
Viva! is an international animal campaign group with offices in the UK, Poland and the USA. Peaceful demos against the trade in live turtles are planned for over 100 Tesco stores in the UK on Saturday July 14.
For more information on Viva’s Turtle campaign go to: www.viva.org.uk/turtles
VIVA is Vegetarian's International Voice For Animals
Story Link Go To:
www.arkangelweb.org/international/general/20070710tescosturtles.php
Arkangel Press is an International group dedicated for the liberation of animals and animal rights.
There USA Link is:
www.arkangelweb.org/international/us.php
bob
