News about animal treatment in Oxford

CLF | 13.07.2007 01:37 | Oxford

This is news about a new development in the way that live animals are being kept in overcrowded conditions in Oxford. This is being done by a commercial enterprise probably worse than by the university.

The news is that In Oxford Covered Market there are now animals being kept in conditions of shocking overcrowding. This is a recent development.

When will somebody liberate the lobsters and crabs ? In Oxford Covered Market they are piled up one on top of another in great barely living heaps, kept feebly alive by oxygenated water in their slum tanks, but I don't know if they are even fed.

I don't know where they would go if they did escape, but given the chance, and if they think at all, I expect they would like to try. Anything would be better than the grim existence they are sentenced to endure until somebody fancies eating them.

Most of this posting has already been rejected by Inymedia because it contravened editorial guidelines, but this can only have been on grounds that it was not news. It is news. The fishmonger there has obtained these tanks quite recently.

CLF

CLF

Comments

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Just a sugestion

15.07.2007 17:28

Instead of asking other people to do it...Why not do it yourself?

autononomus action type person

Liberation of crustations - think first!

16.07.2007 15:51

Yes, they are overcrowded, and yes, this is abhorrent. However simply letting the lobsters, crabs and shrimps free would also be cruel. They wouldn't last 5 minutes, even if you did manage to - somehow - transport them to the Thames and there they'd have to do battle with the non-native crayfish that dwells in the waters, or have to deal with pollution from boats. Moreover, introducing non-native species will negatively impact biodiversity so therefore is a BAD THING TO DO!.

Unless you have transportation to free them at the seaside, I think, unless a fish/shellfish specialist can correct me, only the crabs and shrimps *may* survive. The lobsters may well be Canadian (they are at least at the fish shop on Walton St which I assume may source their livestock from the same firm).

Maybe the kindest thing to do if you DO manage to free the fish is to keep them in a big tank at home at the correct climate for them, and try and give them as good a life as possible; and yes, this does mean having to accept them living in captivity - but it's a better option then being plunged alive into a pan of boiling water.

Crabula

Loo ?

29.07.2007 00:46

To house so many at home in more spacious conditons, you would have to fill your whole house with expensive tanks (especially if you brought in more and more as the fishmonger replaced what was missing).

But it need not be so difficult. When the tanks were empty (except of langoustines, which somehow don't look so unhappy, but that may just be subjective) there was a notice saying that he was awaitng further supplies from Looe in Cornwall.

So all you need to do is pop them into some lobster pots and catch a train to Cornwall, hoping that you are not caught on a CCTV camera.

Could one just picket the fishmonger with notices begging people not to support this cruel trade ?
And yet, if you were a crab, would you rather be killed a bit earlier in Looe, or kept alive a bit longer in an uncomfortable tank ? It's quite a philosophical question, which could lead into the desirability of euthanasia for the bedridden.

CLF