No fucking way! 😭

I thought cat consumption was slowly being banned in China tbh, but this doesn't hugely surprise me either.

I'm more surprised as to why the world at large isn't piling tremendous pressure on China to stop selling live animals at wet markets. It's clearly way more than an animal rights issue at this point.

@AlmondSauce I think a more suitable solution would be to make cannibalism legal... Because some people deserves to be eating!

They have weired traditions but we have to accept them. Almost nobody eats dogs there anymore since the younger generations also see them as pets.
That wasn't always the case there though. And even if easting most animals really "fresh" I have to admit that this is somewhat better than what we do: Rely on companies to do the bloodwork for us while we look away and never think about.

While some chinese seem to have a stigma to "like it when the animal dies cruel because then it tastes better", butcheries are often not really better with the way animals are handles. They only seem to try to stay borderline legal and often even fail in doing that.

@frogstair Unlikely, as that would *hugely* stifle its economy too. It'd be lose-lose.

@LinusCDE I can (reluctantly) accept traditions and values where it's "just" animal welfare issues at play. I don't like it, but fully accept that it's none of my business how other cultures and countries choose to butcher their meat.

What I can't accept is when the practice is a proven breeding ground for new, dangerous viruses that can cause world pandemics. The current one isn't the first, it just so happens to be the first in living memory that's taken off at this scale. If things carry on as they are, it most likely won't be the last either - and I've no idea why the world at large seems to just shrug and accept that.

The even more frustrating thing is when you can't sensibly discuss the above issue without being shut down as a racist.

@AlmondSauce Very good point. Though the west is not better currently. In germany there were a lot of news on german butcheries that ignored regulations and thus started spreading the virus again in local areas around them.

@LinusCDE Oh, I don't excuse western butchers who don't follow regulations either. Fine them to the hilt or shut them down.

The big difference however is that while these types of existing viruses can certainly *spread* throughout contaminated raw meat, they don't seem to have enough time to *mutate* unless they're in living animals. So while some western butchers are of course atrocious, the worst they're likely to ever do is spread an already-existing variant.

That's very different when you've got a stupid number of alive and half-dying animals, with little if any regulation to begin with, packed together constantly with enough time for the virus to actively mutate into a new variant.

@frogstair then they starve and eat each other. The problem is EU leaders are gutless cowards that look the other way on Chinese atrocities. US cant do anything about it because all democrats and some Republicans wont support Trump because muh Chinese cheap production...

@molaram I wouldn't try that, their claws can be quite itchy.

This is a blatant cat lover oriented advert. I don't see why butchering cats is worse than other animals. Unfortunately the world is not ready to go without meat yet (Huge war of plant based proteins)

I don't eat meat by the way

I gotta say that i find little lambs very cute but we eat those at least in Europe...

Hypocrisy much?