From grain:
The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu is essentially a problem of industrial poultry practices. Its epicentre is the factory farms of China and Southeast Asia and -- while wild birds can carry the disease, at least for short distances -- its main vector is the highly self-regulated transnational poultry industry, which sends the products and waste of its farms around the world through a multitude of channels
I'm asking you: What does it take? What does it take to get people to think about how our dietary choices affect the world around us?
There's a 50-50 chance that an avian flu pandemic is coming that expert bird flu expert
Dr. Robert Webster suggests could kill half the human population. Watch the ABC World news Tonight video.
It's being spread by the poultry industry's practices and trade routes, as mentioned above. We have a very simple solution that would bring this thing to a virtual halt: If we stop demanding dead birds as food, living birds won't transport avian flu into this country. It's simple. It's straightforward. And no one is talking about it.
I don't hear the argument for not eating birds as a means of stopping the spread of this flu much at all. It's the obvious solution, but no one wants to discuss it because it suggests that people might have to think about their dietary choices. And people get nothing short of defensive when anyone, but particlarly vegetarians, suggest that they think about their dietary choices. They feel under attack, or as though they're being preached to, and respond to that perceived affront, avoiding the question.
So I get to just sit here and watch it coming. Experts on avian flu tell us it's coming, and I can't do anything about it. They tell us what the toll would likely be, tell us tha they, themselves, are laying in a three-month supply of food and water at home, and I can't do anything about it. I can't do anything about it because meat eaters think bird flesh has a pleasant taste and texture, and because anyway, suggesting that they think about what they eat can be characterized as preaching, and allow them to change the subject from half the population may die to don't be holier than thou with us. That's more than merely aggravating: I'm watching avian flu slowly rumble toward us, I'm watching us not even think about not eating birds to stop it, and I am horrified at our collective stupidity.
Seriously, what does it take?
From UPC:
Awash in Manure
In the 1990s, poultry production in 5 West Virginia counties at the headwaters of the Potomac River, which nourishes the Chesapeake Bay, grew from 7 million birds a year to 100 million birds, now producing enough manure to cover "all 160 miles of Los Angeles freeways ankle deep" (Gerstenzang A7).
Each day the Arkansas poultry industry "dumps 300 pounds of arsenic and urine/feces equal to the daily waste generated by a population of 8 million people" (Holleman 22).
The Delmarva Peninsula produces a million tons of manure a year, enough to fill a football stadium "to the top row, including all the concourses, locker rooms and concession areas" (Warrick & Shields A1, A22).
In California, an egg factory with 837,000 caged hens produces 21,000 cubic yards of manure per year--"the equivalent of about 1,400 dump truck loads" (Dirkx A1).
A poultry researcher states, "The amount of animal wastes produced in the U.S. is staggering. In chickens, for example, the daily production of wastes is essentially equal to the amount of feed used. This means for every truckload of feed that is brought onto the farm, a similar load of waste must be removed. A one million hen complex, for example, produces 125 tons of wet manure a day" (Bell 26).
Do you care? If not, why not? Environmentalists who eat meat never want to hear about the environmental impact that their demand for animal flesh requires. Which makes me wonder: how can one claim to be concerned about the environment and still cause this level of environmental destruction by demanding dead birds for their plates?
If I sound angry, it's because, as I stated earlier, we can all see the avian flu pandemic coming. We know that foremost experts in the field are telling us that half the human population could die. And I get to just watch it coming, get to just watch us not do the one meaningful and simple thing we could do to halt the bird flu's progress and slow its mutation, and I can't stop it because meat eaters think dead birds taste good.
And I haven't even gotten into factory farming, and the hell that rains down on chickens and other livestock animals; I haven't even gotten into debeaking; I haven't even gotten into birds being boiled alive in the slaughter process.
I'm asking what it would take for meat eaters to consider not eating dead birds. And while I'm asking for a number of reasons, the coming bird flu pandemic is the one that scares the hell out of me. In trying to get people to think about the impact that their demand, specifically, for dead birds to eat has on meat eaters, the world around them, and literally every other person on earth, I hope to get people thinking a bit.
Who was who said that, asked to consider changing one's opinion, the vast majority immediately set about arguing why they should not?
I expect to get flamed here. I know that I am in the minority as a vegan. I half-expect some lame chicken little joke from those who are unwilling to follow those links and read up, preferring, instead, to remain blissfully ignorant. But the cost of refusing to think about this, the cost of running and hiding from it behind the security-blanket argument that someone's preaching to you, is far too high, stupidly high.
I honestly hope this makes people consider what their demand forbird flesh stands to cost us all. I'm not being holier-than-thou, and I'm not preaching. I am deeply alarmed at what's headed our way, and I'm trying to get people's attention.
Check out the facts distilled down in this United Poultry Concerns article. It's short.
More Sources:
Birdlife. has lots of useful information.
Excerpt:
according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and World Health Organisation (WHO): “In 1992, live poultry markets in the USA were considered the ‘missing link in the epidemiology of influenza’. They were identified as the source of the H5N1 infection in chicken farms in Hong Kong in 1997 when approximately 20% of the chickens in live poultry markets were found to be infected. The same situation was seen in Viet Nam, where the circulation of H5N1 in geese in live bird markets in Hanoi had been documented three years before the 2004 outbreaks in chicken farms.” (FAO/OIE/WHO Consultation on avian influenza and human health: Risk reduction measures in producing, marketing, and living with animals in Asia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, July 2005).
From BirdsKorea
02 March 2006
Poultry Flu - and the cracks in the "Migratory birds are the carriers" argument start to widen even further...:
Highly respected journal Nature quoting epidemiologist Mark Savey (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440):
"You have a paper Michelin map; you have people who speak the language; you put red circles on outbreaks; and you use a pen and paper to compare them with things like the dates of market openings, and with how outbreaks line up with railways." Such local knowledge is crucial to interpreting data, he says. "If you don't know what the Trans-Siberian Express is like, with people cooped up for days, exchanging chickens and eggs at every stop, you would never guess that it was the Trans-Siberian that mainly spread avian flu across Russia."
"A research paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published online on February 10th, shows that the H5N1 virus has persisted in its birthplace, southern China, for almost ten years and has been introduced into Vietnam on at least three occasions, and to Indonesia. The authors suggest that such transmissions are perpetuated mainly by the movement of poultry and poultry products, rather than by migrating birds."
"This is significant because it strongly supports bird conservationists, who have been arguing that most outbreaks in South-East Asia can be linked to movements of poultry and poultry products, or infected material from poultry farms, such as mud on vehicles or people's shoes. Conservationists also argue that live animal markets have played an important role in the H5N1's spread. Such markets were the source of the first known outbreak in Hong Kong in 1997 when 20% of the chickens in live poultry markets were infected."
"In Nigeria, there is the suggestion that it was trade, and not migratory birds, that caused the outbreak. For one thing, the infection was first detected in a commercial farm with 46,000 poultry and not among backyard flocks which represent 60% of the country's poultry production-and which would be expected to have greater contact with wild birds.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates Nigeria imports around 1.2m day-old chicks every year. Further, there are rumours that many of these chicks are still arriving from countries with domestic H5N1 infections, such as China and Turkey."
"Infection across Africa would increase the likelihood that the virus will mutate to become transmissible between humans. But there is another vital dimension: the loss of farm income and of a vital source of protein could also be devastating for Africa. That ought to be food for thought for Europeans worried about a few dead swans."
I'm looking for more.
A late addition:
From LiveScience:
Many bird researchers say more dangerous transmission routes are the commercial poultry trade and the illegal trade in parrots and other rare birds for pets and collections. In both cases, birds are raised and transported in very cramped conditions.