Beijing's Cat Death Camps

Sickens me. But I like the live safari feedings. I bet the lions do too. I don't know that I would watch it, but otherwise someone would complain that they are feeding the lions rainforest beef. My first choice would be to let the lions go, let them hunt the zoo keepers and spectators. That's the natural way.

This is sick!!! If I could get my hands on those rotten freaks I would kick thier butts to a stinken other galaxy!!! thiere stinken twisted people!!AHHHHHH!!!!! thyose stiken jerks if I every see them I will kick their butts all the way to the hospita tool!!!!!!!!!!! THEY MAKE ME SO MAD!!!!!!!!!!!

How Sad

Well, my day is officially ruined now.

We're no angels here in North America when it comes to animal welfare, but this is despicable.

Hopefully when China becomes a civil, modern society they will start to respect life a little more... yeah right.

I want to cry... I can not believe this!! sick

All you people better be 100% vegetarian or you have no right to cpmplain about this. The fact is that the animals are going to die anyways. All of you better not have any leather articles either. Otherwise you are a bunch of hypocrites. Imagine a serial killer. Is it justifiable if he first renders the victim unconscious via an injection before murdering said victim? Death is death, no matter the means.

Ron, I am a vegetarian, but I still think you're kind of confusing the issue.

From the article, most of these cats are pet cats that have been abandonned by their owners BECAUSE of a scare tactic by the government.

Also, there's a big difference between quick painless death and long agonizing suffering leading to an ultimate drawn out death.

Think about it this way; if you had no other choice, which of the two would you pick?

My country's Olympic committee has a statement that says that the Olympics will have an impact on Chinese society. I've sent them the link to this story to ask where this fits in, and whom to ask for a reaction.

And I thought my regard for the country of China couldn't possibly be any lower. Bravo, Michael. It's amazing to me how they'll eat just about anything they can get their hands on. It's beyond disgusting.
Looking over at my cat sleeping on my bed, I think to myself, "You little brat. You have absolutely no idea how lucky you are."

This sickens me...

Scary thing, and I suspect it's only the tip of the iceberg. For every story of abuse (human, animal or environmental) we hear coming out of China, dozens, if not hundreds go unreported.

This country is being given the chance to host the Olympics at what cost?

I can has lethul ingeckshun?

Ugh. I have a lot of friends from China and I try really, really hard not to judge the entire population and culture by the actions of a few... well, most... okay, almost all... but d@#$ if this stuff doesn't just get my blood boiling.

This country is despicable in their treatment of animals, humans, and the environment. I'm sorry but that's all I ever see about them. I love that there is at least the effort towards innovation but it doesn't seem like enough most of the time.

This is pretty bad, but not as bad as the Bear Bile Farms or Fur Farms in China. I am ashamed of beings half Chinese. China is a country that cant even give proper human rights, much less animal rights. I hope the country implodes on itself.

Now they are going to have a serious rat and mouse problem - just in time for the Olympics

Amazing how few people are able to think ahead about the unintended consequences of a proposed action.

Cities in nations with highly developed economies have over the last centuries designed public health management systems to balance the tradeoffs. China is only just beginning to catch on to the need to do this with high material consumptions rates. This has all the appearances of a Potempkin Village approach to municipal public health management.

China a growing producer of green house gasses, with a dirty coal plant a week being started up will be particularly hard hit by flooding from glacial melting then drought once the ice is gone and by sea level rise, as most cities are on the coastline the loss of life in china could be over a billion people....... :-)

Wow...China is really rolling out an all out assault on anything and everything in the environment. Guess they're trying to show up the U.S.

I think Ron may be a bit too strict in his definition of hypocrite. I am a vegetarian, but I own some leather things. Does owning a few leather goods put me on the same level as people who commit atrocious acts of animal cruelty like these cat death camps? I don't think it does, and I also don't think I'm a hypocrite for condemning any people involved in this horror.

I agree with the other commenter who said that a quick, painless death- while not a good thing- is far better than a slow, agonizing one.

"It's amazing to me how they'll eat just about anything they can get their hands on..."

Um, what part of this piece was about *eating* cats, or culinary habits of the Chinese? The ridiculous attitude that 'Chinese people will eat your pets" is racism, pure and simple.

But you probably realize that, 'Anonymous', which is why you didn't sign your name to this post.

Thank you very much for sharing this. I truly wish that people would either leave animals alone, or take responsibility for the quagmires that *we* get them into. Full disclaimer: I have two cats which I rescued from the streets, and I'm a vegetarian leaning toward vegan.

Niki, don't feel ashamed. If you haven't done anything wrong, you have no reason. Collective guilt is a very bad concept, and it leads nowhere.

Those that should feel guilty are the individuals involved in this, not a whole nation.

The average chinese citizen has very little say over what the ruling class of the country does, unfortunately. Things are improving as China opens up the the world (just that fact that we now know about some of the things happening in china is progress), and we must encourage positive change.

Not so long as the USA didn't consider people with black skin citizens, so change is definitely possible.

I've just decided to boycott the Olympics

All this for the Olympics. Yes, the sorry sporting event that the world is slowly coming to realize is an irrelevant joke. I look forward to the day when the Olympics are a distant memory.

Replace "cats" with "cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and fish" and you've got our situation here in the US.

"Replace "cats" with "cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and fish" and you've got our situation here in the US." - Ross

The US government is rounding up farm animals and stuffing them in cages in preperation for the Olympics!? Farmers fear punishment and imprisonment for protesting? Oh the horror!

I think you're on the wrong band-wagon.

-Lego

""Replace "cats" with "cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and fish" and you've got our situation here in the US." - Ross
The US government is rounding up farm animals and stuffing them in cages in preperation for the Olympics!? Farmers fear punishment and imprisonment for protesting? Oh the horror!
I think you're on the wrong band-wagon." -Lego

And replace "preparing for the Olympics" with "preparing for dinner." And the animals are already rounded-up in cages and pens. And, for the most part, people are oblivious and love to financially enable this industry to thrive.

I'd say that is the U.S. No?

This is horrific on so many levels, I fail to see the impact the presence of stray cats would have had on the Olympics. Having decided to do this the least the Chinese government could have done was to euthanase the animals humanely.
Are these all stray cats? or have pet cats been included also? If these were mainly strays China should also have been thinking of an education program to promote neutering pet cats, cutting down the number of unwanted pets being abandoned. Wouldn't it be better for most if not all the cats in the country to be wanted and well cared for?

However I can't see a problem with feeding lions live animals. I thought the aim of Zoos was to conserve species whilst educating the public, and providing the animal with as close to a natural environment as possible. Last I checked Lions killed their prey. What causes offence is the enjoyment people get from watching the kill.

While I wouldn't agree that feeding live animals to zoo-bound predators is good clean entertainment for the whole family, I find it rather curious what zoos here do instead.

You see, predators in zoos typically become bored to the point of insanity - pacing and head-bashing are some of the more obvious symptoms. But modern zoos make their animals work for their food - something they would have to do in the wild - to keep them interested. The herbivores have their food hidden in strange places or frozen in ice or stuffed into a box they have to open by force or something. But the predators get dead rabbits tied to a zipline that runs through their little patch of zoo, to simulate their natural hunting. While this works to get them some exercise, I'm not so certain that it keeps their minds active and their hunting sharp. Live rabbits will actively try to get away from a mountain lion at any cost, and won't limit their dodging to a straight line. And while such a thing isn't so humane to the rabbit, it's humane to the lion, isn't it? Moral dilemmas abound!

But you don't need to make this into a sporting event for the public either. The tiger feedings can just as easily happen outside of zoo hours.

I complety agree with you that animals should be treated right, we're the 'rulers' of this earth, we have an obligation to see that animals aren't treated cruelly unnecessarily. But with regards to China, their human rights record is not the greatest, and I think at the moment more attention should be drawn to that fact and petitioning the government to stop persecuting Christians, supporting an economy in which the poor will only get poorer and enforcing a law which results in the murders of thousands of babies.

The issues of our fellow humans should never be overshadowed.

they were just selling them you never show any real harm to them

Oh you people that have never been to China have NO idea just how sick and disgusting they are there. The live feedings and killing the animals is just the very tip of the ice berg.

There are sick people who will sit at a table and watch as they hack off the paw of a live sun bear without a thought to it and then to justify the fact they blow it off as "the culture"

There comes a time when a culture has to move on from barbaric, caveman ways. China refuses to do so because the old comunists are still actually running the country. Yet our factories still go there for the cheap labor.

Did you know that any company that makes items there only have to give the workers a place to live and a meal of chicken feet and rice on top of the 25-50 cents a day. {not to mention the number of poisonings that have gone on to americans} Sure why wouldn't these money grubbing American companies not want to make their product in China all the while on a basic level promoting the Chinese gov't and all they do, no matter what that is.

I despise that government. I can't believe how evil they are. It amazes me to see how open they are about it. control the masses!
I'm going to give my cats some treats.

Everyone keeps bouncing around the idea that this is terribly cruel since it's not fair to the cats who don't really have a fair chance [none of you better keep snakes or some other such animal as a pet, I'd say] and the idea that it's better for the zoo animals and more natural.

The real problem is the zoos themselves. I like zoos that do their part to help endangered species and raise public awareness about the world's animals, but many zoos are downright abusive towards their animals and the animals in zoos, as previously mentioned, often go entirely insane as do caged factory farm animals.

I, for one, boycott zoos entirely. That's really about all I think one could do other than raise awareness and hope for change.

I don't think boycotting the Olympics is the right solution. This stupid little festival is important to a lot of people and has sparked the motion for change in China at the most crucial point, whereas that would not have happened otherwise.

I don't think it's good, but my world didn't come crashing down when I heard of thousands of cats dying in Beijing.

The bigger picture is that cats provide a necessary service to the city by catching vermin. And if there are thousands of cats, that means there is a LOT of vermin . . . I think I'd go buy a cat for my apartment if I was living in Beijing (I bet I could get one on the cheap).

Welcome to China, where our motto is "If it gets in the way of good business, we'll kill it deader than dead!"

that's a very good idea, we invite the goverment of china, to send that campaign to mexico city, we have millions of dogs and cats, all over the mexican territory, and are polluting the air .
where are all ambientalist people that want's to protect the planet?

How the Chinese government allows innocent animals in the thousands to suffer like that unecessarly is beyond me.

What really gets to me though, and what I will probably think about all day is the comment about the bears and their gal bladders. I knew this practice occured illegally in respect to poaching, but I had no idea that so many were kept in cages for consistent tapping of their bile. It makes me ill...I wish I could get on a plane to China and do something.... but if there is anything media and government teaches us, its that we are helpless and must simply confrom to the horror...of course whilst blogging about it and venting behind the scenes. Its so sad.

I was talking more about the horrific treatment of the animals than the reasons for their treatment.

Pigs are smarter than cats, even. So while we sympathize with these poor kitties, little piglet is getting his snout chopped off.

This is gross and so disheartening.

How can we help? How can we take action?

folks, this was only the next logical step after sunshine, puppies, and rainbows were slashed from existence.

Okay, the media is going to pick this sooner or later. But I hearby brand this cat death camp as 'Meowschwitz'

I thought what many of you are saying about the live animal feedings when i first read abotu it - but the thing is that these lions are not wild animals anymore, and simply have no idea what they are supposed to do with the live goats & chickens thrown to them. It was documented (i forget where) that the pack of lions spent hours following & mauling the poor goat before it finally died, and you simply cant say that its natural to throw chickens of rocks into the lions den - the poor animals must be completely petrified and suffer so much as the lions don't know how to take one bite on the back of the neck like wild lions do to put the animal out of its misery.

As well as that issue theres the issue of families going to the zoo with their little toddlers and petting the goats & chickens before choosing which one to throw to the lions - despite being completely sick, think what it must be doing to the children - what chance do they have of growing up 'normal' with a sensible & compassionate head on their shoulders when exposed to things like that as being the norm at such a young age?

and as for the cat issue - dont even get me started - the chinese will never cease to amaze me. I just wish there was somethingi could do directly rather than ranting on the internet about it. I wonder what the Chinese reaction would be to a plane full of Western activists on a mission to 'free the cats!'

Thats it,

Now on for me, no souvenirs of the Olympics, no watching it on TV, and every time I hear someone talking about it, I will show them this article.

We never heard anything like this from Athens, not say Barcelona right. Why but with it?

Hopefully the Beijing Olympics will bring an overall positive to the world. With all this absurd preparation hopefully the world is taking note and honorable efforts like that of Spielberg will continue to surface shedding light on this ridiculous communist state that we continue to enrich.

In case you missed it - NPR interviewed Mark Shapiro, author of exposing a toxic policy...

Its about the absurd amount of toxins that have shown up in American's blood. As the European Union continues to impose strict regulations on the toxic components in plastic.. the rest of the world is following.. EXCEPT for the US. China then exports the toxic stuff to America and OUR health suffers.

Heres the link. If anything just forward to the 30th minute.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16616951

To be politically correct, "I really don't like China" and hope NBC and other broadcasters of the Olympics do not forget to shed light on their manipulation of the clouds to avoid rain, the heavily polluted air that has forced runners to drop out of long distance of races, their weapons involvement in Darfour, the inhumane child labor, torture of dogs and cats.. and lots more... This is the worlds biggest problem…

Poor Cats..

Please sign my petition to stop this cruel
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/
stop-the-beijing-olympics-cat-massacre

Thank you, Elissa

That is by far as an animal lover and activist and used to wanna be a vet growing up but now at 17 switching to journalist/writer has made me really lose so much respect for the chinese not even other asian countries do that.They can by far find a better way to control the problem without massive slaughter.Just because there animals doesnt mean they dont actually speak and have feelings and thoughts.I thought the chinese were supposed to bo some of the most intelligent people on earth-I guess not.Just look at what they did to tibet example by itself.When I do become a successful writer I wanna profile things like this going on in the world so people realize just how violent and unempathetic we humans can be.