Smugglers drive Thailand's grim trade in dog meat

[Bob]

10+ years ago there were dogs all over the cities of Thailand.  Hell, I remember it was even difficult walking at times around the areas of Suriwong and Silom in Bangkok in the wee hours of the morning as packs of dogs took over the corners and were going nuts barking at and, at times, fighting with their rivals.  Chiangmai had a hell of a lot more street dogs back then too.

 

Then, sometime around 2004 (?), all of a sudden the bulk of the dogs were gone and I recall at least a article or two in the newspaper that the government was going to cull the population.  Somebody did, that's for sure. 

 

Koko's last post also mentions what typically happens to the dogs that are intercepted before they get to Vietnam or wherever.  Last year, they caught a big truck and found 1,300 dogs in it heading for Vietnam and the article indicated that the dogs were turned over to some government shelter.  A month or two later, there was a small article mentioning that 800+ of those dogs had died.

[kokopelli]

10+ years ago there were dogs all over the cities of Thailand.  Hell, I remember it was even difficult walking at times around the areas of Suriwong and Silom in Bangkok in the wee hours of the morning as packs of dogs took over the corners and were going nuts barking at and, at times, fighting with their rivals.  Chiangmai had a hell of a lot more street dogs back then too.

 

 

 

My memory is much different, at least in Pattaya.  About 10+ years ago when I first visited I recall  just one dog who lounged around Panorama Bar in BT. Now dogs are seen everywhere.  However during my early visits my visits were short and limited to the BT area so maybe didn't notice the other ones at that time.

[KhorTose]

Forget dog meat try a nice tender bunny!

Yes, yes, yes.  When i lived in Hanford, California I always used to buy fresh rabbit from one of my workers.  Marinated and bbq'd, roasted, or in a stew it is one the world's best tasting and healthiest meats you can eat.

[kokopelli]

Yes, yes, yes.  When i lived in Hanford, California I always used to buy fresh rabbit from one of my workers.  Marinated and bbq'd, roasted, or in a stew it is one the world's best tasting and healthiest meats you can eat.

 

Fresh rabbit; how did you kill them?  I used to hold them by their feet and club them over the head to break their necks.

[Guest]

My memory is much different, at least in Pattaya.  About 10+ years ago when I first visited I recall  just one dog who lounged around Panorama Bar in BT. Now dogs are seen everywhere. 

In some of the backs streets south of Sunnee, I've been harassed by dogs.. I'd like to see those end up on Vietnamese menus for a start.

[Guest Devint6669]

 

 

Look at this and tell me that is not far for the animal farm... And i do not think that dog are better... we just have a better relation with them that all...

 

After sean this video i'm giving my self time to think about never eating meat again...

[KhorTose]

Fresh rabbit; how did you kill them?  I used to hold them by their feet and club them over the head to break their necks.

I have a double standard.  I am an expert shot with a gun, but i don't hunt or kill animals.  If i had to kill animals to live, I know I could, and that is all that it is necessary to know.  My employee cleaned, skinned and dressed them---not me.  All for $5.00 a rabbit--twenty five years ago.

[KhorTose]

Look at this and tell me that is not far for the animal farm... And i do not think that dog are better... we just have a better relation with them that all...

 

After sean this video i'm giving my self time to think about never eating meat again...

No animal should be handled this way.  In America these people may get away with this, but if someone else or the authorities see them do some of these things in this film they would be guilty of a crime in most every state in America and arrested and fined.  No excuse for this under any circumstances.

 

By the way, while we are discussing eating Lassie, I have to mention that I first ate "My friend Flicka (horse meat) as a delicious steak tar tare in France.  Now I order it whenever I can.

[kokopelli]

Regarding the video posted by Devint, there is now an effort being made in USA to criminalize making such videos.  Hard to believe but true.

What is tragic is the way animals are treated when alive in such dreadful conditions. As far as killing them, even in nature animals feed on other animals and the way they kill each other is not humane at least by human standards.

[Guest Devint6669]

 even in nature animals feed on other animals and the way they kill each other is not humane at least by human standards.

 

Yes this is true but one thing you got to understand, we are suppose to be the dominant race of ape in this world. This mean that we should use our brain in good use. And understand when we do something rung and whit out proneness... That we should find a solution solve our rung... And Killing animal the way we do should never  happen... Like in the video that i demonstrate before.

[kokopelli]

Devint, I doubt there is a good way to kill animals; like you said, maybe become a vegan and forego meat?

[KhorTose]

Devint, I doubt there is a good way to kill animals; like you said, maybe become a vegan and forego meat?

I think I would rather become a cannibal then a vegan.  i love meat.  By the way, why don't you drop by my place for dinner some time. 

[Guest fountainhall]

Clearly KT likes having friends for dinner – like his 'pal' Dr. Lecter. But unlike Jeffrey Dahmer who had a particular appetite for boys and who is once alleged to have said to his mother whilst having Sunday lunch: 

 

"Mummy, mummy, I don't like my friends."

 

"Don't worry, dear. Put them to one side and just eat your vegetables!" 

[Rogie]

Having watched the video in post # 31, just a few comments.

Firstly, while I am sympathetic to campaigners who use such tactics to convert people to vegetarianism or veganism, as a meat-eater it wouldn't change my liking for meat and dairy produce, but what this and many other articles I have read and seen have and will continue to do is make me think more about what I'm eating and how it reaches the shops where I buy it.

Like it or not factory farming is here to stay.
 

Factory farming involves raising livestock in confinement at high stocking density, where a farm operates as a business — a practice typical in industrial farming by agribusinesses. The main products of this industry are meat, milk and eggs for human consumption. There have been issues regarding whether factory farming is sustainable and ethical.

Confinement at high stocking density is one part of a systematic effort to produce the highest output at the lowest cost by relying on economies of scale, modern machinery, biotechnology, and global trade. Confinement at high stocking density requires antibiotics and pesticides to mitigate the spread of disease and pestilence exacerbated by these crowded living conditions. In addition, antibiotics are used to stimulate livestock growth by killing intestinal bacteria. There are differences in the way factory farming techniques are practiced around the world. There is a continuing debate over the benefits, risks and ethical questions of factory farming. The issues include the efficiency of food production; animal welfare; whether it is essential for feeding the growing global population; the environmental impact and the health risks.

According to the BBC, factory farming in Britain began in 1947 when a new Agriculture Act granted subsidies to farmers to encourage greater output by introducing new technology, in order to reduce Britain's reliance on imported meat. The United Nations writes that "intensification of animal production was seen as a way of providing food security."

In 1960s North America, pigs and cows began to be raised on factory farms. This practice then spread to Western Europe. In Britain, the agriculture correspondent of The Guardian wrote in 1964:

Advocates of factory farming claim that factory farming has led to the betterment of housing, nutrition, and disease control over the last twenty years. From its American and West European heartland factory farming became globalised in the later years of the 20th century and is still expanding and replacing traditional practices of stock rearing in an increasing number of countries. In 1990 factory farming accounted for 30% of world meat production. By 2005 this had risen to 40%.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_farming

 

It's not just the chickens, fish and animals who are stressed. Mankind is too. The pressures of daily life bear heavily on us, as we are bombarded with images, advertising, media, our interactions with other people - especially those living in big cities all competing for space on the train, the roads or the shopping mall, as well as housing.

So, should be all hark back to the 40's and 50's then . . . an idyllic age? Where I live, I'd love to walk down to one of my local farms and wait at the gate and buy a dozen free-range eggs and a few pints of raw (unpasteurised) milk, poured straight out of the milk churn. I can still do that with eggs but the nanny state has decreed milk now has to be pasteurised.

(On my last visit to Thailand I spent a pleasant afternoon at Chokchai Farm. The farm was originally mainly beef production but now the accent is very much on dairy farming. There are hundreds of cows and yes it's all very sleek and mechanised, but I would very much doubt the animals are mistreated, at least judging from what I could see - the dairies are on clear display to any visitor. I would be happy to buy the milk produced at Chokchai without any qualms).

The crazy thing in my view is that whereas some aspects are now over-regulated, such as milk, pumping chickens and farm animals with antibiotics is now common. Some countries also allow the use of growth hormones. The consumer wants cheap food and the many shops, especially those with muscle such as the huge supermarket chains seem only too happy to oblige, but nothing comes without a cost . . .

In the End of the Road for Irish Chicken we read:
 

David Owens from Bord Bia says: “There is pressure definitely at the moment; chicken is the most discounted of all meats. Supermarkets use it as a promotional tool and a loss leader to sell other goods. Unlike other meats, chicken has risen in volume of sales but at the same time, it’s falling in price.”

 

The source of foreign chicken is not easy to trace:
 

Chicken sold loose in restaurants or sandwich bars is rarely labelled. When it appears on a food counter or restaurant menu, consumers are often unaware of where it has come from – by comparison, the country of origin for beef has to be listed by law.

 

Remember the fuss over meat contaminated with horsemeat? One of the things blamed for that fiasco was the curse of the long food chain . . .
 

Dr Alan Reilly of the FSAI knows the situation only too well. “If you walk by a sandwich bar early in the morning you’ll see the boxes arriving in from Thailand – they have Thai processing plant stamps on them.”

There may be nothing wrong with Thai chicken, but the distance it has to travel can cause problems, according to Reilly. “First of all, [irish chicken is] going to be fresher. The longer the food chain, the more things that can go wrong; if you have a commodity travelling through several countries and value being added in each country, by the time it gets to the consumer the risk is increased.”

You don’t have to travel as far away as Asia to encounter problems in the food chain. Recent Dutch research shows that some antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” found in humans may be obtained directly or indirectly from chicken meat. Dutch meat has been found to have more antibiotic residue than anywhere else in Europe, prompting Roel Coutinho, director of the Dutch National Institute of Public Health and Environment, to warn “the use of antibiotics in the poultry sector must be strongly reduced”.

 

http://www.chicken.ie/chicken-news/end-of-the-road-for-irish-chicken.724.html

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/02/meat-industry-still-gorging-antibiotics

Awful as that video is, to be quite honest, I am much more seriously concerned about the use of drugs, hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, etc. But even if animals are raised in factory farms without any of these I would still not wish to eat such chicken or meat because of the cruelty involved. So If anything would stop me eating chicken, beef or pork it'd be because I didn't trust what I was eating was actually safe to eat, or was proven to have been produced using the worst kind of factory-farming practices. If I wish to eat a steak or any other kind of meat I usually buy it from one of my local butchers (we're lucky we have two). The supply chain is short and accountable, and if I am not sure I can just ask them. Most independent butchers are now only too happy to tell you which local farm the meat they sell comes from.

[Guest Promsak]

True or not --- I really don't know, but there was a story going around a few years ago that the security guards in the Jomtien Complex area, rounded up all the dogs on the sois without collars and tags and sold them to a crocodile farm.

[Guest Devint6669]

I think I would rather become a cannibal then a vegan.  i love meat.  By the way, why don't you drop by my place for dinner some time. 

Maybe One day we will have dinner together, But if you rather becoming cannibal before vegan, It's not a good idea I might become the main Dish on the menu. lololol

[kokopelli]

No meat, no fowl, no milk, no cheese and no fish!  Is it ok to eat a raw oyster or clam and not feel guilty?

[Bob]

 Is it ok to eat a raw oyster or clam and not feel guilty?

 

No need to feel guilty.  Well, at least if you didn't hear them screaming as they were boiled/steamed/suffocated to death so you could slide their remains down your gullet.....

[kokopelli]

These oysters are alive when I eat them or rather swallow them whole; I don't even fork them.  Yummy

[kokopelli]

Same as Rogie posted, I can go to a number of farm stands and buy fresh eggs from non-farmed chickens. And milk cows still roam in the farmer's fields here and there.  At one time I had my own chickens and a couple of head of beef cattle and tended sheep in a neighboring mini-farm. So it is possible to get locally raised meat raised in a natural environment.

[KhorTose]

Maybe One day we will have dinner together, But if you rather becoming cannibal before vegan, It's not a good idea I might become the main Dish on the menu. lololol

No, I was just kidding.  I do love meat, but I also know two great vegan restaurants in  Chiang Mai and have, dined at both often.    If you come to Chiang Mai, PM me and I will treat you.  Check out gay owned and ran Anchan on trip adviser. 

 

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g293917-d3602277-Reviews-Anchan_Vegetarian-Chiang_Mai.html

[Rogie]

Although as I said earlier, I love a good steak, I can do without quite happily, in fact a steak like a T-bone, rump, Sir Loin, etc is rather a treat for me (being of stout merrie Englande stock I enjoy my roast beef and Yorkshire pud rather more often). 

 

Vegetarians in the UK sometimes got called cranks, and indeed there was (and maybe still is) a restaurant of that name in London (Tottenham Court Road was the one I recall) and I ate there a few times and was happy with the food.

 

Having checked out the link above, I like the look of the place KT mentioned, Anchan. I would happily go there if i was visiting Chiang Mai.

 

There is a nice veggie restaurant on one of the roads off Suan Phlu in central Bkk. It is the road that leads to the new Sukhothai buiilding which is right next to Babylon on soi Nantha Mozart. I haven't eaten there for many years but you could get a tasty lunch for 30 baht. Probably costs more now. It's only open lunchtimes.