Not To Keep Going On About China and their attitudes to animals but....

In issue 25 of International Lifestyle Magazine we look at some of the work carried out by Animal Asia and today I read this article....

Commuters in China are being offered a supposedly healthy alternative to crisps and chocolates from underground vending machines - hairy crabs that are meant to be eaten while still alive.

The Dazha hairy crab, a popular delicacy in the southeastern province of Jiangsu, is on sale in three different sizes in the province capital of Nanjing.

Prices for the small, medium or large crabs range from the equivalent of £1.50 to £5.00.

The crabs are packed into custom-fitted plastic boxes and chilled to 5C, leaving them sedated but still alive.

If a customer gets a dead one, he or she will get three live ones for free.

"The customers were a bit sceptical at first as they were worried if the crabs were alive or not," Wu Zhendi, general manager of the Twin Lake Crab Co, told reporters.

"But now they see they are alive, they keep coming back.

"We are selling hundreds each day, and more at weekends."

The company now plans to expand its business and is even thinking of trying out sales in Japan, where vending machines are big subway business.

IS IT JUST ME OR IS THIS JUST WRONG ON EVERY LEVEL? Not only are these poor things pulled from the sea, or created in some factory farming system somewhere, they are boxed up and put on a shelf for people to view, buy and eat. Who exactly looks at a poor crab stuck in a piece of plastic and thinks "yummy that looks nice, I think I will take a large live crab and munch on it on the way to work". What is wrong with an apple or a bag or nuts or anything that does not involve eating live animals.

Sorry to pick on China but really, cruel circus tricks, live crabs in vending machines and that is just what we see.

Lynn
xx

Appreciate Your Life

I listened to some people yesterday moaning about how they wished they had a better car, how their house was not big enough and how they did not know how the could go on unless they had an ensuite bathroom, how they needed to find a gardener to keep their flowers looking pretty all the time and whilst I appreciate that these are things which are important to them, they really need to look outside the windows of their own world and see what is happening in the world and appreciate what they have.

In China they have had a mudslide which has taken the lives of 700 people, with thousands more missing. Many of the survivors have only what they are standing in and have lost family and friends.

In Pakistan 1500 people have died in the floods and with 14 million people affected this number is sure to rise. They are living in tents made of bits of plastic with no food and no fresh water and with the rain still coming down.

The people of Haiti are still trying to build new lives from the rubble that was left.

A child dies every 3 minutes of hunger.

The list goes on but isn´t it time that we started to appreciate what we have, that we can turn on a tap and we have water, that we have a bed to climb into, that we have our family around us. These are the important things in life, this is what we should be focusing on and putting our energies into helping others that need it.

Lynn

x

SO ANGRY!

What exactly is wrong with certain people in the world. I watched in horror this morning a report bought to the west by http://www.animalsasia.org/ showing us the horrors of the zoos and circus acts in China.

Beautiful animals reduced to nothing but beaten souls, terrible methods of cruelty are used to make a bear dance, a monkey ride a bike, a tiger stand on a table and for what purpose, so that a group of sick humans can stand and watch and clap hands. Even worse is the fact they feed their tigers, and other animals, live food such as chickens and calves. Were the audience appauled, including the children, no, they clapped and cheered and took photographs.

I recently had a long conversation with someone who told me that I was wrong to condem a circus because the animals had choosen to be there, they had stepped forward it was their destiny! I cannot imagine any animal would choose to have their teeth and claws removed, to be beaten with sticks and lumps of metal and to spend a life of humiliation in front of a group of cheering people. I am quite sure given the option between a forest or a tiny, filthy metal cage they would not choose to live this way.

Unless people speak out, this just goes on and on s please check out their web site, see what is happening and find a way to help. Avoid any circus that uses animals because despite what some rather simple people may think, animals do not want to live like this, not now, not ever..

Lynn
x