Is the uproar being caused by import of monkey and atelope meat to New York, a reaction to worry about disease, intolerance to different religious customs, or speciesism? Certainly if the meat being imported was of a variety more typically seen in the West the meatismurder team predict the news coverage wouldn’t have been so massive. Monkeys are like us, and antelopes are so graceful thay deserve column inches. Those damn cows though…they can look after themselves.

NEW YORK (AP) — From her baptism in Liberia to Christmas years later in her adopted New York City, Mamie Manneh never lost the longing to celebrate religious rituals by eating monkey meat.

Family members sit with a portrait of Mamie Manneh at their home in Staten Island, New York.

Now, the tribal customs of Manneh and other West African immigrants have become the focus of an unusual criminal case charging her with meat smuggling, and touching on issues of religious freedom, infectious diseases and wildlife preservation.

The case “appears to be the first of its kind relating to that uniquely African product,” defense attorney Jan Rostal wrote in a pending motion to dismiss. “Unfortunately, it represents the sort of clash of cultural and religious values inherent in the melting pot that is America.”

At the center of the case in federal court is a modest woman with nine children and a history of domestic discord.

The case dates to early 2006, when federal inspectors at JFK Airport examined a shipment of 12 cardboard boxes from Guinea.

They were addressed to Manneh and, according to a flight manifest, contained African dresses and smoked fish with a value of $780.

Instead, stashed underneath the smoked fish, the inspectors found what West Africans refer to as bushmeat: “skulls, limbs and torsos of nonhuman primate species” plus the hoof and leg of a small antelope, according to court papers.

Three days later, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents were at Manneh’s door, where she told them she ran a smoked fish importing business.

According to the agents, she initially denied ordering any bushmeat from Africa or ever eating it while in the United States.

But after she consented to a search, the agents came across a tiny, hairy arm hidden in her garage.

“Monkey,” she explained, claiming the arm was sent to her out of the blue “as a gift from God in heaven.”

Federal prosecutors hit Manneh with smuggling charges that accused her of violating import procedures and suggested she was a menace to man and beast alike.

A criminal complaint cited evidence that the illegal importation of bushmeat encourages the slaughter of protected wild animals.

Shock horror news…people who trade in corpses for a living maybe aren’t always honest.*
Further shock horror news…decaying body isn’t always in best condition.
* according to allegations mades in the article below

A food company supplied contaminated meat to Government departments, prestigious schools and top hotels, according to a former employee.

McLaren Foods, based in Ashford, Kent, supplied meat to the Treasury, Westminster School and The Dorchester and Claridges hotels.

The company, which has since gone into administration, also supplied hospitals including London Chest Hospital, Ipswich and Royal Marsden and care homes.

Here at meatismurder we have done our fair bit of celebrity-chef bashing - and long may that continue - but in the atmosphere of equality we must highlight the current stance being taken by three of these chef-du-jour against battery farming.
Although these guys are not going vegan and so taking the step that would stop the abuse industry in it’s tracks, they are pushing the animal welfare message into the gaze of a public that often do not get exposed to vegan campaign materials but may well see an article in their paper or a program on the television. These will show just how a living breathing individual becomes a cog in the food machine.

Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay and Hugh Fearnely-Wittingstall launch TV assault on eating habits

Jamie Oliver hopes his new Channel 4 show will help to end battery farming

Adam Sherwin, Media Correspondent

The “three tenors” of British cuisine — Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall — are joining forces to take on the supermarkets and change the nation’s eating habits.

After forcing an improvement in school dinners, Oliver now has battery farming in his sights. The public face of Sainsbury will demonstrate the “hideous realities of industrial chicken production”, for a special Channel 4 season on food.

In Jamie’s Fowl Dinners, the celebrity chef will host a dinner for food industry bosses and celebrities. During each course, Oliver promises to “demonstrate graphically” how battery-farmed eggs and chickens reach the dinner plate.

Channel 4 has filmed Oliver’s meetings with Sainsbury’s where he lobbies the chain to improve standards of chicken production. The retailer is to phase out the 150 million battery eggs it sells a year but stocks a mixture of free-range and conventionally produced frozen chicken.

A Sainsbury’s spokeswoman said: “We do not sell caged chicken. We insist that all animals destined for Sainsbury’s meat are reared to good standards of animal welfare.”

Oliver is seeking action to improve the conditions in which birds destined for all supermarkets are kept. On some farms up to 40,000 birds are kept under artificial light in closed sheds.

Andrew Mackenzie, head of factual entertainment at Channel 4, said: “Jamie’s message will be, ‘If you knew what happens to a chicken before arriving on your plate, would you still eat it?’

“Our standards are not as good as some in Europe. Even people who buy free-range chickens may not be aware that every time they eat cake, the eggs aren’t likely to be free-range, so they are essentially endorsing the battery hen. Jamie reveals how chickens go from the farm to the fork.”

Remainder of article at timesonline

Learn about another kind of farmed animal , often not talked about over at rabbitfur.org

The killing of rabbits for their fur is the fastest growing part of the global fur trade yet little is known about it. 50 million animals are slaughtered worldwide each year for their fur but this figure does not even include rabbits as accurate figures are hard to come by.

Around the world most systems of animal factory farming - such as battery hen cages, farrowing crates for pigs, ‘veal’ crates, foie gras production, mink fur farming - have been the subject of detailed scientific studies, campaigns by animal rights groups and even government bans. Meanwhile, the factory farming of rabbits for their fur and flesh has received little attention …. until now.

Welcome to the new look meatismurder!
New team members, a new look, (more exclamation marks!) , are all contributing to a revitalised site.
We will be bringing you all the news stories as everyday new links are found between meat consumption and poor health and meat consumption and damage to the environment.
As new reports are published seemingly daily, highlighting the suffering of farmed animals we will be bringing them to you.
Everyday somebody new opens their eyes to the horror that the meat industry performs in their name, and so every day we see new critics and new ideas to fight the status quo.

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Here at meatismurder, the editorial team are always discussing speciesism, because if and when this hurdle is overcome, the systematic abuse and murder of individuals will become a relic of the past, just as other prejudiced behaviour is now looked back on with horror. The author Carol Adams, has highlighted another approach with which to look at speciesism.

‘The Sexual Politics of Meat‘

The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory explores a relationship between patriarchal values and meat eating by interweaving the insights of feminism, vegetarianism, animal defense, and literary theory. A pioneering book, it is now available Tenth Anniversary Edition. When it first appeared in 1990, Library Journal called The Sexual Politics of Meat “an important and provocative work” and predicted it would “inspire and enrage readers across the political spectrum.” True to Library Journal’s prediction, the book was hailed by CHOICE as a “’bible’ for feminist and progressive animal rights activists” and equally reviled by conservative commentators, including Rush Limbaugh, John Leo, and Cal Thomas as an example of political correctness taken to excess.