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500 piglets burn to death in blaze

16 Comments

Around 500 piglets died after a wooden building they were in burned to the ground in Hokota, Ibaraki Prefecture, police and firefighters said Friday.

Police said they received an emergency call at around 7:30 p.m. Thursday reporting a fire and that "animals are burning," TV Asahi reported. Emergency services rushed to the scene to find the pigpen, belonging to 64-year-old farmer Hajime Suzuki, on fire.

Witnesses report that the building, around 440 square meters in size, was razed to the ground in the blaze. Due to the size of the structure and the extent of the fire, emergency services say it took roughly an hour to extinguish the flames. It is estimated that around 500 animals burned to death, according to TV Asahi.

Police are currently investigating the cause of the fire.

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16 Comments
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I'm a meat eater but I don't like to see animals kept in these kind of conditions.

But you eat the meat of animals kept in these conditions?

I'm willing to bet most people would actually prefer better quality meat

People want cheap meat, and lots of it. Tough if it means treating living animals like meat-production machines in brutal, cramped conditions. (-Seems to be the general consensus.)

-6 ( +0 / -6 )

Poor piglets :/ they might be animals but they still feel pain just like the rest of us. I'm a meat eater but I don't like to see animals kept in these kind of conditions.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

... I know we'll never, ever see that until we see the extinction of our own species...

That I would like to see! - though it would be mutually exclusive. :)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Seavey: "A strange thing to say since in so many countries factory farms are unheard of, mostly thanks to religion, especially Islam. Its also very pessimistic, as if humans have never managed to correct their ill behavior."

You mean like they are only barely starting to talk about alternatives to nuclear power plants despite what's STILL going on in Fukushima? Dude, we never learn from our mistakes until it's too late, and then we just look for slightly more elegant ways to repeat them. No one will bat an eye about the lives of the pigs lost, just about the profits and wondering about how much it'll cost to build an even more up to date, cost-effective factory farm.

It is pessimistic, I grant you that. I'm on my way to the convenience store as we speak because my glass is half empty and I want to fill it up with the same stuff I just consumed. But I'll consume that as well, and be the worse for it in the morning.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Poor little guys and gals. Factory farms should be outlawed... but I know we'll never, ever see that until we see the extinction of our own species, or near extinction, anyway.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

These are 500 piggies who will not go to market.

My home lies between the mountainous meat-producing and transportation-linked marketing areas of Kumamoto, so trucks packed with pigs passing through are not an uncommon sight (and don't drive behind one if you're even slightly olfactorally sentient). When my kids were young, I told them the little piggies were going on a field trip ("ensoku ni dekaketeruyo!")

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Man or beast, burning to death is a sad end.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Ooh poor little piglets... :(

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Meat is an essential part of the human diet.

Not on this scale.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Cleo, I think it's more complicated than you're making it out to be. It's the farms and companies that need to compete on price, so they do anything they can to produce the meat more cheaply. I'm willing to bet most people would actually prefer better quality meat, but companies race to the bottom in terms of price because people are generally hard up for money these days.

Meat is an essential part of the human diet. As a species we have no choice but to farm it. But it should be done in a humane manner.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Farm - Ibaraki Factory farming - bad Eating meat - environmentally unfriendly Dead pigs from fire - full insurance cover Pigs unfit for human consumption due to radiation - virtually no compensation

Expectation - more fires in the future, more suicides of organic farmers in the region

-3 ( +1 / -5 )

poor little piggies :(

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Maybe if we made these people live in the same building as their living packed meat boxes, conditions would improve and fire safety equipment would be installed?

Conditions won't be improved until people stop thinking they have a right to mountains of meat at rock-bottom prices, regardless of the suffering caused in producing that meat. Pigs and piglets need to have access to the outside, room to move around and snuffle under dead leaves looking for acorns. These pigs (and factory-farmed pigs across the world) were kept in cramped metal pens that may have served the farmer's needs but certainly did not serve the animals' needs.

A horrible end to a short and horrible life. Poor piglets.

0 ( +5 / -5 )

not allowing for walkways.

Or grain, hay or equipment storage. Or empty rooms. I am sure they had a lot less than one square meter per piglet. Maybe if we made these people live in the same building as their living packed meat boxes, conditions would improve and fire safety equipment would be installed?

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Not so long ago we had reports of hundreds of thousands of chickens burned alive in their cages when a factory farm in Ibaraki burned down.

440 square meters, 500 piglets - less than 1 square metre per piglet, not allowing for walkways. All so that folk can stuff their faces with cheap meat. It's shameful.

1 ( +8 / -7 )

Poor piglets, dying way before their time.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

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