A) BBC HORIZON DOCUMENTARY & B) INDIA: BIRD FLU January 17, 2008
Posted by arun in TV shows, happenings, thoughts.Tags: BBC Horizon, bird flu, brutal killing, catastrophe, chickens, documentary, epidemic, killing, perfect method, prevention, respect, techniques
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Aired January 15th, the documentary from BBC Horizon, “How to kill a human being?” narrated by Michael Portillo. The narration was ingenuous, sincere, legitimate and simple in its purview. With the amount of scientific innovations coming up every year, it definitely surprises one to find these vicious techniques still practiced as methods of execution. It would be unjust of me to write any further, as it would turn out to be a spoiler for the interested people and would also be demoralizing the efforts of the Horizon team. All I can say is, the documentary pellucidly portrays the amount of humaneness if any in the existing techniques in the process of killing a human being subjected to death punishment by trial and tries to find if there is a better way to perform it. A very good and a must see documentary!
Coming to the second topic in my title, the Bird Flu incident in India. Now, the iGoogle page certainly helps in keeping up to date with the current events with the aid of uber-cool gadgets. However, the more I see the more it makes me dull. I am already morose after being infected with dry cough for the past 2 days, a gift fulfilled on account of my excessive ranting over the fact that I pay for medical insurance and have not visited the doctor even once (for more than a year). The number of unpleasant incidents only grow in profuse, saturating your brain. I swigged my lukewarm tea as I clicked here and read about the Bird flu incident. Without digressing any further, quoting,
“Our objective is to cull up to 400,000 chickens and contain the virus from spreading at any cost.”
More than 300 veterinary workers and volunteers killed the birds by breaking their necks and in some cases stuffing them in gunny sacks and burying them alive. Eggs were also destroyed.
I totally understand the pandemic this has and will cause and its deleterious effects. However, is it really necessary to kill passel of those birds in this heinous manner? Anyone among us can avow this is definitely not the humane way to deal with. Catastrophes always catches us off-guard and these are sporadic events and will occur incessantly if not now, at a later point of time, if not this, some other incident, until every measure is taken to curb it completely. It is certainly an arduous task. If one were to blame time as an issue for retorting in this unfathomable manner, killing those birds brutally, it only exhibits the faltering safety measures. My purpose of adding the information regarding this documentary is to connote the adequate and inexpensive methodologies available and is even practiced for killing farm animals in a painless manner. How difficult would it be to be prepared by anticipating such disasters? Is it always necessary for some animal rights (in this case) or human rights commision (in some other cases) to goad the authorities concerned? Why follow these obstinate advocacies? Is this so imperceptible? I have no clue.
We genuflect in front of cows claiming it as a form of God. We have almost every animal and bird associated with a God. The least we can do is restrict our lethargic attitude and impudent behavior and if we have to kill them, then do it by inflicting minimum amount of pain. Scathing them and burying them alive is immoral!
Ah but kindness costs more money than being quick and brutal. The chickens and their families are in my prayers.
that was supposedly the essence of argument behind these brutal slayings. But using inert gas, the kill could be made by taking them to a state of euphoria, and killing them by hypoxia. the setup is not expensive, not difficult to make. well definitely not difficult to make compared to the technology for detecting the cruiser missiles!
You know gaskillings. It sounds a whole lot like a chicken holocaust. The problem is perhaps not even the brutal killings but the bird flu itself. Knowing how Indian Chicken are raised and kept. It could have been prevented. A brutal death versus a cruel life – perhaps they are better off.
But what am I saying. I’m such a hypocrite. I love Chicken. Chicken legs that is. yum. yum.
On a serious note: you’re right.
exactly my point. not taking safety measures and then killing these animals pointing “time” as a factor is idiotic.
chicken leg… I wouldnt know abt that
At least that is a part of the life cycle and we are made to believe that it is good. We are omnivores… and Crap… 
hmmm Crap… well to stick with your Wilde fetish. Yes! We’re all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.
They are culling infected birds in poor villages. There are no facilities to use inert gas. And I’m sure they don’t want to use any method that involves a lot of blood. It’s just not a good situation.
Unfortunately they are not telling the people that they shouldn’t eat or touch the birds. People are eating the sick birds, carrying dead birds with their bare hands, throwing them into ponds. Kids are touching the dead birds.
It will be a miracle if they do not have many people infected.
It’s just not a good situation. why? if we had adopted the same painless techniques practiced for killing them otherwise too, then it wouldn’t have been a problem at all, would it? and i am pretty sure its inexpensive and affordable.
Thank you for stopping by. however, your name doesn’t own a link. Are you on wordpress or do I know you somehow by any means?
No, I just came across your blog on birdflubreakingnews.com and was interested in your discussion. If you are limiting your discussions to people that you know I will understand though.
I live in the U.S. and am researching avian flu and pandemic flu. As people in my community find out that I’m interested in this, I’ve been getting questions from local planners, emergency response people, and a few doctors. (We are not getting much information from the government.)
There are so many areas in dealing with avian flu that sound easy to people doing the planning but turn out to be very complex to actually carry out. Maybe it’s that the people who are doing the planning aren’t thinking through the process.
I’ve never had a discussion about how to deal with the birds that need to be killed.
Do you think that some of the cullers are inexperienced and didn’t know how this should be done? Or do you think this was official policy?
I agree there’s no excuse for burying an animal alive. I’ve also seen pictures of birds being burned alive. It’s horrifying.
I am totally open to suggestions, comments, sarcasm, what not
. The documentary I had mentioned vividly portrays the state of Euphoria one could attain under Hypoxia conditions simulated under high pressure situations. It may not be commendable because the justice system for human beings itself need the punish (to harm) people by inflicting pain.
that aside, this is not the first time bird flu incident has happened. and even if it is not, already people eat flesh. The least you can do is consider the fact that they also realize pain and devise a painless way of killing them. I always thought continuous exposure of Chloroform is the best way to die!
. as it would be painless and ppl are put to sleep. But I am not so sure however after seeing this documentary. Its just that this thought itself never occurred!! It must.
It is not abt the inexperience (I am not sure). The system doesn’t care as long as the birds are killed and the pandemic is put to rest for the time being. Everybody want to satisfy the press, ease the tension. This is no permanent solution. But, in case this or similar incident were to happen again (also I mean the everyday culling of animals), we are better off than animals. How different are we if we show the same courtesy of killing these poor beings like that of other wild beasts???