'braised Koala' In China Restaurant

[Nik]

I know of someone who ate a koala- it was roadkill and he was starving. (He was walking around Australia with little to no money.) Apparently it really cleared his sinuses!! Had a very strong taste of eucalyptus. True story, not an urban myth.

[Kirislin]

I doubt a koala would taste like eucalyptus if it wasn't eating eucalyptus leaves. They can eat other stuff but I'm not sure what, and how long they can survive without eucalyptus leaves. I know a woman who grew up living at Healesville sanctuary. They sometimes had animals living in their house and she said a koala used to be quite tame and live inside. Every now and then it would raid the pantry and eat all kinds of stuff, biscuits especially. I was very surprised.

[huskies4life88]

I know of someone who ate a koala- it was roadkill and he was starving. (He was walking around Australia with little to no money.) Apparently it really cleared his sinuses!! Had a very strong taste of eucalyptus. True story, not an urban myth.

well atleast he didnt eat it half alive, although i wouldnt think it would be to sanitary lol

[Ripley]

I watched a programme once about great British eccentrics or something. One episode was all about this nutter who ate roadkill. He wasn't poor, he just liked eating roadkill. He had a chest freezer full of hedgehogs, owls and other British wildlife but his favourite wildlife to eat was Badger.\

Edited November 5, 2011 by Ripley

[minimiss]

Looks like a quokka or something similar... Definitely not a Koala in any shape or form. Where are it's ears? it's colours? Either way, it doesn't look edible

[minimiss]

koala or no koala......asian customs disgust me.

Stupid generalisations disgust me.

You do nothing for the argument with exaggerations, generalisations and what is basically racism- besides lose credibility for your own cause.

Totally agreed. I grew up in Asia because my Father was based there for work, I've since been home for 8 years now. I'd say their 'customs' are welcoming, friendly and respectful for most animals and people.

Not everyone in Asia walks out and eats a random dog for breakfast. Or a Koala. Or an endangered species. You probably have people in every country who does weird things, and eat strange things. There are also some cultures who eat cockroaches, bats, spiders etc, that AREN'T Asian. So what do ya know? Aboriginals ate witchedy grubs (Sp?) and crickets etc... That might be considered disgusting to some people too. But if someone came out and said 'AUSTRALIAN CUSTOMS DISGUST ME THEY EAT GRUBS AND CRICKETS'. You'd be pretty offended too.

Don't tar people with the same brush unless you know all of them personally.

[sandgrubber]

So having little money means you butcher things while still alive and eat endagered species??? Sorry I don't agree

A mallet or a knife doesn't cost much to at least ensure they are dead BEFORE they start cutting them up!

Who said anything about cutting up beasts while alive or eating endangered species. I was thinking of the change from farm-based butchering to use of slaughter houses and distribution via supermarket chains.

We need to look to our own practices before condemning others.

Quoting the save-the-koala folks (https://www.savethek...endangered.html) "Koalas are in serious decline suffering from the effects of habitat destruction, domestic dog attacks, bushfires and road accidents. The Australian Koala Foundation estimates that there are less than 80,000 koalas left in the wild, possibly as few as 43,000." If you want to blame someone for koala decline, blame the developers who are destroying their habitat and the road builders who actions convert them to road kill. Don't point at supposed Asian poachers and dubious photographs.

The old-fashioned blow to the head plus slitting the jugular (beheading, for chooks) is dying out in Australia, at least for the small farmer. I haven't done a state by state comparison, but I know that WA now forbids home-based slaughtering and dressing for sheep, pigs, and cattle. In the modern version, you first subject your pig or sheep or calf to transport, which probably terrifies the beast, feed lot it for awhile, and then put it through some supposedly humane and sanitary killing at the hands of a large slaughter house. I don't see this as an improvement from the animal's perspective.

Btw, boiling alive isn't a nice way to go either, even if it's a lobster or crab.

Edited November 5, 2011 by sandgrubber

[GeckoTree]

Dosn't look like a koala to me.

[aussielover]

koala or no koala......asian customs disgust me.

Stupid generalisations disgust me.

You do nothing for the argument with exaggerations, generalisations and what is basically racism- besides lose credibility for your own cause.

Like!!!

You can't condem a whole race because a few people eat some strange things.

Agree with what DerRottweiler said a while back. Killing an aninmal is killing an animal- and should absolutely be done humanely.

Although of course I agree endangered species should be protected. Though I think taking away their nautral habitats as a result of deforestation, pollution and urbanisation is more harmful to them than the small number that are killed for food.

[Erny]

It's all relative.

We happily kill mice...

Not all of us. I used to be able to, without much misgiving - about 30 years ago, during a massive rat and then mice plague. But I recently had (for the first time) a suspected mouse trespass into my home so I went to Bunnings to seek out some mouse traps. I couldn't bare the thought of what some of the traps did (not that I'm new to that) and got some that I hope did it fast .... and where I (coward that I am) don't have to see the aftermath.

I'm almost glad to say that the purchase of the traps has been a waste of time. No mice caught and no mice seen since the first sighting. Hoping it was just a "passing through" visit .

But point being, I wasn't happy about killing the mice .... just couldn't live with the thought of them living with me (shudder, yuck).

[Panto]

koala or no koala......asian customs disgust me.

Stupid generalisations disgust me.

You do nothing for the argument with exaggerations, generalisations and what is basically racism- besides lose credibility for your own cause.

Totally agreed. I grew up in Asia because my Father was based there for work, I've since been home for 8 years now. I'd say their 'customs' are welcoming, friendly and respectful for most animals and people.

Not everyone in Asia walks out and eats a random dog for breakfast. Or a Koala. Or an endangered species. You probably have people in every country who does weird things, and eat strange things. There are also some cultures who eat cockroaches, bats, spiders etc, that AREN'T Asian. So what do ya know? Aboriginals ate witchedy grubs (Sp?) and crickets etc... That might be considered disgusting to some people too. But if someone came out and said 'AUSTRALIAN CUSTOMS DISGUST ME THEY EAT GRUBS AND CRICKETS'. You'd be pretty offended too.

Don't tar people with the same brush unless you know all of them personally.

Agree with HA and MM.

I am surprised with how many people are still flippantly throwing around prejudiced and generalised racial / culturally prejudiced slurs despite the issue being raised earlier in the thread.

Certainly learning a lot more about certain DOLers.

[sandgrubber]

European customs can be pretty disgusting, too. Factory farming? Dog fighting? Bear baiting (wasn't that long ago that it was outlawed)? Fox hunting? Cock fighting? de foie gras?

Not to mention how wasteful we are that we don't eat insects.

Castigating 3 billion people for customs found in small minorities is a sign of a severely limited and rather nasty mind.

I'd guess that there are 500,000,000 to 1,000,000,000 people in Asia who don't eat meat and regard us all as barbarians because we kill animals to eat.

koala or no koala......asian customs disgust me.

smashing rabbits? eating live monkeys brains while they are gagged under a table? bird nests made from bird spit?

eating dogs and cats? whaling, eating panda genitals

bile farming from bears...

and they seem to think its acceptable because of the wild health claims they make......

wonder what they would think if we all started eating them alive!!!

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[Keshwar]

http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/chinese-koala-meat-was-actually-rat-restaurant-claims/story-e6frfq80-1226191084241

A RESTAURANT in southern China that found itself at the centre of outrage for selling "koala meat" claims it was in fact selling a type of rat that bears a resemblance to the drowsy marsupial.

An Australian tourist visiting a restaurant in Guangzhou's Panyu district told a radio station 3aw that diners were able to select a live koala from a cage and could choose whether they wanted it "braised" or "stewed".

Distressed by the scene, the traveller snapped a photo of what appeared to be the iconic animal, bent forward and facing downward in a cage, with only a carrot given as food.

But the general manager of the restaurant denied that the animal was a koala, the Xinhua news agency reported.

"The Australian tourist was actually the victim of a false alarm, as the restaurant never sells koala," the manager said.

Another manager at the restaurant clarified that the animal was a bamboo rat.

The Chinese bamboo rat is found in southern parts of the country and is commonly sold in food markets.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/chinese-koala-meat-was-actually-rat-restaurant-claims/story-e6frfq80-1226191084241#ixzz1dGjHcpa6

[Maddy]

http://www.china.org.cn/china/2011-11/09/content_23863939.htm I guess if you'd never seen a koala before..

[lovemyrottie]

I watched a programme once about great British eccentrics or something. One episode was all about this nutter who ate roadkill. He wasn't poor, he just liked eating roadkill. He had a chest freezer full of hedgehogs, owls and other British wildlife but his favourite wildlife to eat was Badger.\

lol, i watched that too! yuck

[minimiss]

Haha I really can't imagine badger being delicious... Or hedgehog!

[Rozzie]

Beaver?

[sandgrubber]

Bottom line. It's an Asian rodent, basically vermin, not uncommonly eaten in some regions. Someone took some liberties in translation. Some a##hole reporter took an English translation literally without doing his research. Mountain made out of molehill. Sigh!!!!

For those of you who insist on humane killing, please consider the humanity of mouse and rat traps, not to mention Ratsak and equivalents before getting on high horses.

[Muttaburra]

I don't know exactly where the line is between racist comments and criticism of another countries cultural practices, though in my opinion, sadly, there are posts in this thread that seemed to have crossed over racist vernacular.

There are mistreatment of animals all around the world that are cruel and abhorrent. A couple of hundred years between cultures isn't much in the evolution of humankind, and while "officially" most animals bred and slaughtered for food in Australia must adhere to some form of regulations regarding humane treatment, there is plenty of animal cruelty in Australia and other developed countries.

Less than a hundred years ago, European settlers almost drove the Koala to extinction.

Koalas and European settlement

"The loveable Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) of Australia, which never recovered from killing by the fur trade in the 19th and early 20th centuries that nearly caused its extinction"

"Beginning in the 19th century, Koalas were hunted mercilessly by European settlers for their soft fur pelts and were entirely helpless in the face of guns and dogs. The major means used by professional hunters were poisoning and snaring, and by the late 19th century, 300,000 Koala pelts a year were being shipped to the London fur market (Phillips 1994). By the early 20th century, they were almost eliminated in the southern half of the country and became extinct in South Australia in the early 1930s. In 1898, legislation was passed in Victoria to attempt to stem the killing, but it was not enforced (Phillips 1994). In 1908, 57,933 Koala pelts were exported, and hunting spread to Queensland; beginning in 1915, year-round hunting was allowed (Phillips 1994). The U.S. fur trade sold millions of Koala pelts during the 1920s; from 1919 to 1921, 208,677 Koala pelts were sold in the U.S. fur trade, along with more than 7 million Australian opossum and wallaby pelts, according to a study by two American Museum of Natural History biologists, Henry Fairfield Osborn and Harold Anthony (1922). After signs of depletion and public outcry, the Queensland government closed the hunting season in 1921, but commercial pressure resulted in a re-opening of hunting five years later. In a one-month season in 1927, 584,738 Koalas were killed and their pelts sent to the United States (Phillips 1994). This was the last year of hunting. The U.S. market was finally shut down at this time when President Herbert Hoover, who had worked in the gold fields of Western Australia, signed an order permanently prohibiting the importation of both Koala and Wombat skins, an order that remains in effect today (Phillips 1994). "

http://www.endangeredspecieshandbook.org/trade_koalas.php

and the impact of European settlement in the Americas

"First, there was the greed factor. For a good part of the 1800s bison were considered to be in limitless supply. For non-native buffalo hunters they were the equivalent of a gold mine on four legs. This group hunted bison from trains and horseback for their tongues, hides, bones and little else. The tongue was, and still is considered a delicacy. Hides were prepared and shipped to the east and Europe for processing into leather. Remaining carcasses were, for the most part, left to rot. By the time nothing but bones remained, they too were gathered and shipped via rail to eastern destinations for processing into industrial carbon and fertilizer. By the 1890s with numbers nearing extinction, the bison 'gold rush' was over.

At the same time, the American government openly encouraged elimination of the Plains Indians' primary food source, the bison. In so doing, the Indians would be forced into relatively small areas, or north into Canada. In either situation, food sources were either scarce or non-existent. The results were starvation, and high infant mortality amongst the Indian populations. In the end the west was open to European settlement and the start of the western beef industry."

http://www.bisonbasics.com/history/past_future.html

And who could ever forget the Dodo?

[Gogee]

koala or no koala......asian customs disgust me.

smashing rabbits? eating live monkeys brains while they are gagged under a table? bird nests made from bird spit?

eating dogs and cats? whaling, eating panda genitals

bile farming from bears...

and they seem to think its acceptable because of the wild health claims they make......

wonder what they would think if we all started eating them alive!!!

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

WTF?! as others have said, just about every culture and custom in the world had things which people find disgusting...Australian culture included!!

You've made a really broad brush statement about "asian" customs....could you outline exactly which part of "asia" you are referring to, and what percentage of "asian" people "indulge" in this sort of "disgusting" behaviour??

I have read that in early australian history, the Aboriginals used to prefer the Chinese as they tasted like pork.

I have no idea WTF this statement has to do with anything...it borders on racism, thanks for lowering the tone of this thread Sheena.

I'm sure I taste like pork too, would you like a bite??

BTW, a native mammals specialist sitting next to me is rolling his eyes at the people who think that is a Koala in the cage.