Get Real! This Can Not Be Happening!

[Zamric]

I dont know how to transfer articles from Facebook to here so for those of you on Facebook, check out my Wall!

They are selling hatchling turtles inside a sealed plastic bag filled with some kinda liquid that keeps them alive for up to 1-3 MONTHS!

no pic, but here is the article that goes with it...

...

On a commercial street in China, little tortoises are found packaged as souvenir!!! These little tortoises are still alive and swimming inside a herbal solution. The store owner says it can live for 1-3 months. 5 RMB a piece.

This is too cruel and unacceptable!!! God knows how many littles lives were slowly suffocated to silent death; their fate sealed in a bag!!!

Has the commercial world no more other ideas to make money!!!

Please help "Share" this. Hopefully some media or government will pick up this news and step in to stop this animal cruelty! Perhaps find the real victim and put an end to such uncivilised act.

Please help this littles lives. Small as they may be, they are still lives!!!!!!!!!!

Let us share this until the media pick this up!!!!!

 

[Yvonne G]

Yeah, this was on the forum several months ago. The little turtles were sealed inside a plastic bubble and on a key chain. At THAT time, we all thought (hoped) it was not true.

http://www.odditycentral.com/news/living-keychains-are-the-new-craze-in-china.html

 

[Zamric]

There was a differant pic than the ones on your link, but yah... it's the same thing!

My heart is breaking for these lil guys! Somtimes HUMANS **** me off! (well most of the time accually)BUT THIS!??!

 

[GeoTerraTestudo]

Oh my dear God ... that is literally nauseating. You know a society really does not respect life when they carry live fish and turtles around with them in their jewelry. Is this $%#@ legal?!

 

[NudistApple]

This first started being reported during the Beijing Olympics. It was my understanding that it is real, and some legal action has been taken, but I sort of doubt the practice has been eliminated. It's awful. )-:

 

[dmmj]

If they are real, and they are sealed in a bag they would not make it 1 week let alone 1 month, they would suffocate.
I still say it is fake.

 

[NudistApple]

If they are real, and they are sealed in a bag they would not make it 1 week let alone 1 month, they would suffocate.
I still say it is fake.

Onono, I don't mean the claim is real. I'm sure they die swiftly (like so many of the poor African Dwarf Frogs that are sold in closed chamber kits with ghost shrimp) but the practice is real.

 

[DanaLachney]

If they are real, and they are sealed in a bag they would not make it 1 week let alone 1 month, they would suffocate.
I still say it is fake.

Just because they would live long doesn't mean it can't be real. Sadly people will do anything to make a dollar and lying to customers making it seem as if they will live longer is one way to do it. I say it's real and it's DISGUSTING!!!

 

[StudentoftheReptile]

Very discouraging indeed. Is there a weeping-face emoticon?

 

[Jacob]

Seen This Months Ago Too, Its Disgusting.

 

[wellington]

I would bet everything I had that it is real. A lot of countries don't have the love and respect like the USA for animals and even we have a ways to go. Do you know about the fad a few years ago? That you could put a Betta fish in a vase with a peace lilly and you never had to feed it. Well, of course you have to feed it. Also, around that same time, fish stores would not sell more than one male Betta to a customer, because, now get this, people were actually fighting and betting on them. Don't get me started on the attitude in this country about pit bulls. Sick people. That is why I don't like people, but i sure love the animals.

 

[Yvonne G]

That's all folks. No more racist remarks. I know you don't mean to be racist, but those comments are racist. We don't tolerate that here. (Removed by moderator, in case you're wondering what I'm on about)

 

[Turtlechasers]

Unforunately this idea is not new... This was reported being reseached here in the US in the 1980's... The idea was to seal a live turtle (hatchling in a sealed bubble (plastic) that would alow for gas exchange. The idead was that once a turtle of group was determined to be salmonella/arizona free that they could be keep that way until sold. Thus circumventing reason for the current laws regarding turtles/chelonians under 4 inches. USDA disapproved as turtle would be infected with disease causing organisms once released from the bubble.

 

[Zamric]

Sorry emysemys... wont happen again!

 

[Neltharion]

If they are real, and they are sealed in a bag they would not make it 1 week let alone 1 month, they would suffocate.
I still say it is fake.

They are very much real. This was exposed back in 2008 with all the coverage of the Olympics in Beijing. Kids buy these clear bags with dyed water and turtles or fish for around 5 yuan or roughly 75 cents each. I actually saw these being sold by a street vendor in Hong Kong, I had a connecting flight that stopped there.

China doesn't have the same animal cruelty laws that we have here. There are laws to protect animals and endangered species in the wild. But if its captive bred or farmed animals, people are more or less free to do as they will. Just do a search on 'raccoon dogs skinned alive' for knock off Ugg boots. There are sites that actually have video footage. This is happening in 'fur farms' in China.

 

[ripper7777777]

See that's why I don't leave the country, I'd be in a Beijing prison for beating the snot out of some sales person. The fact is a lot of countries do very horrible things to animals, us included, Mankind is the ultimate evil predator.

 

[zesty_17]

unfortunately, it is EXTREMELY difficult to get the chinese government to regulate this sort of thing, and it happens way more often that we'd like to think. The TSA does a lot of work in this area, but they generally focus on endangered, protected, and black market turtles & torts. The poor res and softies are just thrown to the wolves(or cruel cultures of humanity if you will).

 

[Sammy]

I haven't seen it but totally believe it, they will do/sell anything for money. Human greed is the ugliest thing.

 

[GeoTerraTestudo]

That's all folks. No more racist remarks. I know you don't mean to be racist, but those comments are racist. We don't tolerate that here. (Removed by moderator, in case you're wondering what I'm on about)

Yvonne, you are right, of course, to censor bigotry on TFO. But it really is appalling to see how animals get treated in China. Traditional "medicine" shops (even in the US!) support poaching and acquire body parts from endangered tigers and rhinos. "Farms" torture Asian black bears for years to extract bile from their gall bladders while they're still alive. Goldfish are bred to exhibit all kinds of freakish abnormalities and labeled as "breeds." And now this garbage with putting live minnows and turtles into jewelry. It really is nauseating.

Granted, America as a nation does a lot of terrible things to animals, too. Agribusinesses crowd livestock (cattle, pigs, turkeys, and chickens) in feedlots, and our government (!) "controls" wolves by shooting at them from helicopters, so that hunters will have more big game. The whole thing is abominable.

And the tragic thing is, none of that stuff is necessary. It's not like we're trying to balance human settlement against wildlife habitat. At least in that issue, people are aware of what's at stake, and are at least trying to find a solution. But keeping a turtle on a key chain? Draining bile from a live bear? Shooting wolves from the sky? These are just a senseless waste of life, but there's no end to them in sight - neither in China, nor the US.

 

[l0velesly]

The animal cruelty over in China is really sad I wish there was some control over it.