Letter to Korea Herald

[Guest guest]

The following is a letter to the editor of The Korea

Herald, written by Merritt Clifton, editor of ANIMAL

PEOPLE, who visited the Moran marketplace with Kim

Bartlett on May 19th.

________________________

 

Letters to the Editor

The Korea Herald

<tuilerie

 

 

Editor:

 

Today, May 19, 2001, I inspected the animal

care conditions at the Moran marketplace, southwest

of Seoul, in my capacity as editor of ANIMAL PEOPLE.

I was accompanied by ANIMAL PEOPLE publisher Kim

Bartlett and North Shore Animal League America animal

care expert Tammy Kirkpatrick.

 

 

Among us, we brought to the Moran marketplace

77 years of experience in field inspection of animal

care facilities, in all parts of the world.

 

Never before have I seen such flagrant neglect

of basic animal care as we saw at the Moran

marketplace and documented with 92 photographs.

 

We saw cats and rabbits piled atop others so

that those at the bottom suffocated, dehydrated, and

in some cases remained there even after going into

rigor mortis.

 

We saw poultry confined with others of their

species who were also not only dead but in rigor

mortis, in cages crusted with feces.

 

We saw severely injured cats offered for sale

with festering head wounds.

 

We saw cats who were so seriously ill with

contagious disease that in all likelihood they would

die before the day was over, even if overheating and

dehydration had not been evident.

 

And, as expected, we saw dogs kept in every

imaginable condition of neglect and misery. There was

not even one vendor who kept animals of any kind in

conditions meeting the minimum standards considered

acceptable in the U.S. and Europe--and most fell short

of the standards enforced in much less affluent

environs, including India, Kenya, Mexico, Peru,

the Philippines, and Puerto Rico,

 

We not only saw all this; we gathered

evidence sufficient to prove it.

 

All of the abuse and neglect we witnessed was

not only unconscionably cruel, but appallingly

unhygienic. Supposedly the Moran market and others

like it sell live animals for human consumption so

that the buyers will know the meat is fresh, yet the

meat from diseased, injured, and neglected animals is

highly subject to contamination.

 

I will not say that I have never before seen

animals kept in comparable condition. Indeed I have,

in the homes of mentally ill persons who have hoarded

animals along with garbage until the filth caused the

authorities to haul the offenders off either to jail

or a lunatic asylum, at the discretion of a judge.

 

This begs the question: is Korea mentally

ill?

 

Why else would an otherwise clean and decent

society tolerate such a public obscenity?

 

If mental illness is not the issue, why do

the live animal vendors themselves not realize that

killing animals slowly through neglect is not a

profitable way to do business?

 

Why do the people of Korea allow activities to

continue which cause animal protection organizations

to subject the nation's major businesses to

international boycott, and cause visitors to silently

ask themselves of every Korean they encounter, " Is

this person a dog-eater or cat eater? "

 

We arrived in Korea already familiar with the

20 years of excuses issued by Korean officials that

dog-eating and cat-eating are part of traditional

Korean culture. We therefore expected the consumption

of dogs and cats to be far more prevalent than it is,

with cultural visiblity and status analagous to that

of fox hunting in England.

 

To our surprise, we discovered that

dog-eating and cat-eating actually have no more

visibility or status than prostition, drug-dealing,

and gambling: they occur in certain districts, yet

are not advertised, and are not easily visible.

 

Why, then, are dog-eating and cat-eating and

the other abuses of animals we saw at the Moran

marketplace tolerated to the extent that they

are, while prostitution, drug-dealing, and gambling

are repressed and punished?

 

We have considered the possibility that the

Moran marketplace is tolerated simply because it is

traditional. Yet Korea has shown little reluctance to

throw off other traditions when they have shown

themselves to be anachronistic and unhealthy.

 

We have considered, too, that the major

consumers of dogs and cats may be the elderly, who

enjoy special deference. On the other hand,

the elderly are among the people most vulnerable to

the types of disease which are most likely to be

transmitted by keeping animals in the sort

of stressed and dirty conditions we documented at the

Moran marketplace.

 

From any perspective, including an objective

assessment of how to sell meat in a manner which is

both profitable to the butcher and safe to

the consumer, it is not rational that Korea should

continue to tolerate and defend the Moran marketplace

and others like it.

 

The very definition of insanity is the

mindless repetition of irrational acts. And so,

looking again at our notes and 92 photos of the

Moran marketplace, I ask again, is Korea mentally

ill?

 

Merritt Clifton

Editor

ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 1-360-579-2505

Fax: 1-360-579-2565

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

[ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading indepedent newspaper

providing original investigative coverage of animal

protection worldwide, in all facets,

from animal care-and-control to zoological

conservation. We have no alignment or affiliation

with any other entity.]

 

----------

-

Kyenan Kum

http://www.koreananimals.org

E-mail: iaka

International Aid for Korean Animals & Korean Animal

Protection Society

P.O. Box 20600

Oakland, CA 94620-0600

Tel.: (510) 271-6795, Fax: (510) 451-0643

 

*Print out petitions from

http://www.koreananimals.org/campaign.htm!*

 

 

 

 

 

Get personalized email addresses from Mail - only $35

a year! http://personal.mail./