I need your URGENT help, peeps.. Apparently, TESCO is selling and butchering live turtles in China!! And they also allow their customers to take the turtle home to butcher it alive in any way they wish!
The species now on sale by Tesco is the Chinese soft shell turtle which is butchered by shop assistants in front of customers by cutting of the animal’s head with a knife – if they can get it out of the shell. The head can live for up to an hour after separation from the body, so the assistant smashes the severed head with a hammer! Tesco also sell turtles for customers to kill at home in any way they choose, usually by boiling alive or by removing the shell and cutting strips of flesh as required from the still living animal – for “freshness”.
- “We cut off the living head and then smash it with a hammer”
So what I need you to do is to sign a petition to persuade TESCO to stop selling turtles, not only in the UK or in China, but in all their operations.
Seriously, the turtles are already fast becoming extinct all over the world. And there are hundreds, of not thousands, if scientists all over the world who are rallying against time to at least slow down the extinction rate.
Son you’re wondering why TESCO should immediately cease selling live turtles in China?
- Because the killing of the turtles is inhumane.
You do NOT kill an animal by cutting off the head and then smash it with a hammer, d*mnit. There is a certain Code of Conduct that should be adhered to when it comes to killing animals, either for research or other purposes. And until the head is correctly crushed, destroying the brain, the turtle can remain conscious throughout the procedure. If the head is not correctly crushed, the turtle’s severed head can continue to remain conscious for up to an hour before it dies.
When I was drawing blood from the terrapins for a blood study, I had to give it up if I wasn’t successful in the first 15 minutes, otherwise it would be akin to animal abuse.
- Because the turtles are becoming extinct.
Very quickly. 75% of the world’s turtles are being threatened with extinction primarily as a direct result of human consumption. And despite legislation restricting trade in many turtle species, enforcement is weak, and many internationally and nationally protected species still find their way onto Chinese plates.
According to TESCO, the softshell turtles (Pelodiscus sinensis) that are being sold in China were cultured for the market, but then again, turtle farming does not eliminate hunting pressures on wild populations and represents a major threat to the survival of wild turtles. In fact, this trade could lead to the extinction of the species!
The fate of the turtles in in YOUR hands!
TESCO has continued to farm, sell and butcher live turtles in China, against all advice that has been presented to them by experts. The reality is that the fate of the turtles now lays firmly IN YOUR HANDS, and TESCO needed to be made aware of what the public think of its activity in China.
So what can you do?
- Sign the petition to persuade TESCO to stop selling turtles.
You can help assure that the turtles and the world will be protected by the values that all of us have fought so hard for. By joining forces you can help assure that our children will be born into a world that values conservation and animal welfare.
- Spread the message.
Send the link to sign the petition to as many of your family members, friends, ex-colleagues as possible and encourage them to sign the petition as well (nothing spammy, promise?). Or you may also send a link to this post to your bosses, futsal kaki, mamak kaki, etc. And if you are a blogger, I’d like to appeal to you to help spread the awareness on your respective blogs.
Thank you. I love you.
Related Articles:
- Yvonne: “I would stop shopping at TESCO until they stop selling animals in stores. TESCO must realize the Power of Comsumers allow us to decide when a business entity had crossed morality lines” by Yvonne Foong.
- Boycott TESCO! by Pat @ Broken Shield and Sword.
- Interesting responses to “TESCO sells turtles in China”
I signed the petition. I will do a post on Endangered Spaces blog as well. This is so sick.
Keep up the good fight.
Thats so inhumane! :(
I sympathize with the sentiment but I don’t agree with this appeal.
For 2 reasons:
1. I’m not convinced commercial cultivation will necessarily further endanger the species, my common sense tells me the opposite is true (and I believe I have read something to that effect), but I stand corrected if anyone can prove otherwise
2. If the issue here is the inhumane method of which the turtle is killed, the correct response should be to implement more humane method of killing the animal, rather than banning the sale.
There are worse inhumanities (i would go so far as to call it evil) behind those beautifully packaged beef and other meat produce that we find on the supermarket shelf but not many of us call for banning the factory farms and slaughterhouses that perpetuate these evil.
Why is that so ? It is not for a lack of knowledge, the atrocities committed in those facilities are well known to anyone who care to pay attention, but few of us, including myself, are spurred into action by this knowledge. It is because those atrocities are committed behind walls, out of sight, out of mind …
That is why I believe animals should be killed in full and plain sight in front of the potential customers, to fully expose the cruelties and inhumanities of the act. If you have to eat the meat, then eat with full knowledge of all the implications of your choice. Outsourcing evil does not exonerate you from your responsibility, it only means you are ignorant of it.
So, my response is, cheers for honesty, openness and transparency. We should petition all the other meat industry to follow suit. I am sure it will result in a lot less meat being consumed, and probably a lot less hypocrisy too.
hanfei: I see your point. But I don’t see how it means we should not do whatever we can to reduce inhumanity. If we want to reason things, there are many ways to do it, but in the end, we must listen to our conscience on what is good and what is bad.
If you must know, I am almost a vegetarian. I rarely eat meat, except for fish, and that it’s for health reasons.
If you say that butcher houses are allowed to get away due to the lack of awareness, then by all means, create awareness. Don’t just use it as a coverline.
Stopping Tesco may not do much to reduce the loss of species count. But it does help. We can’t say, “Oh this street is so filthy. What difference would it make if I don’t throw like the rest?”
I have signed the petition.
I signed liao!
Why turtles are not protected in China? Anyway, signed the petition! Shoo! Leave the cute turtles alone!
:biggrin: signed :biggrin:
I’ve signed la. Oh my..How can they do this..??? China..They really love to eat everything that the back face the sun (mobile one la). SIGH!!!
Oh my…that makes me sad. I’ll sign!