ANIMAL SLAUGHTER IN TAIWAN

[Guest guest]

*http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2006/10/03/2003330257*

*Editorial: Slaughtering tradition*

 

 

*Tuesday, Oct 03, 2006, Page 8 *

 

*Sunday marked the first day of new regulations introduced by the government

to halt the slaughter of poultry in wet markets around the nation designed

to help prevent an outbreak of avian flu. Vendors who flout the new rules

could be liable for a NT$500,000 fine. *

 

*But a walk around a local market within the last two days would have

revealed that chicken vendors were taking little notice, busily slaughtering

birds as if nothing had changed. Whether this was the result of some sort of

grace period between market store owners and the authorities is unknown, but

it could indicate that enforcement of the new regulations will be as

haphazard as for numerous other laws in Taiwan. *

 

*The government's theory is that a new business model, where birds are

slaughtered, processed and packed in state-of-the-art slaughterhouses, as

opposed to Taiwan's notoriously dirty and crowded wet markets, will reduce

the chances of any outbreaks of the deadly disease, which has killed dozens

of people in several Asian countries. *

 

*But will the location where birds are slaughtered really have any effect?

After all, most cases of bird flu in humans have occurred in people who

handle, come in close contact with, or kill live animals, and not people who

cook and eat the meat. Therefore taking the birds away from the market will

have a negligible effect, as it will only shift any risk from vendors to

slaughterhouse workers. It does little to tackle the root causes of the

disease, whatever they may be. *

 

*The new rules will no doubt also force the slaughter of poultry into the

hands of big business, as it is unlikely many small-time chicken vendors can

afford to set up their own high-tech slaughterhouses. Whether the business

lobby had anything to do with the government's decision is unclear, but it

is they who will directly benefit from the new regulations when in actual

fact it is their behavior and the inhumane way they treat animals that in

all likelihood led to the current threat that bird flu poses. *

 

*While wild birds seem to have been given most of the blame for the spread

of avian flu, many credible scientific and environmental organizations have

begun to question the role agribusiness and its intensive farming methods

have played. *

 

*In May, an editorial in The Lancet observed that avian flu had coexisted

with wild birds, traditional methods of farming and slaughter for many

generations without the threat of a global pandemic. It suggested that

small, low-density backyard flocks provide birds with a good range of

genetic diversity to help fight infection, in stark contrast to the highly

mechanized factory farms where thousands of birds are cooped up in small

cages, stand in their own feces and are fed on a combination of growth

hormones, antibiotics and food coloring, the perfect environment for the

mutation of a killer virus such as H5N1. *

 

*Give the consumer a choice between a free-range chicken and a featherless,

deformed factory-farmed " broiler " and it is pretty obvious which bird most

people would choose. *

 

*Yet, by following " expert " international opinion on this issue and

mimicking the ways of agribusiness in other countries, the government is

making it more difficult for chicken vendors to make a living and people to

have a say in the kind of food they want to eat. *

 

*The new rules, if they are followed, will not help prevent bird flu, but

they will succeed in divorcing the nation's shoppers still further from the

reality of where their food comes from and killing off yet another

traditional way of life.*