WAP has animal welfare concerns at the Turtle Farm
(CNS Business): Green sea turtles are wild animals and time after time attempts to farm then have proven that it just can’t be done in a humane way, according to Neil D’Cruse, head of Wildlife Policy and Research at World Animal Protection. Addressing the charity’s animal welfare concerns associated with the farming of green sea turtles at the Cayman Turtle Farm, he said it was important to recognize that they are wild animals, not a domesticated species and they have not gone through thousands of years of changes through selective breeding to make them as a species more adaptable to farm conditions.
When you look at core aspects of their biology, it’s clear that “domestication is a very distant and unlikely prospectâ€, he told CNS Business. Green sea turtles are solitary animals in the wild and only come in contact with other turtles on very rare occasions, such as when they come to mate; they dive to huge depths and they travel thousands of miles each year.
“It’s very different to having a free range chicken,†D’Cruze stated. “The amount of space that would be needed to fully meet the welfare needs of a green sea turtle is very difficult, especially when you look at the numbers that are required to commercially produce them or farm them for human consumption or for human use.
“That is why we do see some of the very very disturbing animal welfare concerns that have been ongoing at the Cayman Turtle Farm. And it’s important to stress that every other attempt to farm green sea turtles has encountered these same problems,†he said.
Because of the biology of these animals, under farm conditions there will always be cannibalism and the injuries involved with that, he said, and the fact that they are an aquatic animal means the risk of disease transmission is a lot higher.
“Given that they are a reptile, salmonella and e coli are always going to be issues of concern,†D’Cruze said.
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So the only things we can farm are the things that have been farmed for thousands of years? So ostritch farms, etc., can’t be allowed to exist because, well, no European had done it a thousand years before? Oooo, salmon farming in Scotland. Don’t tell the WAP about that. (Salmon migrate.) Does WAP even realise how luddite they sound?
I hate how Dr. D’Cruse makes these assertions, e.g., ‘domestication is unlikely’ that are then blithely reported without asking for his evidence for his claims or even questioning what he means by ‘domestication’. If the chickens in my back yard are anything to go by ‘domestication’ means about 2 generations removed from running wild. See salmon farming for example. Though I guess since they normally swim thousands of miles and weren’t farmed a hundred years ago WAP has an anti-aquaculture screed as well. (Yes, I did read the other article. I still think WAP are out of touch.)
Is this expert trying to get us to believe that lions, tigers, elephants and all other animals housed in zoos are treated humanely????