August 29, 2009
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Save The Squid
I was recently reading in the news about the guy in New Zealand who has stirred up some controversy by eating his dog. Apparently the dog had become a pain in the ass, so the guy decided to kill it and eat it.
Here’s the link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8218534.stm
Now I personally wonder why the uproar about it. As a vegetarian I will not kill any animal for my dinner, but the people who are whining worse than the poms are the same people who gladly let someone else kill sheep, cow, pig, chicken, duck and any number of other animals for them so they can eat.
So what’s the big deal about this guy who eats his dog? I asked one of my colleagues here in Taiwan what he thought. He was disgusted. I said what’s the difference between eating a dog and a cow?
“Because a dog barks,” was his answer. I knew what he meant – it was the human bond between dog and “owner”. The dog – essentially – got lucky by winning the affection of the humans. Much like the whale. After all, why are we humans making such a big deal about whales (much to the annoyance of the Japanese, Norwegians and Icelandics) when we go and eat all the fish, club all the seals and essentially mess around with other wonders of nature?
“How can you say that mucker?” I asked, wanting to start a debate to help while away the tedium that another day in the office brings.
“A dog is cute though,” came the reply. Good. Fodder for my argument.
“But a dog is tasty as well.”
“That’s gross.” Seemed I had found a sore point. Good. Not the time for me to stop then.
“You barbecue a squid but you whine about a dog,” I said, referring to the lunch he had had the previous day.
“A squid is not cute.”
“It is to other squid,” I retorted.
“But you don’t have a squid as a pet,” he said. Finally, he’s getting the hang of this argument thing. But…
“Why not? You could.”
I had seen a stingray for sale the previous day in the pet store, so why not a squid?
My argument did not seem to work – Willy (for it is he) was still revolted by the thought of a dog ending up a dog’s dinner on the barbie. My assistant though saw my point – having grown up in Argentina, she knows a thing or two about meat, and is not the kind of person to differentiate. For those living in poverty too, dog meat is food.
A couple of years ago, Nigeria’s capital was experiencing a bit of a problem with stray dogs until one enterprising guy came up with a nice recipe for dog stew, set up a roadside stall, and sold bowl after bowl of it. It got so popular that now the stray dog problem is only a problem because there are none left, and so your local poochie pet is being served up instead. Guard dogs are suddenly going missing, people are reporting more pets stolen. I suggest you go and have a bowl of dog stew my friend – help you get over your loss.
We humans need to work out where we stand. If we’re going to kill then we need to stop differentiating, taking half-assed stances about what is right and what is wrong. Just because the whale, dog, cat and dolphins have good PR does not give us the right to decide it is acceptable to kill this when it is not ok to kill another.
Otherwise we will soon have a SAVE THE SQUID foundation.
