Thousands of seized cats feared buried alive in Vietnam

[webfact]

Thousands of seized cats feared buried alive in Vietnam
Agence France-Presse
HANOI

HANOI: -- Vietnamese authorities have buried thousands of seized cats -- many believed to have been alive at the time -- after the felines were smuggled from China to feed the nation's illegal cat meat trade.

A truck containing three tonnes of live cats crammed into bamboo crates was impounded last Tuesday in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi, with police initially undecided how to deal with the animals.

But on Wednesday a police officer told AFP they had been buried in accordance with Vietnamese law on smuggled goods.

"The cats were from China, with no official origin papers and no quarantine," a policeman from the Dong Da district environmental police said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Several of them had died, there was a terrible smell that could affect the environment and carried risks of future diseases," he said.

"Therefore, we culled them by burying them," he said, declining to confirm how many were alive at the time of burial.

Animal protection groups, who pleaded in vain for the cats to be spared, fear many of the creatures were alive when they were buried.

Other smuggled animals, including chickens, are routinely disposed of in a similar way.

The Asian Canine Protection Alliance, a regional coalition of animal rights groups, said it had heard "inhumane stories as to how the (cats) may have been destroyed."

"Our request for any visual evidence of their fate has been denied," the group said in a statement Wednesday, calling for the "practice of inhumane killing of trafficked animals," to be stopped.

Photographs of the cats crammed into dozens of bamboo crates stacked on top of one another prompted widespread calls for the felines’ lives to be spared.

One petition on change.org urging Vietnamese authorities "to change their animal handling policies" had garnered more than 23,000 signatures from across the world by Wednesday.

Cat meat, known locally as "little tiger", is a delicacy in Vietnam, and although officially banned it is widely available in specialist restaurants.

Vietnam has long banned its consumption in an effort to encourage cat ownership and keep the country’s rat population under control.

But there are still dozens of restaurants serving cat in Hanoi and it is rare to see cats roaming the streets -- most pet-owners keep them indoors or tied up fearing they could be stolen.

Such is the demand from restaurants that cats are sometimes smuggled across the border from China, Thailand and Laos.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/aec/Thousands-of-seized-cats-feared-buried-alive-in-Vi-30253376.html


-- The Nation 2015-02-04

[Costas2008]

Right, that's it.......never going to Hanoi or Viet Nam.

[chooka]

Never liked cats and always considered them destructive vermin who are causing the extinction of native animal species in other countries. They kill for fun and there is no place for them.

[LiorW]

The force of ignorance is seen in a state level.

[MAJIC]

OMG! does it get any worse than a hell hole called China,I wouldn't go there if you gave me a free Holiday,including tortured animal food!

[chooka]

OMG! does it get any worse than a hell hole called China,I wouldn't go there if you gave me a free Holiday,including tortured animal food!

You won't have to because China is coming to Thailand.

[alfalfa19]

Never liked cats and always considered them destructive vermin who are causing the extinction of native animal species in other countries. They kill for fun and there is no place for them.

"They kill for fun and there is no place for them."

Kind of like Homo Sapiens, in other words.

[Dannyboy666]

Hate Rodents , Love Cats...

[kinmaew]

This cruelty sickens me.

Edited February 5, 2015 by kinmaew

[basatop]

You should see what they do with poor cats before cooking:skinning alive and then hop into boiling water.

more pain they inflict - better taste as a result.

Bad Karma for Vietnam - no wander,look in their very painful history.

[Spock]

Never liked cats and always considered them destructive vermin who are causing the extinction of native animal species in other countries. They kill for fun and there is no place for them.

"They kill for fun and there is no place for them."

Kind of like Homo Sapiens, in other words.

Doesn't mean they should be buried or skinned alive. The torture of living creatures is unacceptable.

[chooka]

Hate Rodents , Love Cats...

correct me if I am wrong but isn't a cat a dirty rodent

[nithisa78]

You should see what they do with poor cats before cooking:skinning alive and then hop into boiling water.

more pain they inflict - better taste as a result.

Bad Karma for Vietnam - no wander,look in their very painful history.

Yes, they have very painful history. Though the many ways they have progressed in such short period of time......very impressive.

[transam]

Never liked cats and always considered them destructive vermin who are causing the extinction of native animal species in other countries. They kill for fun and there is no place for them.

What a really stupid comment...........

So you want to kill all animals that kill....................Gawd..............

[chooka]

Never liked cats and always considered them destructive vermin who are causing the extinction of native animal species in other countries. They kill for fun and there is no place for them.

What a really stupid comment...........

So you want to kill all animals that kill....................Gawd..............

I never said all animals. I was talking about a single piece of vermin.

[transam]

ALL animals kill...........................Thats what they do.............Lion, Tiger, eat or play............Thats it...........ISIS human folk are doing it now...........

[chooka]

Never liked cats and always considered them destructive vermin who are causing the extinction of native animal species in other countries. They kill for fun and there is no place for them.

What a really stupid comment...........

So you want to kill all animals that kill....................Gawd..............

I never said all animals. I was talking about a single piece of vermin. There are around 20 million feral cats in Australia and it is estimated that they alone kill around 60 million native animals per night. They caused the extinction of numerous native animals/reptiles and it is estimated they will be responsible for the extinction of 75% of Australia's native animals and fauna by 2025.

[chooka]

Never liked cats and always considered them destructive vermin who are causing the extinction of native animal species in other countries. They kill for fun and there is no place for them.

What a really stupid comment...........

So you want to kill all animals that kill....................Gawd..............

I never said all animals. I was talking about a single piece of vermin. There are around 20 million feral cats in Australia and it is estimated that they alone kill around 60 million native animals per night. They caused the extinction of numerous native animals/reptiles and it is estimated they will be responsible for the extinction of 75% of Australia's native animals and fauna by 2025. The cat is introduced vermin into Australia and the have no place in the environment.

[transam]

They eat the same as you do..........Nature..............Why are humans that kill to eat special........?

[Nemesis7]

inhumane act.

[chickenslegs]

From the original article:

Other smuggled animals, including chickens, are routinely disposed of in a similar way.

Cruelty to cats always hits a nerve. Nobody seems to be too concerned about the chickens.

[thaiguzzi]

Hate Rodents , Love Cats...

correct me if I am wrong but isn't a cat a dirty rodent

You are corrected. And wrong. And as animals go, cats are some of the cleanest. And cleverest. And... I could go on, but why waste my time talking to an imbecile.

[rickirs]

Hate Rodents , Love Cats...

correct me if I am wrong but isn't a cat a dirty rodent

Of course you could check yourself for the correct answer. The short answer is "yes, you are wrong."

A simple lack of structural similarity should be your first clue and "dirty" is not a biological term.

Both cats and rodents are mammals, the same as man, elephants, and whales.

Rodent Cat

Kingdom:

Animalia

Kingdom:

Animalia

Phylum:

Chordata

Phylum:

Chordata

Class:

Mammalia

Class:

Mammalia

Superorder:

Euarchontoglires

Order:

Carnivora

(unranked):

Glires

Family:

Felidae

Order:

Rodentia

Subfamily:

Felinae

Genus:

Felis

Species:

F. catus

[annabel]

Chooka and Victor70 and the others in this animal KKK of the 21st century ...

Oye !! God save us from these barbaric people ...

Cats are FELINES... as are tigers, lions etc.... Not vermin ! Ouf ! So should all feline animals be culled ???

Ouf NVM...

Go put your KKK outfit on

[paz]

Never liked cats and always considered them destructive vermin who are causing the extinction of native animal species in other countries. They kill for fun and there is no place for them.

You're a pathetic ignorant, and there should be no place (on forums) for people like you.

[richard peters]

Everyone is getting a bit over-excited here! It is a fact that most meat eaters kill to survive and some, such as felines, go through a strange ritual of playing with their quarry before actually killing their victim. As a former professional hunter, I considered it my duty to kill as quickly and painlessly as possible and would often 'pass up' a "risky" shot if this could not be achieved. One of the cruelest acts that I saw on an Asian video, was bludgeoning dogs to inflict more pain and then skinning them alive. Sometimes the dogs would regain their senses, only to find that they had no skin left. This very misguided practice seems to be mainly carried out in Asia, but killing with cruelty exists all over the world and the human race has never been an exception to this, if you research torture throughout history.

[Asiantravel]

Hate Rodents , Love Cats...

correct me if I am wrong but isn't a cat a dirty rodent

So do you extend that to all the cat family? Lions, tigers, Panthers, Jaguars everything? What a mentality you have

[Dannyboy666]

Hate Rodents , Love Cats...

correct me if I am wrong but isn't a cat a dirty rodent

So do you extend that to all the cat family? Lions, tigers, Panthers, Jaguars everything? What a mentality you have

. 10,000 posts, I'm glad I only read one, Geezus