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Animal Wet Markets Need to Come to an End


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    There's been alot of talk recently about how wet markets have been the cause of viruses due to their unsanitary nature. While that is most definitely true, the topic I'm wanting to talk about is not the health consequences, but the cruelty in which the markets do business. I want to note real quick that I'm very aware of cultural differences and respect that people from all of the world, no matter what they believe, are equally entitled to their opinion. Not all places see things the same way I do in the U.S.. I can understand that. But the cruelty needs to stop.

    When the Chinese government banned all wildlife consumption and closed certain wet markets due to the recent outbreak, they got a long overdue round of applause from numerous other countries and people that have wanted this for quite some time. I'm sure most everyone knows that won't last long though, unfortunately. The industry seems to be just too large to be shut down all at once, and that's OK. Even though I don't agree with it, I understand the role these markets play in a lot of peoples lives.

    But what can end immediately is how the animals are treated at some of these markets. I don't want to go into too much detail here, but were talking about skinning the animal alive because the scared and painful feelings the animal has "makes it taste better". I'm sure that most everyone can agree that is nonsensical and only causes pain. Again, I don't want to go further into details but skinning and burning animals alive is cruel and doesn't serve any real purpose to anyone. If the animals were butchered correctly this wouldn't be such a horrible thing. Again, even though I disagree with eating certain animal in certain ways, I can understand cultural differences. But doing what I mentioned about to dogs, cats, octopus (extremely intelligent animals), pangolians, etc, is just too far and can be done in a much more humane way.

    I also want to make it very clear that I'm not saying every single vendor at every single wet market is overtly cruel to the animals they provide. Even though it can be overwhelming thinking about what some of the animals go through with the bad ones, not all vendors are this way. Though these are not one-off cases were talking about. This kind of treatment is well known to be all over the place.

    On somewhat of a sidenote, China recently signaled an end to the human consumption of dogs, releasing a draft policy that would forbid eating dog meat. Though this is a step in the right direction, there's still a ton of people that are continuing to buy and torture dogs for consumption. The outcry from people demanding dog meat be banned only seems to have gotten a half-cocked response from the government with no real intention on enforcing the policy.

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    Like most, I wasn't really aware of wet markets until Covid reports came out. And I'm sure like most, I was instantly turned off by it, realizing how these markets could lead to all kinds of sanitation issues, definitely including animal to human virus transmission. Mostly just from the lack of regulation.

    I also agree this certainly just seems logical to go hand in hand with inhumane practices towards animals. Again, due to lack of regulation. Or at least from what I have read thus far, there doesn't seem to be much of any rules toward preparing and selling the meat in wet markets. Correct me if I am wrong though.

    My first thought was - of course wet markets exist in China. When you have that many people, you can't be as picky about what you eat, and maybe even makes sense to be more lax on how it is processed and presented to you.

    But of course everything comes at a price. Much like with the disgusting and inhumane nature of factory farming in the United States, we have all convinced ourselves that for the human race to eat meat on a massive scale, we have to sacrifice our values and ethics on the way we treat animals. Even if we don't believe it, most of us go along with it, just trying to avoid the knowledge of factory farming cruelty in general, mostly because a lot of us think its the only way to get cheap hamburgers or whatever.

    Luckily farmers across the US are proving that ethical treatment of animals is possible, and that we can still produce meat to the masses AND be ethical at the same time. Hopefully that trend sweeps the globe and the West and the East stop buying into the lie that we can't feed ourselves protein and be kind to animals throughout the process at the same time.

    If we really can't pull that off, here's hoping lab grown meat is just as good for us in the future, and becomes cheap enough in time so we can make the big switch. But even then, we have to figure out how to live in more harmony with animals, with hunting, conservation and meat preparation, farming and all the other ways we come into contact and interact with them.

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    Cosmic Kid Wrote:

    Luckily farmers across the US are proving that ethical treatment of animals is possible, and that we can still produce meat to the masses AND be ethical at the same time. Hopefully that trend sweeps the globe and the West and the East stop buying into the lie that we can't feed ourselves protein and be kind to animals throughout the process at the same time.

    Agreed, wet markets are a disgusting practice, but what can you do when you have so many mouths to feed and hardly any standards on what is deemed safe and human. Of course, the U.S. markets aren't very far off, I too am grateful for a new generation of farmers and ranchers who see the problem and are trying to remedy it one small step at a time. At first it seemed like a boutique type of business that only rich trendy people could afford, but I've seen it catching on in a positive way, although slowly. Let's hope this continues to be an upward trend.