A mass grave of a different feather

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I’m really busy today but I still want to put a topic out there that is worth discussing. This means that I’m going to have to resort to some lazy blogging. Please forgive my complacence. Every blogger knows that a good picture is worth a thousand words and can bail you out from time to time:

A good poster for vegetarianism

A veterinarian doctor puts chickens into a pit for burial at Navapur, in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, Monday, Feb. 20, 2006. Farmers burned their dead chickens and health officials went door-to-door Monday in western India for signs of people infected with the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus as a massive poultry slaughtering operation entered its second day. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)… [Link]

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p align=left>The slaughter seems pretty bad already and may get a lot worse:

The bird flu is taking grip of the world slowly and steadily. Because of massive population density in India and to some extent china/South East Asia, these countries may plunge into a deep deflationery depression cycle. According to some experts, in India, people and poultry live close to each other. In the country side most families keep poultry for eggs. With a serious break out of bird flue, India can lose 18% of its population within the first year. If the outbreak is not controlled, 38% of the population can be affected.

According to media reports, a poultry farmer has died of suspected bird flu in western India, where the country’s first outbreak of the H5N1 avian flu virus has been confirmed. [Link]

18 thoughts on “A mass grave of a different feather”

  1. Is it just me or do some of the chickens in that burial pit look like they’re standing and alive? It’s hard to tell.

  2. When the SARS outbreak was at its height, this was done with palm civet cats, and it really did help control the spread of the virus. Granted, it’s not pleasant, but it is an effective strategy.

  3. Kom, I wouldn’t be surprised. Some reports indicated that some of the people doing the killing didn’t know how to properly kill chickens and were battering them to death.

  4. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Some reports indicated that some of the people doing the killing didn’t know how to properly kill chickens and were battering them to death.”

    How depressing. I hope efforts are being made to educate them how to kill the chickens more humanely.

  5. I remember seeing a photo some years ago of live pigs being thrown into a pit. Really disturbing. It’s horrible what people will do to animals.

  6. The worst thing I’ve ever had the misfortune of hearing in my life was a pig being butchered. I will never get that sound out of my head.

  7. Kom: “How depressing. I hope efforts are being made to educate them how to kill the chickens more humanely.”

    I sincerely hope, it was a pun..if so, a good one indeed. These events are nothing more than a testimony to the seminal cardinal “survival of the fittest”..another small step in the evolution of the species…not worthy of any contrite sentiments…the question is,does a mutated strain of H5N1 virus open a new chapter in the evolution of species in the history of earth…? Now..that makes for an interesting scenario….

  9. Suraj,

    I had intended to put (if that’s indeed possible) after “kill humanely” but left it out. But it is a necessity at times. Surely it’s better than burying them alive, cheap sentiment or no cheap sentiment?

  12. I often wonder if this bird flu epidemic (and it’s predecessor, mad cow) is nature’s way of telling the world, “hey – evolve already. You have proven you can make food out of wax and sugar, so why do you need to eat chickens?”

  14. I guess you can argue that eating the chickens spreads the virus on some level, in the sense that raising chickens is usually for that purpose. But just to put too fine a point on it, the virus is predominantly transmitted through having chickens in close proximity to living quarters, not through eating them.

  15. I often wonder if this bird flu epidemic (and it’s predecessor, mad cow) is nature’s way of telling the world, “hey – evolve already. You have proven you can make food out of wax and sugar, so why do you need to eat chickens?”

    Or nature’s way of decreasing the human population?

  17. This bird flu issue is too bad guys: whoever said even being close to infected chickens is dangerous – is there any material avaialable on this ?

    Sujay Rao Mandavilli

  18. Some morons are just scaring the common man. They have the audacity to predict the percentage of people who can potentially die. Those duffers should keep their mouth shut. Till date as per figures only 80 people have died out of recorded 150 patients. More people die of Malaria, Enteric Fever and Tuberculosis. This disease can wait unless one wants publicity on paper.