Not just a distilled load of crap DENPASAR, HANOI––A vogue for pricy civet coffee has brought the civet farming industry back perhaps bigger than ever––and certainly in many more places, more than a decade after China tried to bring civet farming to an end. “Liquid speed kills” China banned civet farming in 2004 because of the association […]
New killer diseases: nature strikes back against factory farming
GUANGZHOU, Guangdong province, China––Representing the unholy marriage of wildlife consumption with factory farming, an estimated 10,000 masked palm civets, tanukis, (also called raccoon dogs), and hog badgers were sacrificed in the first 10 days of January 2004 for the sins of the meat industry. Mostly cage-reared from wild-caught ancestors, the civets, tanukis, and hog […]
Cat-eaters may get, spread SARS
GUANGZHOU––Laboratory studies of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome directed by virologist Albert D.M.E. Osterhaus of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, published in the October 30, 2003 edition of the British journal Nature, demonstrate that cats and ferrets could potentially carry SARS from filthy live markets to humans. Osterhaus said his experimental goal was simply to […]
China to control wildlife cuisine but will not close live markets
HONG KONG––Hope that the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome epidemic of 2002-2003 might permanently close the notorious Chinese live wildlife markets was dealt a setback on July 10, 2003 when 12 government ministries and state administrations jointly announced that legal sales of domesticated wildlife would be “encouraged, guided, and supported.” The wildlife traffic will be more […]