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Clearing one's conscience

Ixion

Inquiring Mind
Ixion
Joined
Mar 26, 2008
Messages
2,431
Interesting article I came across. It is very short, but it brought up some thoughts. Not sure which sub-forum I should put it in though, so if a mod thinks it should go somewhere else, feel free to move it.

Basically, a restaurant in Mesa, Arizona (a suburb of Phoenix) decides to sell lion burgers. These burgers are made with a combination of beef and African lion meat. The restaurant owner feels bad about it and offers a cash donation to an animal rescue group and asks patrons to also donate to the rescue group.

The rescue group rejects the money because of how it was obtained.

Here is a link to the article:
Rescue group rejects cash from lion burger sales

So, several questions in my mind arose from this:
1. How difficult is it to obtain lion meat? Aren't African lions a threatened wildlife group?

2. Are there laws about the preparation and sale of exotic meats for consumption?

3. The amount of money offered was only $100 (I don't know how much he charged for a lion burger, but I expect it would be rather more than a typical beef burger). Should the restaurant owner have offered more, especially if he felt bad about selling the burgers?

4. Is this a good method of atonement (atone being loosely defined here)?

5. Should the rescue group have accepted the money, even if it was from a source they whole-heartedly disagreed with?

To me, this is a sticky situation, even without bringing in all sorts of slippery slope arguments. What do you think?
 
If he feels bad then he shouldn't have sold burgers with lion meat in them. I don't know what was going through his head but this seems simple to me.
 
I'm pretty sure selling lion meat in South Carolina would be illegal. How does this guy get it? Did a wholeseller approach him with lion meat or the pre-packaged burgers? Does he obtain the lion meat from overseas and make the burgers himself? Is it inspected by the US FDA?
 
It is legal to eat lion meat in the US but it is illegal to trade in it.
Where the heck did it come from?
 
Well, apparently (according to the CNN link that Cleon provided), a meat distributor outside of Chicago obtained it for the restaurant. The distributor claims that the animals were inspected by the USDA. However, the USDA states that lion meat falls under the jurisdiction of the FDA. Nevertheless, overall, it seems that no one seems to be too sure of trading lion meat. The distributor says the meat is a "by-product" of the lion because the animals are killed for fur. Smells like a loop-hole to me.
 
Ixion said:
Well, apparently (according to the CNN link that Cleon provided), a meat distributor outside of Chicago obtained it for the restaurant. The distributor claims that the animals were inspected by the USDA. However, the USDA states that lion meat falls under the jurisdiction of the FDA. Nevertheless, overall, it seems that no one seems to be too sure of trading lion meat. The distributor says the meat is a "by-product" of the lion because the animals are killed for fur. Smells like a loop-hole to me.
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It should be the FDA. Imported foods are inspected by the FDA. They should be able to clearly produce the paperwork to support this claim...shouldn't they?

Killing lions for fur is illegal and lion products are all illegal...how the heck is lion meat legal. The same laws apply to elephant byproducts, it is illegal to trade in ivory.
If there is a meat loophole, it definitely should be closed.
 
Something I've heard said is ''If you want to save a species from extinction, put it on the menu.''

All the rare breed farms in the UK that I've ever visited specialise in conserving certain breeds of pig or sheep or whatever, because they make such good eating.

If somebody discovered that a daily bowl of Crispy Fried Panda reduced cholesterol or some such, we'd find a way to make the buggers breed.
 
Naddig74 said:
Something I've heard said is ''If you want to save a species from extinction, put it on the menu.''

All the rare breed farms in the UK that I've ever visited specialise in conserving certain breeds of pig or sheep or whatever, because they make such good eating.

If somebody discovered that a daily bowl of Crispy Fried Panda reduced cholesterol or some such, we'd find a way to make the buggers breed.
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However wild animals are different from farm animals. An extreme example are sheep bred for wool. They need to be fleeced at least every few years or they will die. Wild sheep do not have this problem. A human breeder would not breed an animal that is hard to control, yet that is the sort of animal that will survive in the wild.
 
"Welcome to the mysterious world of back-alley exotic meat purveyance."

Feel free to browse around.​
 
This is silly beyond belief.
If the owner thinks he shouldn't be selling lion meat, he shouldn't sell it.
If he thinks it's okay, he shouldn't be trying to atone for doing something that he doesn't think is wrong.
 
kerikiwi said:
This is silly beyond belief.
If the owner thinks he shouldn't be selling lion meat, he shouldn't sell it.
If he thinks it's okay, he shouldn't be trying to atone for doing something that he doesn't think is wrong.
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It's a silly world.
I suspect the bad publicity may have something to do with his desire to repent.

Edit: Actually I think repent is the wrong word. A special dispensation from the animal rights activists is what he's after, I think.
 
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I have to agree with some of the comments above. If it is not illegal to eat lion meat, but it is illegal to sell it, then why hasn't there been any legal actions? The distributor was convicted in 2003 for such transactions and served a 6 month prison term. That doesn't excuse him from being convicted again of the same type of crime 7 years later.

Actually, it seems that this is because lion meat is not protected. The distributor's original sentence was for selling tiger and leopard meat, which is protected. This sounds like there needs to be a review of federally protected species.

I just love this quote from the distributor too:
Do you question where chickens come from when you go to Brown's Chicken or Boston Market?
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Just because people don't, doesn't mean they shouldn't. USDA regulates these meats. When food is not properly inspected, then problems arise. The recent E. coli outbreaks seemed to be linked to poor inspection of food-stuffs.

As for the restaurant owner, I agree that he only seems to be back-pedalling after the bad publicity.
 
There are many exotic game farms in the U.S. It's apparently legal to hunt them as ummm 'non-native species". Merely livestock getting slaughtered.

Source is everything. Wild shot game from Africa is pretty illegal to trade in. Texas game farms, something else.

And even under the CITEs treaty, if you legally shot an elephant, you can legally bring home, and possess, the ivory. I suppose that is where the 'illegal to trade' line comes in- legal to bring in your own meat, illegal to sell it to me.

ETA, there is a good business in trading with zoos for their excess inventory. Between zoos, to and from game farms. Do you think they cremate the remains, or sell meat by the pound?
 
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rjh01 said:
However wild animals are different from farm animals. An extreme example are sheep bred for wool. They need to be fleeced at least every few years or they will die. Wild sheep do not have this problem. A human breeder would not breed an animal that is hard to control, yet that is the sort of animal that will survive in the wild.
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My emphasis.

What is it that kills these sheep "bred for wool"?

You seem to know something about the subject so can you tell me how "wild sheep" differ in that they have somehow split from their sheep brethren and can survive non fleecing "at least every few years"
 
bluesjnr said:
My emphasis.

What is it that kills these sheep "bred for wool"?

You seem to know something about the subject so can you tell me how "wild sheep" differ in that they have somehow split from their sheep brethren and can survive non fleecing "at least every few years"
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Sheep bred for wool become extremely heavily burdened with fleece when not shorn regularly. They eventually can barely walk, and are subject to extreme heat stress.
 
Sounds yummy. What's the big deal? If you don't eat lion meat then you're a pussy. ****, I eat rhino. I eat dolphin. You can eat my words. I have guns. I **** a lot of women. I've ****ed your mom. More than once. I put beagle meat on my bagels. I have "manly man" tattooed on my cock. Your mom ate my words.
 
Cain said:
Sounds yummy. What's the big deal? If you don't eat lion meat then you're a pussy. ****, I eat rhino. I eat dolphin. You can eat my words. I have guns. I **** a lot of women. I've ****ed your mom. More than once. I put beagle meat on my bagels. I have "manly man" tattooed on my cock. Your mom ate my words.
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Well, the thread drifted a bit. I didn't mean it as "Should lions be eaten?", which is where it seemed to go. My original intent was "Is paying an animal rescue group to clear one's conscience of eating a threatened species an appropriate way to atone?" and "Should the rescue group take the money, or were they right to refuse it?"
 
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