Quote:
Originally posted by Link:
Chinese people eat the strangest creatures.. they even eat dogs! Grrr!  And now this? Just disgusting if you'd ask me [img]graemlins/1disgust.gif[/img]
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And we eat cows, much to the disgust of hindus. Different cultures can be like that sometimes...
I can sympathise also with people who find the culling methods to be inhumane. But China is poor and simply can't afford expensive bolt-guns a la UK BSE crisis method and it has to act NOW or watch another a possible epidemic rise up in the human populace (and it does NOT have the resources to deal with such an outbreak).
In fact, if you look at the measures that China undertook during the last outbreak, they were practically medieveal - villages where an outbreak took place were simply cut off. Little or no medical care provided, with no-one allowed in or out and food delivered to a safe-zone where the villagers would then come to pick it up. If you survived, you survived and if you didn't - well, tough.
Dying of SARS with little or no treatment is not a particularly 'humane' way to die - and probably more painful and horrible than death by drowning/electocution etc. etc. (especially without adequate supplies of painkillers and sedatives).
In terms of the numbers of cats being killed, it isn't out of proportion either. During the BSE crisis in Britain, only one animal in a herd had to be diagnosed with BSE for the entire herd to come under a destruction order.
In any event, I'm sure that the Chinese would do things differently if they had the kind of resources available in the US or EU...
[ 01-09-2004, 11:31 AM: Message edited by: Skunk ]