Cruelty at Walmart

*If you follow the links through this there may be some graphic material not for children to see*

TortoiseAid International Action Alert
http://tortoise-aid.org/walmart.html

TortoiseAid International Action Alert

CRUELTY AT WAL-MART
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In many North American Wal-Mart stores, “pet supply” sections have an area where photos and information about animals in need of adoption by loving families are posted.

The Wal-Mart website (http://walmart.com) boasts a large “pet section,” offering everything from pet strollers to dog clothing. In addition, American pet search and adoption services are available through Wal-Mart’s “Very Best Pet Network.” (http://www.verybestpetnetwork.com)

Unfortunately, Wal-Mart operates differently in China. While giving North American customers the impression that Wal-Mart cares about animals, they sell others for slaughter out of the sight of Western customers.

Live turtles and frogs are available for purchase at Chinese Wal-Mart stores. These animals are slaughtered while fully conscious, to satisfy consumers need for “fresh” food items.

"The last things the turtles see in the Wal-Mart megastore in northern Beijing are bright fluorescent lights, masked shop assistants and, if they crane their necks over the edge of their plastic container, a chalk board offering them for sale at the bargain price of 39,8 yuan (about $5) each.

Once that sum is paid, even their shells cannot protect them. They are whisked off to the in-store slaughter counter, where their necks are cut, their blood is drained and they are bagged and tagged ready for the checkout counter.

According to the shop assistant, a small minority of the 100 turtles sold every day could also expect a brief respite. “A few customers like to take them home alive so they can play with them for a few days before making them into soup,” she said." (1)

We are saddened and horrified that Wal-Mart would employ such barbaric and inhumane practices. Many species of turtles have become critically endangered in Asia due to over-collection and human consumption.

Please see the following links for more information regarding the Asian Turtle Crisis:

http://tortoise-aid.org/asianturtles.html
http://www.traffic.org/news/turtles.html
http://www.tortoisetrust.org/articles/asia.html
http://nytts.org/asianturtlecrisis.html

Please also see a report to the California Department of Fish and Game regarding the sale of live turtles and amphibians in San Francisco, California.

http://www.tortoisetrust.org/activities/foodmarket.html

Until Wal-Mart ceases this environmentally and ethically unacceptable practice, we are asking for a world-wide boycott of Wal-Mart, and all Wal-Mart divisions. These businesses include:

Sam’s Club: USA, Canada: http://www.samsclub.com
Amigo Supermarkets: Puerto Rico: http://www.amigo.com
ASDA: United Kingdom: http://www.adsa.co.uk
Seiyou:Japan: http://www.seiyu.co.jp/english/
Walmex: (Wal-Mart in Mexico)
George Apparel Stores: United Kingdom

For a complete list of Wal-Mart owned businesses, please go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...rt_Stores,_Inc .

We kindly ask that all individuals, humane organizations and businesses objecting to Wal-Mart’s cruel practices, and who support this boycott to voice your concerns to:

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
702 S.W. 8th Street
Bentonville, AR 72716-8611
USA

You may contact Wal-Mart via e-mail at its corporate web site:
http://walmartstores.com/GlobalWMSto...te.do?catg=221


An online petition is also available at: http://www.petitiononline.com/tortaid1/petition.html

Please take a moment to read and sign it. Thank you.

1. Walmart Leads the Race for China by Jonathan Watts. Mail & Guardian Online: http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx...omy__business/

_________________________________________
Rusty
Edit: I found the following quotes very well said:
“Survivors of countless millennia, turtles on the brink of our new millennium face imminent demise at the hands of humans. We are facing a turtle survival crisis unprecedented in its severity and risk. Without intervention, countless species will be lost over the next few decades.


— Anders G. J. Rhodin, Chelonia Research Foundation

“We are on the brink of losing a group of animals that has managed to survive the upheavals of the last 200 million years, including the great extinction episode that eliminated the dinosaurs.”


— Russell Mittermeier, Conservation International

wow, never woulda expected that from wal-mart. I've got a lot of alternatives around here so I'll boycott em. Why anyone would eat a turtle is beyond me. And don't get me started on people that eat snakes, or skin them. Cuz I want to punch em all right in the face!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by snaker35

wow, never woulda expected that from wal-mart. I've got a lot of alternatives around here so I'll boycott em. Why anyone would eat a turtle is beyond me. And don't get me started on people that eat snakes, or skin them. Cuz I want to punch em all right in the face!

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I agree with you about why anyone would want to eat a turtle.
But you have to remember their are folks around the world who probably wonder why we eat and skin cows.
It's not an easy situation, to say the least.
Rusty

Doesn't surprise me at all that Wal-Mart would do what they need to do in the chase for the almighty buck...that's corporate America at it's very best folks.

As far as the cultural aspects of using turtles for meat, personally if they specifically bred certain turtles for meat production I wouldn't have a problem with it. If they are randomly using various species of turtles that are or will become endangered, then that's just plain wrong.

I've worked in a turkey production facility. Even though it was done to very high and humane standards, the simple fact is most of us don't want to know where the Thanksgiving bird comes from other than wrapped in plastic in the meat section of our local grocery store.

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

I've worked in a turkey production facility. Even though it was done to very high and humane standards, the simple fact is most of us don't want to know where the Thanksgiving bird comes from other than wrapped in plastic in the meat section of our local grocery store.

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Very true. Or our beef or pork or any other meat. I actually have a lot of respect for hunters and/or farmers who butcher and prepare their own meat. I had to pick feathers out of a turkey at Thanksgiving once, and I haven't enjoyed a turkey dinner since. :(

And I don't think its right to judge different culture's choices of food. I don't really see how Wal-Mart selling turtles for soup is any different than them selling chickens in their big markets.

The argument that it is cruel for a turtle to "look up and see the chalkboard that lists it for sale" sounds like typically silly PETA logic to me.

Unless these are endangered turtles, I'm not sure how this is different then us Americans going up to the seafood counter and asking the guy to throw a live lobster in the steamer for us...
Life feeds on life.

I would have to agree. How as Americans eating beef, pork and chicken criticize someone else for their taste in food. I understand protecting endangered species. Yet most of us that keep snakes don't bat an eye at killing a mouse or rat. I would be more concerned about the way the animal is housed while alive. Many animals are raised on farms the same as cattle.

I have no problem with Wal-mart doing business like that.And let's think about it I probably eat 300 chicken's a year , about 3 or 4 cow's and many fish they are our food.Look at what we do to rodent's , we put lab rat's that have no self defense into a cage with their grim reaper.We either breed or buy these animal's to die , I think it's the same thing.

there are alot of different cultures and cuisine all over the world. i think we should respect each equally, there is no right or wrong in my book, to each their own...



vaughn

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Originally Posted by kavmon

there are alot of different cultures and cuisine all over the world. i think we should respect each equally, there is no right or wrong in my book, to each their own...



vaughn

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Well said! When I began reading the thread I felt some outrage as animal cruelty in any form disgusts me. However, the points made afterward put it all in perspective. I was a Vegetarian for a while when I was younger and currently both my sisters don't eat any animal products except fish and my mother has been a Vegetarian for upwards of 20 years now. I have been considering cutting meat and poultry out of my diet again for quite a while. I don't like the slaughtering practices as they could hardly be considered humane. So unless you refrain from eating all animal products and wearing leather, I dont think there is much you could be outraged about.

For me the issues are how the turtles are housed and cared for prior to slaughter for meat, how humane the slaughter process is and that, as I said before, species of turtles are used that are not near or on endangered species lists. Unfortunately some of parts of the orient have a rather poor record when it comes to the animal trade for food or mostly arcane medicinal purposes so that does need addressed from a global perspective. I know in my home country of Canada there is a very sad but highly profitable black market trade in black bear gallbladders. Incredibly shameful to kill any animal, wild or domestic, just for a gallbladder and then leave the carcass tossed away like some much garbage.

I was raised around hunters and taught from an early age...you don't aim unless you are certain what you are aiming at...you make sure you can drop it quick and clean or don't even take the shot...you don't waste an animal (trophies being a bonus, not a goal)...and you be darned thankful that nature gave you that animal for your family's table. Any deviation from those rules and my dad was quite happy to lock up the hunting guns or in one case make one of my older brothers eat a disgusting fish duck that stunk up my mom's oven - Jim learned his lesson about shooting without double checking the duck species in his sights.

That was an awesome post. I really have nothing much to add. Other than, I try to get most of the meat in my diet from humane sources; the deer that Mark hunts, shoots, and processes; also, our friends have a beefer herd and every fall get a bunch of cows slaughtered; I have been to the meat plant and know that it is done cleanly, humanely, and not on a huge factory-farm scale. Yet it is always a dilemma; sure, it is nice to supoprt the small family farmer, but look at what thse farms do to the undeveloped environment, with their chemical fertilizers/herbicides, overgrazing, and slash-and-burning to grow crops? However, I would still rather support the smaller family farmer, than these hideous factory farms that ruin whole landscapes with their ammonia-laden waste water and unneeded size equaling huge odor emissions.. A smart farmer always sets asids a portion of their land as natural forest, whether for personal gain through hunting/rec acreage, or a genuine love for the land.
I like that my friends' farm, where we get our beef from, is responsible. My friend went to school for Ag and was appaled at the modern practices such as liquid manure/human waste fertilization that makes a muck of our wells and such. I wish responsible farmers were not a dying breed; your average joe knows nothing about the hideousness they are supporting by buying a gallon of milk or a pound of beef; sigh.

China..... different culture, different way of life. America, different culture.... etc!

In China they love rats as much as our bp's do.Yummy

"For me the issues are how the turtles are housed and cared for prior to slaughter for meat, how humane the slaughter process is and that, as I said before, species of turtles are used that are not near or on endangered species lists. Unfortunately some of parts of the orient have a rather poor record when it comes to the animal trade for food or mostly arcane medicinal purposes so that does need addressed from a global perspective. I know in my home country of Canada there is a very sad but highly profitable black market trade in black bear gallbladders. Incredibly shameful to kill any animal, wild or domestic, just for a gallbladder and then leave the carcass tossed away like some much garbage."
Jo, I agree on so many levels. I think the major issue I have with the situation (by the way this does happen worldwide) Is how the animals are taken from the wild, the way they are horribly treated while in captivity and the absolutley barbaric procedure of slaughter.
I wanted to post the original post to point out how big the crisis is.
I don't think people understand the severity of the situation, with species becoming extinct very quickly, no guidlines are being taken to regulate any of it.
I have a great deal of respect for the good folks who are working to try and come to a working solution.
It's not a problem with me if people want to eat turtles. Just farm them properly, let them have a good quality of life while they are living, and when it comes time to slaughter them for food just do it humanely.
If you read through some of the links and see what some of these photos show. I don't think it should be a debate over wether folks should eat turtles or not. But finding a way that protects the turtles well being and peoples right to eat whatever they please. I think if some of you realised the mass amount of turtles that are going through the asian markets, over there and here in the states you would be amazed.
Oh and believe me the groups involved in this situation and whom have written the articles that are located through the links are nothing like PETA.
Thanks
Rusty

Excellent post Rusty and I agree with you completely! There's no reason in this day and age to treat any creature inhumanely and that always should include those that are bred and raised for the table.

I don't agree with on the spot slaughter whether it's Wal-Mart or some farmer's market doing chickens. It's unregulated, it's often inhumane and I can't imagine it's very sanitary. Wrong for people, wrong for the animals. If someone insists on a fresh killed dinner, at least have the guts to go hunt it yourself and do so responsibly!

Taking species from the wild indiscrimately is just plain stupid. Whether it's turtles in China, overfishing off the banks of Canada or shooting every duck that passes your duck blind it's just dumb. You take out too many, you decimate the core breeding stock. In the end you might take from the world a species that has as much right to exist as we do and you end up leaving yourself without that food source you so badly mismanaged in the first place.

Sadly we humans are awfully short sighted as a species.