HISTORIC EVENT: Listen to Justin Goodman of White Coat Waste Project explain that VA have stopped testing on cats

The X video interview pretty much explains it all. White Coat Waste Project (WCW) is a charitable campaigning group in America. Their objective is to stop the waste of tax dollars on cruel and unnecessary animal experiments including experiments on domestic cats conducted by various government agencies including in this instance by the Department of Veterans Affairs, I guess to improve knowledge on rehabilitating military vets who've been injured in conflicts. 

Goodwin says that American politicians in general want to stop these experiments. WCW have campaigned and lobbied for a long time and this is a break through. They hope for more success with other agencies.

Animal testing should be a thing of the past. It does not sit well with modern thinking about animal welfare. The vast majority of the public - I would argue - also want an end to it.

"This is a monumental moment because this marks the complete end to dog and cat testing at the VA. This is the first federal agency that has completely eliminated dog and cat testing and now we are hoping we can get other agencies and get Congress to follow suit and do it elsewhere," says Justin Goodman with White Coat Waste Project.

HISTORIC EVENT: Listen to @JustinRGoodman with @WhiteCoatWaste about discovering the @DeptVetAffairs was about to start experimenting on cats again. How a huge public push & federal lawmakers coming together aided in halting the research. pic.twitter.com/dzxWzK0eRE

— Scott Taylor : 7 News - WJLA TV (@ScottTaylorTV) August 7, 2024

U.S. Representative Nicole Malliotakis of New York, co-chair of the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus, pushed to end the VA experiments.

I think taxpayers would be very upset to know their money is being used not on just unnecessary experiments but on inhumane ones that really torture these poor innocent animals," added U.S. Representative Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY).

Justin Goodman is the Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Public Policy at White Coat Waste Project (WCW).

Associated: White Coat Waste Project campaign success. Congress votes to defund Pentagon’s dog and cat experiments.

If you'd like to learn more about the work of WCW and their successes, CLICK HERE.

There are a number of federal agencies that continue to do this so we need to make sure every agency uses these alternative methods to protect animals and as I said early to protect the taxpayer," says U.S. Representative Ken Calvert (R-CA).

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

Somebody TOSSED two cats in a box into an animal shelter lobby and RAN

This is another example of how some people surrender their cats and obviously it isn't the best way. Sometimes people surreptitiously arrive at the doors of an animal shelter and leave two or three cats in a cardboard box outside to be collected the next morning which is dangerous for the cat if it's in the middle of winter.

Other times they give up their cats in cruel ways but on this occasion the Brother Wolf Animal Rescue center in Asheville, North Carolina, United States Of America, reported that, "Somebody tossed two cat in our lobby. They opened the door, tossed a box in, sliding it across the floor, then ran out to a car waiting in the road that sped away."

Guilt?

How does that look to you as an outside observer? I'll tell you how it looks to me. It looks like they feel very guilty about what they're doing and they don't want to confront the shelter staff and explain to them why they are surrendering their cats. 

But this is stupid behaviour. No one is going to judge them. No one is going to criticise them. Shelter staff will, I am sure, accept cats surrendered even if the reasons are poor. That's because their primary objective is to care for unwanted cats and find a new home with them.

So it is very stupid to abandon cats in this way. Far better to face up to it and admit that you can no longer care for your cats and hand them over. You don't even have to explain why you are surrendering the cats. You just surrender them. You don't have to justify it.

It does indicate a cowardice on behalf of the people who tossed this box into the shelter lobby but I don't want to be too critical because we are all human and we are all, in some way, vulnerable and have our own weaknesses.

Still high numbers of cats given up

The cats' names are Juniper and Theodore. They were written on the box. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals reports that annually in America, 6.3 million pets are surrendered which equates to 17,260 per day. Obviously, I'm sure that 99% of them are super surrendered across the counter in the animal shelter and not in the way described.

Stressful experience

We all need to be reminded sometimes that animal shelters are stressful places for cats and dogs to be rehomed. They are strange places. They are noisy places with strange people and strange goings-on. They are confined to cages and it's very difficult for them to behave normally and in an attractive way to do their best to find an adopter.

One caption on the video of the above-mentioned surrender said, "We always try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Not make quick judgments. Check our biases. Not to shame them for needing help. Some days, it is really hard to do that. Today is one of those days."

The video is on Instagram from the above-mentioned shelter. Sometimes these embedded videos stop working so if it has stopped I apologise but I don't control it.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Brother Wolf Animal Rescue (@brotherwolfanimalrescue)

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

San Diego man imprisoned for 8 years for extreme torture of at least 10 cats

This is another unusually long sentence for animal cruelty but it is very welcome as we are used to judges failing to sentence severely enough in cases of cat cruelty. The sentence appears to be commensurate with the crime as the torture appears to have been extreme.

There is not much detail except that in a video a local news media outlet describes cats being zip tied inside cages and tortured.

RELATED: Oklahoman kitten serial killer sentenced to 12 years in prison. - There are some mad people around. You have be criminally mad to do what these two did.

This is the readout from the missing cat's GPS tracker which led police to Boyer's home where the tortured and killed cats were in cages. 

I'll leave the rest to you imagination but don't dwell on it. It sounds like this man is very emotionally damaged and in need of treatment as well as punishment.

There were more than a dozen dead cats inside his home.

The police investigated when a missing cat's GPS tracker pinged at his house.  This would indicate that he was stealing domestic cats and torturing them to death.

The news media won't go into detail as it is too gory.

His name is Joshua Boyer (believed). He lives at Oceanside, San Diego, Calif, USA.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Woman with death fixation accused of torturing and killing a cat having watched a well-known Netflix docuseries

NEWS AND OPINION: You may have heard of the Netflix docuseries called "Don't F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer". I haven't seen it but it documents the investigation by a crowd-funded group of amateur sleuths of Luka Magnotta's animal cruelty crimes. 

Luka Magnotta is notorious for suffocating two kittens in a plastic bag while videoing the acts and then uploading the video to the Internet. I have that video and you can watch the first part of it on my website but not the whole of it because it is too cruel for any company to host.

Anyway, back to the story. It appears (alleged) that this woman, 25 year old Scarlet Blake in the UK, was inspired or encouraged by this Netflix series to follow suit, to kill a cat in a sadistic way and then dissect the cat and then put the cat in a blender apparently. The whole thing is absolutely disgusting and horrific. The woman looks perfectly normal and you can see in the photograph that she had a slight smirk on her face when under arrest as if this is okay and no problem.

Scarlet Blake. Picture: Vagner Hyde News and Pictures Ltd. Problem with publishing the picture here? Please contact me. Thanks.

But this Netflix series allegedly catalysed something inside of and she allegedly had to start doing what Luka Magnotta did which was firstly to allegedly kill a cat and then a man, a complete stranger to her, whose name is Jorge Martin Carreno, 30, whose body was found in a river.

Initially the police thought that he had an accident resulting in his death but they then discovered about two years later that he had been hit on the head and died of blunt force trauma followed by drowning as I understand it.

The story is interesting for me because I know a lot about Luka Magnotta as I have written about him many times. And Luka Magnotta fascinates a lot of people. He is now in prison in Canada on a life sentence but he has professed to quite like it on occasions and he's got a boyfriend there. He was a porno star and he is gay.

RELATED: Who is Luka Magnotta?

He is famous for the wrong reasons. Scarlet Blake became fixated on violence. I don't know whether that had set in before watching the Netflix docuseries or afterwards. It appears that the Netflix series hardened her evil thoughts if the stories are true. I stress that these are allegations at the moment because one is innocent until proved guilty.

But the news media is all over this story which is why I am reporting it. The prosecution barrister in the trial which is coming taking place, Allison Morgan KC, said that Blake had a "fixation with violence and with knowing what it would be like to kill someone". She added that: "He died because he encountered the defendant on that night. He died because he met a person who had a fixation with violence and with knowing what it would be like to kill someone."

She had an extreme interest in killing and death that went beyond fantasy. It is alleged that she derived social gratification from the thought of violence and death.

Her actions indicate planning as she purchased equipment to trap the cat. Her actions too are the classic case of a person of this character first testing or trying out their desire to kill on a vulnerable domestic cat first and then moving onto a human. This is exactly what happened, as mentioned, with Luka Magnotta and it happens with many other criminals.

The FBI in America understand this and treat animal cruelty seriously. That's what they say anyway.

Blake apparently boasted about the killing with others and "her desire to open up a person like her little cat friend" the court was told. And the court was also told that "It is clear that in her own mind she made a connection between what it felt like to harm this cat and what it would feel like to harm a person.

Blake denies murder. The trial continues.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Woman train conductor throws pet cat off a moving train in -30°C temperatures

NEWS AND COMMENT - RUSSIA: this is an extraordinary story; of a type that I have never read before and I have read many thousands of cat stories. The detail is a little thin but we have enough.

Note: I believe that the train was moving at the time. Although this is not stated. Update: the train was not moving. I have just seen the video on Reddit. Here is the video. There was thick snow on the ground.

A train conductor threw out the passenger’s cat with no reason. Volunteers are rescuing him. (Kirov)
byu/grekules- inThatsInsane

Why have I mentioned that it is woman in the title? Because historically woman are more prone to be kind towards cats which makes her behaviour all the more astonishing. 

Twix, the ginger tabby-and-white pet cat thrown from a moving train in Russia by a female conductor as she believed he was a stray cat as if that is an excuse! Image: Guardian newspaper.

The Guardian newspaper reports that a female train conductor mistook a pet cat for a stray cat and threw the animal off the train as it was moving - as if that is a good reason! The cat had escaped from his carrier and was wandering around the carriage.

It is still gross animal cruelty 😧. At the time, the climatic conditions were as low as -30°C with snow and ice.

She threw the cat off the train near the railway station area in Kirov. The woman in question works for the state owned railway company RZhD. A spokesperson for the business apologised for the actions of their conductor.

"We sincerely regret that the cat Twix died", the state-owned RZhD said, vowing to change its regulations. Comment: the regulations allowed or perhaps demanded that the conductor threw the cat off if he was a stray! Weird.

On Saturday, the RZhD said it was already implementing changes that would prohibit company conductors from "disembarking animals from trains". 'Disembarking'! 👿

The cat, a ginger tabby-and-white (and therefore almost certainly a male) was found dead on Saturday after a search. I believe that this was a few days after the cat was thrown off the train. The cat has been identified by his owners.

There are calls for the conductor to be sacked and prosecuted for animal cruelty. The petition has gathered 70,000 signatures online which demands a criminal investigation which has been refused by the local authorities.

"A separate petition - signed by more than 200,000 - is asking for the female conductor, who has not been publicly identified, to be sacked" (source and words: the BBC).

Comment: I am distinctly unsurprised by the fact that nothing will happen in terms of punishment for this woman. No doubt she will retain her job and not be prosecuted for animal cruelty. This is Russia. I don't want to denigrate the country unjustifiably but animal welfare is not one of their greatest and strongest suits.

When bearing in mind that the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has killed hundreds of thousands of animals in Ukraine as well as tens of thousands of innocent civilians including children by bombing and shelling civilian areas, we can't expect Russia to have a good animal welfare record can we?

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Closure of cat meat restaurant, Vietnam. For an animal advocate this is a great Christmas present.

NEWS AND OPINION. THIS IS AN OP-ED. I VOICE MY OPINION: For an animal advocate like myself and there are many millions of others the news that the Vietnamese restaurant that killed 300 cats a month to make cats soup has closed for good is the best Christmas present they could have. 

This restaurant was a blot on the animal welfare landscape. They drowned 300 cats a month to make cat soup and presumably other cat meat meals. Can you imagine that? Drowning 300 cats a month? Every act an act of gross cruelty multiplied by 300 in a 30 day period which is 10 acts of gross cruelty every day against innocent animals.

And the people who did it had no qualms about it at all. Not an inkling of conscience. Nothing, nada, zero. The brain was dead. Or perhaps I am wrong and they did grow a conscience (see below).

Education

Actually, I think this is about education. I think the owner of this restaurant learned through the Internet and through the Humane Society that stealing people's pets and cruelly killing them and then eating them was immoral, wrong and entirely inhumane. It's about education ultimately. If you want to stop the cat meat trade then you need to educate people.

Pham Quoc Doanh, the restaurant owner tears down the signage on the closure of his cat meat restaurant. Image: Daily Mail.

Internet and sites like this and news media educate

This restaurant has been in the news quite a lot recently and I'm delighted that the news media are picking up on cat meat stories from Asia. I know this is a cultural thing and I know that we have to be sensitive about cultural differences and I try to be. We have to be sensitive and I understand that but when a culture fosters animal cruelty I think it becomes a universal issue and I also think under those circumstances we have a right to criticise.

I believe that anybody anywhere should do their best to stop animal cruelty by anybody anywhere.

This was the Gia Bảo restaurant in Thai Nguyen city, in the country's northeast. It was a profitable enterprise. Where did the cats come from? The Daily Mail says that they were "likely including stolen pets". They were drowned in a bucket one after another the newspaper says. Horrendous. Don't dwell on that thought.

The business was run by a 37-year-old man called Pham Quoc Doanh who took to this horrendous business because she was struggling to feed his family selling "other normal food and drinks". He's the man in the picture above.

He discovered that there was no other restaurant in the area where he lived selling cat meat so he decided on that type of business. No issue in his mind about animal cruelty by the way? And I am sensitive to the fact that he was struggling to survive. That is one aspect of the cat meat business. He had to find a way to feed his family and sometimes we have to give up on principles. 

However, putting criticism aside, he appears to have changed his mind because he reached out to the Humane Society International which has been campaigning for some time to stop the cat meat trade in Vietnam. The Humane Society offered him a one-off grant to change businesses to a grocery store. Perhaps he had seen the negative publicity and experienced falling trade?

He took up the offer and the picture you see on this page is him symbolically tearing down the signage outside his restaurant to begin a new business and a new way of life.

He said that he became upset with the cat meat business. These are his words:

"For a while now I have felt a genuine desire to leave the cruel cat meat business and switch to something else as soon as possible. When I think of all the thousands of cats I've slaughtered and served up here over the years, it's upsetting."

He added: 'Cat theft is so common in Vietnam that I know many of the cats sold here were someone's loved family companion, and I feel very sorry about that.'

Well, those words warm my heart in one way - his change of heart but he has committed horrendous crimes for a long time. And my eternal thanks to the Humane Society International which is doing such great work. It must have been a real struggle to encourage this man to do, what I would regard to be, the right thing.

The Daily Mail says that about 1 million cats are killed annually for their meat in Vietnam. I think you'll find that about 10 times that number is killed in China for the same purpose.

Vietnamese no longer believe in the cat meat business

Remarkably, the newspaper tells us that 71% of Vietnamese people living in Vietnam are in favour of a ban of cat meat. So perhaps his business was beginning to lose trade anyway. He found a way out.

We know that many domestic animals i.e. people's pets including stray cats are stolen for the cat meat trade. The same, by the way, applies to dogs in China and other Asian countries.

Education about superstitions

And you might know this but you might not: people who eat cat meat believe that it carries health benefits such as alleviating arthritis or that it has aphrodisiac properties. Sadly, I have to say that no science supports these views. It is all superstition; a superstition which results in mass cruelty against millions of companion animals. It is simply intolerable to any decent-minded person.

Massive amount of theft

The newspaper also tells us that 87% of people in Vietnam have had their pets stolen for the cat meat business or know of somebody who's pet was stolen.

That's another topic: the theft of domestic cats. The cat meat business is not only causing mass animal cruelty but mass criminality. Clearly nobody has been prosecuted for theft even though it happens up to a million times a year. This points to a lack of enforcement of criminal legislation in Vietnam because theft must be a crime in Vietnam. It begs the question as to whether animal cruelty is a crime in Vietnam. I would have thought that it was but once again there is a lack of enforcement.

The cats that were at the restaurant have been rescued. They were traumatised and they have been vaccinated and checked over for health issues and treated by veterinarians after which they will be put up for adoption and rehomed.

The companion animals and engagement programme manager of Humane Society International in Vietnam said:

"We are thrilled to be closing down our first cat meat trade business in Viet Nam, and hope it will be the first of many as more people like Mr. Doanh turn away from this cruel trade."

A big pat on the back to this man or woman. Let's hope that this cat meat business closure becomes a catalyst for similar events across Vietnam and in the wider region.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Chinese infant indoctrinated by no animal welfare laws tosses kitten onto street where it dies.

I have said it before a thousand times and I will probably say it again a thousand times but there are no general animal welfare laws in China which is of course a result of their attitude towards animals but a lack of law also helps to mould attitudes. Countrywide laws can change attitudes. They can change human behaviours. And conversely, a lack of adequate nationwide law does the same thing but in a negative way.

This is what is happened in China and will continue to do so while Beijing abjectly refuses to introduce animal welfare laws that have been in place for over a hundred years in Britain and in America. China is so massively out of step in this regard. They just don't get it and this is because of a 3000-year history of animal abuse.

This picture comes from Twitter X where it has been posted by an animal advocate. It shows a Chinese infant chucking a kitten into the air and then onto the pavement or road where it dies. And this child will grow up and perpetuate this animal abuse by teaching their children to do the same thing.

It is all so unnecessary and so cruel. It's about attitude and in another post, I have said that the thread that runs through the concept of karma is attitude.

Eventually a bad attitude to something comes home to roost. It is cause and effect. What goes around comes around. If a country does something negative for so long such as abuse animals, karma will insist that that country will eventually suffer the consequences of this lacuna in their animal welfare laws. For me, the sooner the better.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Animal Armageddon in China when 1000 cats were destined to be slaughtered and sold as pork or mutton

NEWS AND OPINION: I have used the phrase "animal Armageddon" for a good reason because that is what it looks like to me, an outsider, looking in at both the cat and dog meat market in China. In this story - and it is not exceptional - we have Chinese police aided by animal activists rescuing about 1,000 cats from a truck en route to a slaughterhouse (reports CNN).

Image in public domain.

If the slaughter of these cats had taken place - and it is likely that some were feral/stray and some were domestic cats (pets) - their meat would have been marketed as pork and/or mutton in order to maximise the profit margins that these unscrupulous traders hoped to have achieved in this obscene business.

There appears to be a massive amount of illicit trade in cats and dogs for their meat and fur in China. There is simply no way to control or monitor it properly particularly as there are no general animal welfare laws in China. There simply isn't. There's no desire or motivation to protect animals in China in a general sense by the local authorities. 

This rescue is probably an exception and thanks to animal activists. They are brave and committed. This is a fairly new and welcome trend by the way. For many years there was no concern for these animals.

After a tipoff by the activists, a lorry containing 1,000 cats was intercepted by the police from Zhangjiagang, in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu.

The animals were destined to be taken south which is the area where, to my knowledge, most cat and dog meat markets are situated. There'd be slaughtered in the south to be served up on skewers as pork and lamb as well as in sausages.

The rescued cats have been taken to a nearby shelter. It is estimated that the fraud would have netted as much as $20,000 for the unscrupulous traders.

We don't know if any arrests have been made. The activists first noticed nailed wooden boxes with many cats inside near a cemetery. The activists then patrolled the streets for several days and noticed that a truck arrived to ferry the cats to a slaughterhouse. They intervened and called the police.

An animal activist in China said that the traders in cat meat can sell a pound of cat meat for around four dollars by passing them offers pork or mutton.

The seizure of trucks by animal activists destined for the South in the cat and dog meat markets is not uncommon. You will see videos and pictures online of brave animal activists stopping and offloading trucks carrying a large number of cats or dogs in rusty old crates or boxes. The animals are rescued but the illicit trade continues in Guangdong, a southern Chinese province, and, to the best of my knowledge, the home of the cat and dog meat market.

There is a complete lack of will by the Chinese government to do anything about the obscene and barbaric dog and cat meat markets in the south. They are left alone by the authorities because they are regarded as a cultural phenomenon and not to be disturbed as I understand the situation. President Xi Jinping supports this animal cruelty. 

There is no recognition by the Chinese authorities of the cruelty that occurs in these marketplaces. It appears to be incidental and of no importance.

For people who support the cat and dog meat markets in China because they don't see any difference in these meat markets to the abattoirs and slaughterhouses in the West, I would like to inform them that cats and dogs are not killed under regulated conditions, relatively humanely, but there are simply bludgeoned to death or thrust into boiling water alive. They are skinned alive. The whole thing is something out of Dante's Inferno. It is remarkable that it still happens today in a country which has the second largest economy in the world.

I have always stated that the time has come for international intervention to stop this in China. China will argue that they should be left alone to do as they please because it's an internal matter. I disagree because when animal cruelty is on this scale, it becomes an international problem. The world cannot just look on and rub their hands and say it looks horrible. I want to see America and other countries adopt sanctions against China until they introduce animal welfare laws of a high quality and enforce those laws while simultaneously shutting down all the cat and dog meat markets and cat and dog fur trade in China. The whole lot should stop ASAP.

To animal advocates, and anyone with an ounce of sensitivity, the dog and cat meat markets of China are horrendous and obscene places which should have been banned decades if not centuries ago.

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P.S. please forgive any typos. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

6.5 years in jail, the longest Canadian sentence for animal cruelty

Aleeta Raugust. Image: Screenshot from video.

A young woman, living in Calgary, Canada, Aleeta Raugust, told police that she deliberately bought kittens through an online marketplace called Kijiji between 2018 and early 2023 with the intention of killing them, videotaping the killing and watching them to entertain herself. She also placed the bodies in public places to watch the reactions of those who saw them.

She underwent a psychological assessment before sentenced and was described as an impulsive psychopath with no remorse.

Her mother said that if she is released from prison that she will commit more horrific crimes.

The prosecution at her criminal trial requested an 8-10 sentence but the judge - arguably too soft - said that he did not want to give her the maximum sentence allowable under Canadian law to ensure that the sentence wasn't "crushing for a youthful offender."

She was 26 years of age in March of this year. She pleaded guilty to 9 charges involving animal abuse as well as a charge of threatening to damage property. She tended to burn down her former residence.

The news media headlines are that a Calgary woman tortured and killed cats. I don't have details about the torturing but she did video her cruelty towards the cats. I think it is better that we don't have to read a horrendous description of what she did but rather leave something to the imagination.

It is certain that she was horrendously cruel but without any remorse or sensitivity towards the animals. Arguably, she is more in need of psychological treatment then she is in need of an extended punishment but perhaps she requires both.

The previous longest sentence of animal cruelty in Canada was three years. Clearly, for many animal advocates, three years is far too short. But historically judges are reluctant to give extended sentences to those convicted of animal cruelty because animals are devalued in my opinion.

So, this 6.5-year sentence is the longest ever handed down to a criminal convicted of animal cruelty in Canadian history.

Vodka-soaked grandmother tried to stone her cat to death in her neighbour's waste bin

NEWS AND COMMENT-UK: The word "grandmother" conjures up the image of a benign, pleasant elderly lady who loves to be with her grandchildren and provides wise words of wisdom while sitting on her armchair with a loving cat on her lap. In the case of Pamela Mattison, 49, this image could not be further from the truth.

Mattison leaving court. It looks like she is enjoying the celebrity. Image: Cavendish Press.

She admits to dumping her cat in a neighbour's waste bin before trying to stone the cat to death using a brick. Apparently, she threw the brick four times into the wheelie bin with both hands. None made direct contact sufficient to kill the cat thankfully.

She was confronted by her neighbour into who's waste bin she had thrown her cat. The neighbour had heard a loud banging noise from the rear window of his property and he also heard the screams of what sounded like an animal.

He went to investigate and he saw Pamela Mattison standing by his waste bin. She was picking up a large brick and throwing it with two hands into the bin. She did this four times. The neighbour then opened the back door to his garden and asked what was going on.

Mattison fled to her backyard next door. The neighbour then called the police. Shortly afterwards Mattison returned to the bin and pulled her cat out. It appears that they were in a black bin bag. As she pulled the cat out, she asked her neighbour why her cat was in his bin.

She then marched off towards the local veterinarian but was detained by the police. The police constable saw that the cat was frightened and took him/her from Mattison.

The cat was distressed with injured legs. One of their paws was bleeding heavily. Mattison was arrested and admitted to committing animal cruelty offences.

Mattison's cat who survived Mattison's attempt to stone them to death but was injured. Image: Cavendish Press.

The cat was then taken to the Pet Medic Center in Worsley for treatment. They remained at the center for four days. On arrival they were unable to place weight on their hind legs. With great good luck they made a full recovery.

Madison agreed to sign over the cat to the police. It appears that the cat has been rehomed but we don't know the name of the owner which is normal.

Madison, we are told by the news media, had 13 previous offences but this was the first for animal cruelty.

At her trial, her defence counsel said that there was another large cat in the area which would harass the abused cat. Comment: is that relevant? It is not.

Also, in mitigation, her lawyer said that, "At the time she had come back from work and went for a bottle of vodka before letting a kitten out."

Apparently, Madison claimed that she threw the brick at the larger cat but then decided she would put her cat out of its misery because she had her cat by mistake. Believable? No.

Mattison was convicted of animal cruelty under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 (although the act is not mentioned in the news media reports). Her punishment is to complete 20 hours rehabilitation activity days as well as 180 hours of unpaid work. She was referred to the Women's Problem-Solving Court where she will appear on November 6. Comment: is this to deal with her drinking habit which she appears to have?

The judge told Madison:

"The footage taken by the other party in the case shows a most despicable crime. It is quite sadistic to place the cat in the bin and then target it with such forceful blows. Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that no further damage befell that poor creature. This particular animal got off lightly, although it was extraordinarily frightened. You have previous convictions for aggression, including domestic abuse convictions against your former and current partner. However, most of these offences are linked with excessive alcohol. You also have PTSD stemming from abuse you suffered as a child. Your behaviour can be addressed should you engage with probation."

Yes, the judge said that she was sadistic which is entirely correct. The case is interesting because it sheds some light on the contributory factor of alcohol leading to animal abuse. I suspect that many examples of animal abuse are as a result of alcohol abuse or drug abuse combined with a callous character.

It is also interesting for the fact that this is a grandmother albeit at the age of 49. I have a strong suspicion that she is a person of disreputable character and that her sadistic behaviour towards her cat is an extension of her unpleasant character. She smiled as she left court having avoided what might have been a prison sentence.

Did the cost-of-living crisis and the pandemic cause "an animal welfare crisis"?

NEWS AND VIEWS - UK: Online news media, today, is blaming the cost-of-living crisis in the UK combined with the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath for "creating an animal welfare crisis with vital services [which] are stretched to the limit".

Picture by the RSPCA.

Before I go into the details of two reports from different sources about this animal welfare crisis in different parts of the UK, I would like to add immediately that it is a very poor excuse that animal welfare becomes a crisis because people have less money in their pocket or it is after the pandemic.

The RSPCA reports that there were 1072 cat cruelty reports in 2022 in Wales, UK and out of these complaints, 600 were calls concerning neglect and 89 regarded intentional harm. The RSPCA received three reports every minute.

This, in my opinion, has nothing to do with the pandemic or money. When you adopt a cat - and it does not matter whether you adopt that cat during the pandemic, before it or after it - you do so with a commitment to care for that cat for the cat's lifetime. 

And if an emergency happens or a catastrophe occurs to you which affects your finances and you feel that you must release your cat to somebody else, you commit to rehoming the cat yourself with care and concern or you take your cat to a shelter and asked them to do it. 

The RSPCA run shelters. Also, in the UK Cats Protection run shelters via foster homes.

Running out of money because of the cost-of-living crisis or because it is post-Covid is not a reason for harming your cat or abandoning your cat or being neglectful of your cat. This is very poor reporting and thinking. It is not critical enough.

Everybody goes through difficult times but you can surmount them and you don't have to give up your cat in the process. I would bet my bottom dollar that all the cat cruelty reports reported to the RSPCA had no connection whatsoever, if you analysed it properly, to the cost-of-living crisis or the pandemic.

It'll be about carelessness, wanton neglect, callousness, hating cats, immoral behaviour; all these things about more likely to be behind cat cruelty.

Separately, the BBC reports also about the RSPCA cat cruelty reports regarding 2022. The BBC reports on the county of Lincolnshire in the UK. They say that hundreds of cats were intentionally harmed, neglected or abandoned in 2022.

Apparently, it is the RSPCA who think that the Covid pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis is to blame. Are they guessing? Are they just going along with the general flow because I see a lot of news media reports on the cost-of-living crisis and how it impacts people's finances. You don't make a presumption because people are short of money that they have to be cruel to their cat. That is not an equation which adds up automatically.

Nationally, the BBC reports, that almost 18,000 cat cruelty complaints were reported to the RSPCA in 2022 and they include abandonments, neglect and intentional harm. There were 1726 intentional harm incidents which included killings, beatings, poisonings and "improper killings". This represents a 25% increase from the year before.

The RSPCA pick up the pieces. They see an awful lot of cat cruelty but this cat cruelty is perpetrated by immoral, miscreants; people who are bad and who have no sensitivity towards animal sentience. Let's not pass the buck onto something which doesn't really exist.

In the land of animal lovers, Great Britain, children put a 22-year-old cat in a plastic bag and dumped the bag in a wheelie bin

NEWS AND VIEWS: In the land of so-called animal lovers, Great Britain, the BBC reports that children put a 22-year-old cat in a plastic bag and then dumped her in a wheelie bin. For international visitors, a "wheelie bin" is a rubbish bin where household rubbish is placed to be collected once a week if you are lucky.

Frankie. Image: Feline Cat Care Rescue.

This is a very unsettling story because if children are treating a domestic cat like this - and this is an elderly cat and therefore all the more vulnerable - it does not bode well for the future of animal welfare in the UK. Has there been a deterioration in society's morals in the UK over the past 20 years? I think there has been.

I genuinely mean that. I see that in terms of greatly increased crime especially petty crime which undermines society. The police do not stop minor crimes taking place. They do not catch and arrest small-time criminals. This, as mentioned, undermines the very fabric of society.

This slack police attitude can lead to the sort of behaviour these two kids engaged in. The cat's name is Frankie and she was fished out of a rubbish bin in Wymondham, Norfolk, UK and taken to Feline Cat Care Rescue last Saturday.

The owner and manager of that cat rescue, Molly Farrar, posted the story on social media. She said that security cameras in the area had been checked and the police had been informed about the crime.

Of course, the police will not consider this to be a crime but it is under the Animal Welfare Act 2006.

RELATED: some more on kids being cruel: New Zealand's junior school kids love to shoot cats for prize money.

We don't know how people found out about this. Security cameras? If they hadn't found out Frankie would have died of suffocation or starvation in that wheelie bin. Or the wheelie bin would have been picked up by the bin men and she would have been crushed in their lorry.

Yes, this is an example of animal cruelty. That is quite clear. Frankie was checked for a microchip at the rescue center. It was not up-to-date but it did reveal her age which is exceptional.

Her owners have been found and her real name is Cleo. Her name had been changed when she was five years of age. The children are yet to be identified and I would bet they will never be identified.

And therefore, there are children wandering around the suburbs of Wymondham who might do something similar again. I do not think that that is satisfactory.

Frankie is happy to be reunited with her owners. We don't know the whys and wherefores as to Frankie getting lost.

Tomohon Extreme Market has stopped selling cat and dog meat. It is hell on earth for animals

NEWS AND VIEWS: The Tomohon Extreme Market on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi may be the most hellish place on planet Earth for dogs, cats and other animals. It reminds me of other Asian animal wet markets where the animals are brutally killed. In this instance, there were reports that animals were bludgeoned and blowtorched to death. That is, indeed, extreme. It is extreme violence and cruelty of the most heinous and obscene kind. But I will tell you this: it is not that unusual in some Asian countries such as Vietnam, and China.

Members of Humane Society International transport a cage containing dogs from a slaughterhouse in Tomohon, North Sulawesi, Indonesia, on Friday.

 

(Mohammad Taufan / Associated Press)

I hate saying it but I must say it over and over again: the culture in Asia vis-à-vis companion animals can be utterly uncivilised. I must not generalise because there are some really beautiful people in Asian countries who love animals and care for them and rescue them.

But if we do generalise then the general culture is very poor indeed concerning animal welfare and that clearly is the case in the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. This cannot be denied.

That is why the headline news is extremely welcome for people like me and other animal advocates, particularly those animal advocates with a much higher profile than me such as the celebrities Cameron Diaz, Simon Cowell and Ricky Gervais who have signed a letter calling on Indonesian president Joko Widido to ban the cat and dog meat trade in Indonesia.

I don't know the Tomohon Extreme Market except that there is extreme violence at it but I suspect that other animals are slaughtered there or by suppliers. This story is about cats and dogs. What about the other animals.

The mayor of the district concerned has, we are told, decided to ban the selling of cat and dog meat at this marketplace. I don't know how profound a change that will make re: animal welfare because does it mean that all animals will be protected for the future? I don't know. It is a step in the right direction however.

The new policy will make the Tomohon market the first market in Indonesia to stop selling cat and dog meat according to Humane Society International.

A Sky News report on the market in 2020 following the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic found carcasses of dogs, bats, snakes and other animals at the market in unsanitary conditions. That wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

I suspect that the Covid-19 pandemic had something to do with this change in policy because Covid either started in the Wuhan research laboratory or in the Wuhan wet market where similar animal cruelty took place. The Chinese have cleaned up their wet markets they say in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

But in China and I would argue in Indonesia, the law is badly enforced. We don't know whether the banning of the sale of cat and dog meat in the Tomohon market is pursuant to a change in legislation or whether it is simply a declaration by the mayor. I should like to know how well this change in policy is going to be enforced.

RELATED: Indonesia - cat supersition. Superstition about the medicinal benefits of cat meat is a reason why they are slaughtered. Mass re-education is desperately needed.

There is a YouTube video on the Internet about the extreme Tomohon market and I'm not going to show it here but I can say that there is a warning against it which says that "this video depicts graphic scenes that are hard to take in. If you feel uncomfortable, please stop watching". That gives you a clue as to how bad it is. And it makes me wonder how Indonesians can behave like this towards animals. They must be completely desensitised to the concept that animals are sentient beings.

The only way you can be this cruel to animals is to regard them as objects and what I mean is inanimate objects such as televisions and armchairs. You cannot believe that they are sentient beings with the capability to feel pain if you treat them this badly and put them through human hell.

There is a picture on the Los Angeles Times website of members of Humane Society International transporting a cage containing dogs from a slaughterhouse at the Tomohon market. It is on this page.

The newspaper also tells me that on Friday, 21 July 2023, the authorities announced an end to the cat and dog meat slaughter at this market. They appear to correct another report by saying that the "permanent end of the slaughter and trade was announced Friday by the regional secretary of the city of Tomohon, Edwin Roring". The Humane Society International said that they would rescue the remaining live dogs and cats from the slaughterhouse suppliers and transport them to sanctuaries.

The authorities believe that if they stop selling cat and dog meat at this market it will reduce "people's interest in consuming dog and cat meat in Tomohon".

You wonder whether that will work. The cat and dog meat is a deep cultural habit. Simply stopping its availability in one marketplace won't stop the habit in my view. And I believe that the reason behind it is not animal welfare but to prevent zoonotic diseases being transmitted from distorted animals to people.

Other welfare groups have called the treatment of the animals at the market brutally cruel and like "walking through hell".

In the letter I refer to above by the celebrities, they stated: "These animals, many of them stolen pets, are subjected to crude and brutal methods of capture, transport and slaughter, and the immense suffering and fear they must endure is heartbreaking and absolutely shocking."

North Sulawesi province is home to more than 2.6 million people. Most of them are Christian in what is a mostly Muslim archipelago nation. That interest me. Clearly, Christianity which in its pure sense would abhor this kind of animal cruelty, is no deterrent to Indonesians committing these extreme acts of cruelty against animals.

Thousands of dogs and cats are slaughtered weekly in North Sulawesi and I'm sure that the closure of the Tomohon market will not stop the brutality across the area. It will simply reduce it.

One person involved with the mass slaughter of cats and dogs for the market said that he is disappointed but will continue to supply the market with pork. The cruelty will continue with different animals. 

As I said, the habits will continue and I'm not that optimistic for the long term but this is good news nonetheless because it is the beginning hopefully of the end of the cat and dog meat market in Indonesia.

It will, though, take a very long time to eradicate it completely. There are also changes afoot in Vietnam along similar lines. I think it is because there's been a lot of pressure from the West through social media against this animal cruelty. These countries want to be perceived by developed countries as civilised societies. You cannot be regarded as civilised if you treat animals that appallingly.

Clean-cut Chicago man allegedly a kitten torturer and killer

NEWS AND COMMENT-Chicago, USA: The New York Post tells me that Thomas Martel, 22, turned himself into the police after his girlfriend or ex-girlfriend or a woman filed a complaint about him concerning animal cruelty.

Clean cut Thomas Martel. An alleged kitten torturer/killer. Image: Cook County Sheriff's Office.

Some websites have put a warning on their article to protect readers because it is alleged that he put one kitten in a bag and then in a microwave. It is also alleged that he drowned and squeezed to cats to death and a third he mutilated.

Bizarrely, each of the kittens that died had the name 'Shelly'. Apparently, the arrest warrant has been made public and within it there is a record of Martel taking prescribed medications and that he allegedly suffers from mental health issues.

Comment: you have to suffer from mental health issues if you did what he is alleged to have done. Nobody normal cannot do what he allegedly did.

He has a clean-cut look as I say in the title. I think it is relevant to the discussion. He is not a dishevelled, ill-educated young man as you might think, on drugs and a low-lifer. 

He appears to be well educated, well brought up and the kind of young man you would pass in the street in a respectable suburb and believe that he was a contributor to society but apparently not. 

We will have to see how it pans out because these are allegations but then again, he did turn himself in which indicates an admission to the allegations.

His alleged perverted behavior reminds me of Jack Spicey Strip in China who apparently went on a rampage an cat killing including using a microwave. Maybe be got the idea from Jack.

The tweet from Phaedra updates the page. It looks worse than I had thought. His girlfriend allegedly found the kittens on Craigslist! Why did she expose the crimes?

#ThomasMartel of #WickerPark is out on $7,600 dollar bail. His family got him out. His girlfriend would go and get kittens for him off #Craigslist.
Laws are weak because #lawmakers don't want #dogfighters to go to #prison. #FACT
Hes been enjoying killing animals since he was 8,… https://t.co/sjjIPrRrpS

— Phaedra (@PhaedraXTeddy) July 16, 2023

Shocking video footage shows a male teenager hurling a cat off a quarry ledge to water hundreds of feet below

NEWS AND VIEWS: This is another one of those sick videos. Made doubly sick by the fact that the young man who throws the domestic cat off a cliff into water hundreds of feet below allowed himself to be videoed by his friend and then they upload the video to the Internet. These are young people who simply do not have a moral compass. Nobody has taught them the difference between right and wrong. Nobody has taught them about criminal behaviour, about animal sentience, about pain and distress that can be suffered by animals under the circumstances that they have created.

UPDATE 17th July 2023: The police say that the event took place some time ago and the cat was dead when the man threw it off the cliff. No crime was committed.

18-year-old male throws cat off the edge of a cliff to water hundreds of feet below in a quarry. Image is a video screenshot.

They are entirely ignorant and it is a shocking reflection, in my view, of broken Britain which includes broken parenting. This is an abject failure in parenting. And so often the victim of this miscreant, criminal behaviour is the domestic cat because they happen to be there. They are available as victims. It's just pure bad luck. The cat is no doubt trusting of this person. They allowed themselves to be picked up (or the man killed the cat beforehand).

Domestic cats should not trust people that they don't know because they can be untrustworthy. The story is all over the Internet and there is a video which I will not put on this webpage. The pictures at the beginning of the article are screenshots from the video. They are adequate to tell the story.

The young man appears to be holding a black-and-white cat in one hand before hurling it over the ledge and watching the cat as it falls into the water far below. He says "I'm sorry" before throwing the animal. Another bizarre aspect of this video and of his behaviour. If he is sorry for what he is about to do why do it? Mixed up kid, right?

A second young person is watching in the background. A third person recorded the video and we can hear him laughing while he records it. That, too, is very typical of this form of highly ignorant behaviour.

As expected, there has been a huge backlash online from decent-minded people who simply scratch their heads and ask how could the person do it. One person remarked that it was "absolutely disgusting [and that it] makes me feel sick".

Lancashire police (the North of England) responded to the video clip and posted: "Thanks for flagging. We are aware and we are looking into the incident and where it happened."

A spokesperson for the police force said: "We are aware of a video which has been posted on social media which appears to show an act of cruelty to a cat in the Carnforth area. This is a matter which we are investigating. We are establishing the exact circumstances and where it happened. Anyone with information is asked to call 101, quoting log 1803 of July 10, 2023."

No one knows whether the animal survived while others speculated that the animal may have been dead before he threw him/her over the edge of the cliff.

Later, the police confirmed that they had made an arrest. They said: "Further to our earlier post about a video of a cat appearing to be thrown from a cliff into water, we can confirm a man has been arrested. An 18-year-old man from Carnforth has been arrested on suspicion of animal cruelty and is in custody."

Animal advocates say school kids swung around dead cats (they'd shot) in front of them saying "meat, meat, meat"

NEWS AND VIEWS - NORTH CANTERBURY, NEW ZELAND: Animal advocates were present at the North Canterbury Hunting Competition in Wellington, New Zealand. You may have read about this competition in which adults and schoolchildren under the age of 14 go out and shoot wild animals including feral cats. The kids were offered a £100 cash prize for the most cats shot dead! Great.

There was uproar about schoolchildren shooting feral cats. The first problem is that it indoctrinates the children into believing that shooting animals for fun is a good thing. Secondly, you can never be sure that you are shooting a feral cat or a domestic cat; someone's pet.

Animal advocates say schoolkids swung around dead cats they'd shot in front of them saying "meat, meat, meat". Image: NZ Herald.

Because of the uproar, 'on the ground' and online, the people who made the rules about the competition said that children under 14 couldn't shoot feral cats in order, I guess, to appease the animal advocates who were protesting.

But the adult version of the events still took place. Adults still shoot feral cats and perhaps occasionally someone's domestic cat companion. There is a photograph online of what appears to be hundreds of animals piled up as the end result of this shooting competition. To an animal advocate it looks disgusting.

But the point of the article is that a group of six protesters at the event were taunted by children who began repeatedly chanting the word "meat" while swinging around dead cats presumably by the tail. Charming.

It's reported that before they did this the children told the animal advocates to go and eat carrots and grass. They added that the protesters were going to die from a lack of protein and iron.

One animal advocate, Sarah Jackson, said, "The first thing we saw when we arrived was children having relay races with the deceased bodies of animals. These included baby pigs, rabbits and possums."

The organisers of the fundraising event said that the protesters had provoked the children. And they justify the shooting of feral cats because of the devastating impact that they have on native species. Comment: that does not address the problem of indoctrinating children into accepting what most people regard as unethical and immoral behaviour. And it does not address the problem about shooting domestic cats by accident.

So, the conclusion from this story is that the children concerned are beyond redemption. The world has lost them to animal cruelty. They will be cruel to animals all their lives and people are going to have to accept it. They've been taught that by their parents and by the hunters and shooters of New Zealand who see nothing wrong with destroying sentient creatures to protect native mammals and marsupials.

There must be a better way. I'm sympathetic about protecting native species but to do it this way is very crude and cruel. And it doesn't really work except to entertain the people doing the shooting. You can't simply eradicate all the feral cats in New Zealand or in a certain area of New Zealand by shooting them. They come back; they breed. 

There has to be a far more sensible, efficient, practical and long-lasting solution and of course one which is humane and decent.

147 words which explain why cat declawing is barbaric and unnecessary

This is a 147-word letter to the editor on the Detroit Free Press website that was pointed out to me by a mate of mine, Doug, and which needs to be aired and recycled for as many people as possible to see. It sums up what is so immoral and cruel about this operation which has been and continues to be encouraged by many thousands of veterinarians in the United States. It is a shocking state of affairs when you consider that each vet who amputates the distal joint of each fore-toe of a kitten does so in gross breach of their solemn oath not to harm patients. In 99.99% of cases declawing is carried out for non-therapeutic reasons and therefore is a breach of oath. As such the operation is arguably a assault by a professional on a kitten and a crime under America's animal welfare laws.

RELATED: Epidemic of Botched Cat Declaw Operations.

Here is the letter - thanks Melissa Sanger in Brighton:

As a licensed veterinary technician, I have tried to comfort cats as they writhe in pain, desperately trying to pull the blood-soaked bandages from their mutilated paws after being declawed. This barbaric disfigurement — which involves severing the first digit of every toe, bones and all — should be banned everywhere.

Cats claw to exercise, stretch and mark territory. Cutting off their body parts cuts off their ability to engage in these natural and important behaviors, and can cause them lifelong back and joint pain.

Without claws, many cats resort to eliminating outside the litterbox to mark their territory. Once-friendly cats often become withdrawn and aggressive. Studies show that declawed cats are more likely to have behavioral problems, often resulting in abandonment by the very people who had them declawed.

Providing plenty of scratching posts and regular nail trims will protect furniture, and cats’ physical and psychological well-being.

An example of ridiculous, pathetic human madness in Vietnam resulting in black cat cruelty

OPINION: I want to briefly revisit the Covid-19 pandemic because in so many ways it illustrates humankind's madness. This particular example comes from Asia. In general, you will see more abuses and cruelty against the cat in Vietnam and China than anywhere else based upon my research. You simply can't avoid it when surfing the Internet.

Superstition is a human weakness. It is, for me, a form of human madness. It leads to animal abuse. Superstition is based upon fear. Humans are fearful of everything and anything.

Black cats farmed in Vietnam waiting to be boiled alive and turned into paste to cure Covid!! Image: SWNS.

In Vietnam in the middle of 2020, when the Covid pandemic was perhaps at its height, black cats were turned into paste and sold as coronavirus remedies. I can remember seeing a child eating black cat paste to protect them against Covid-19 (see link below).

Black cat paste packaged for consumption to cure Covid-19. Image: SWNS.

It was reported that at that time black cats were being boiled, skinned and cooked and then turned into a paste to be sold as a medicine against Covid-19 according to South West New Service (SWNS).

A barbaric, utterly cruel and mindless human practice that was centred around the city of Hanoi. The crazy concoction was sold online. They even fed it to a baby.

RELATED: Vietnamese toddler drinks liquid of dead black cats to protect from coronavirus.

There is a video online somewhere which I don't want to even search for which shows rows of dead cats drying out in the sun after being slaughtered as well as a live cat being boiled. This seems to be another superstition that if you kill cats in a brutal way they taste better and their "medicine" is more effective. How mad does it have to get? How cruel does it have to get before the international community does something to stop it?

Obviously, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever which supports the superstition that eating boiled black cat protects you against Covid-19, which, incidentally, has not died out yet. It is still there infecting people often in hospitals. Be aware of that. Don't visit a hospital to see your ill friend unless you really have to.

It's ironic, too, that the cat meat trade which includes the one mentioned above, can itself spread disease because of the way that they are killed; highly unregulated. Pathogens from this kind of animal slaughter can be transferred to the people doing the slaughtering. That's how people believe the Covid-19 pandemic started in the first place.

Like I said, how mindless does humankind have to be before something is done to stop these people.

I'm told, also, that in Vietnam and Indonesia other "exotic meats" were sold at the time as a cure for Covid-19.

We can't show what the Vietnamese cat meat traders do to cats as it is too graphic

Philosophically speaking

Funny that? What the Vietnamese cat and dog meat traders do to cats and dogs is so bad and so graphic that we can't show it. I understand that. We shouldn't see the most gruesomely cruel aspects of this business because it harms us. 

Philosophically speaking that is a very peculiar thing to say. We can protect ourselves from looking at the extreme cruelty that humans perpetrate upon cats but at the same time we allow that extreme cruelty to take place. If that isn't speciesism, I don't know what is.

The fact that looking at extreme animal cruelty is harmful to us surely must remind us that it should never happen. The best way to protect ourselves from looking at extreme animal cruelty is to not do the animal cruelty in the first place!

Vietnam

Vietnam is as bad as China when it comes to cat and dog meat. They treat stray and domestic cats as free livestock to be snatched from the streets and brutally killed and then eaten. It's a good business because the livestock is free! There's no need to farm the livestock, to feed it, to care for it. They simply steal it and kill it.

The tweet

And it's not just dog meat trade that's common. Cat meat trade is also very common in Vietnam. I cannot share most of the content our brave volunteers in Hanoi, Vietnam were able to collect because it's just too graphic but this is how they are cramped up in cages.

The video

I cannot watch this video. I simply uploaded it. It comes from Twitter. One thing comes to mind immediately. These are defeated animals. And they are thrust together, crammed into a disgusting cage, in the most abysmal conditions. 

Domestic cats have a home range normally. They need space around them. In an ideal world that space might be many acres. Here they are on top of each other. Emotionally crushed. Demoralised. Anxious. Terrified. They can do nothing but accept their brutal fate. This is the nadir of animal cruelty in my book.

And, the international community entirely accepts it. The Vietnamese government accept it as normal. Nothing is done to stop it. It goes on year after year. The people who defend the cat meat business ask: what is difference between this and farming animals? 

This is not farming. There are no regulations in the cat meat businesses. Farmed livestock is slaughtered under regulated conditions. The objective is to slaughter the animals humanely so that they don't feel pain.

These cats are going to feel tremendous pain before they die. The whole process is essentially cruel. That is a big difference. And secondly, when we domesticated cats there was not an agreement that we could kill them brutally and eat them. 

The agreement was that we supported each other. That is how cat domestication came about in the first place. What we see here was not on the cards. This was not projected. It is a breach of that unwritten agreement by humans. It is foul animal abuse of the worst kind.

Tradition and culture

The underlying problem, as is the case in China, is that there is a culture of eating cat and dog meat in Vietnam. But that culture is based upon an ancient tradition going back perhaps one or 2000 years. It is bringing an ancient tradition into the modern world which does not work. This is because 1000 years ago people were less civilised and less educated about animal welfare. Traditional practices bring forward into the modern world animal cruelty.