File this under “Ewwwww”:

All over the world, wild creatures are being poached and slaughtered by the millions — to be eaten. Not in the meager kitchens of subsistence hunters, you understand, but by fork-twirling gluttons at the far ends of vast, criss-crossing, blood-encrusted international — and criminal –networks. It happens because in Chicago and New York and Paris and nearly everywhere, some folks would rather eat baboon than beef. It happens because, somewhere, it’s dinnertime — and for some, only forbidden flesh will do.

This AlterNet article, entitled “Endangered Species on the Grill: America’s Shocking Role as an Epicenter of the Black Market in Illegal Meat,” continues with gross details and commentary… leading me to believe there is a strong link between cannibalism and meat-eating in general:

• “Millions of animals die in slaughterhouses every year, and while those deaths gall some of us, the notion of slain apes and elephants sparks a more universal outrage, even among carnivores.”
• “The United States is one of the world’s largest, if not the largest, consuming nations for wildlife products.”
• “Import and export of endangered wildlife species, and products made from them, is just plain illegal in the United States. And much of the legislation stems from health concerns, as meat and poultry are notorious transmitters of deadly diseases that can infect human beings as well as livestock.”
• “The long list of maladies the USDA is striving to defend us (and the American livestock industry) from includes African swine fever, swine vesicular disease, rinderpest, foot-and-mouth disease, avian influenza (aka bird flu) and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (aka mad-cow disease).”
• “Chimpanzees [...] share 98 percent of our DNA. That’s exactly why many Africans — along with most people everywhere — shun ape meat [...] But it’s also exactly why so many crave it.”
• “Everything’s for sale, from puppies to bears“

Read the whole thing here >>

(Emphasis added)

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Sections: Vegan News
Topics: black market, cannibalism, disease, endangered species, illegal meat, meat, meat-eating, news, poaching, Vegan, wildlife