It doesn't bear thinking about...

LONG NIGHTS JOURNEY INTO DAY


I received a letter today from the guys at Animal Asia Foundation; they are a charity involved in the rescue and rehabilitation of Moon Bears that are ‘farmed’ for their bile in China and Vietnam.

The web site really is worth a look at, especially for all you guys interested in Chinese medicine. It really is an eye opener, to say the least.

The most interesting fact is that even the Chinese agree that modern day herbal substitutes are no less effective and in fact may well be far superior; especially when the fact that some of the authentic bear bile is collected from open suppurating wounds, so the medicine is tainted by pus.

Of course, it is the same with everything else these days, the provenance of the product is never guaranteed nor is the age or condition of the bear from which it came.

One thing that can be guaranteed though, is that the bears’ condition is not a cutsey, cuddly, holistic one!

Trapped, sometimes losing limbs whose stumps are left to stew – they are held in cages they cannot even turn around in. Some of them have their claws and teeth removed. A metal spigot is rammed into their bile ducts from which the bile drips constantly; otherwise they endure daily sticking with long unsterile needles in order to harvest the bile.

If you want to know more about the work of the Animal Asia Foundation, please get onto their website and take a look at the other things they do too.

Did you know for instance, that China, the civilised country that is about to host the Olympics, has a cull policy on dogs, or at least the ones not being kept for the pot? Their fate is just as henious, the more horrific the death, the more tender the meat, such a civillised way to do things, so cultured, so happening in this day and age!

Using a rabies outbreak as an excuse they have induced the people to club not only their own pet dogs to death, but the packs of strays that run around trying to survive, rewarding the people with a few cents for each dog they kill. This is a government policy.

Oh, the banking advert about the pets in Hong Kong, mainly propaganda,Communist China is still allowing a certain leeway with the Hong Kong lifestyle, but also remember that HSBC is a Chinese owned bank.

Local government officials have no intention of vaccinating either the dogs or the local wildlife – as is done in central Europe by dropping treated foods.

Then there’s the boiling alive of the cats at market...

Such a great place to go for a holiday or to see an event of such spectacle as the Olympics; though it is doubtful anything of the kind will be seen in the environs of the Olympic villages in Beijing.

The human rights question has been ‘attended to’, to the satisfaction of the Olympic Committee – but a country whose men women and children are forced into Stadiums (out in the sticks) to watch the execution of thieves, a government who has no hesitation to forcibly evict their own people flooding farms and villages to build a damn, is still very lacking in human rights. Let's not even mention the Tibet thing! The shooting of Tibetan nuns and monks(average age, 19yo) fleeing for their lives,target practice for bored border guards who see them as insignificant- something similar to a certain attitude of a certain people about 60yrs ago, in Europe,the mind set is there.
So no, they don't stop with the animals, they start with them.

It is therefore not difficult to see why, then, they treat their animals the way they do, and will continue to do so, unless we find a way to reach the imagination of the man in the street, and that is difficult to do in a regime like China's.

Small victories, with the animals will lead to greater ones for the humans.

They may be the least of us, but they are the best.

“ If all the beasts were gone,
man would die from loneliness of spirit,
for whatever happens to the beast,
happens to the man.

All things are connected.
Whatever befalls the earth,
Befalls the sons of the earth.” Chief Seattle, Dwamish
The opinions and sentiments expressed here are mine and have no bearing on the policies or the procedures employed by the Animal Asia Foundation.
www.animalasia.org