The sad lot of Hong Kong's slaughterhouse animals

Once again, images of chickens being grabbed by their wings and tossed into plastic bags to be gassed and sent to incinerators have hit our TV screens. This time, 20,000 birds were "culled" in Hong Kong, a convenient euphemism used by the government and media in place of "asphyxiated" or just plain, "killed". It is true that these birds, under normal circumstances, would soon have met a similar grim ending, albeit in the stomachs of Hong Kong consumers rather than incinerators; however, the wasted lives of this massive number of sentient beings underscores a sad reality and hypocrisy in the way society treats animals.

Watch: Hong Kong culls 20,000 chickens after H7N9 found

The need for the slaughter, of course, is to eradicate any chance of the birds passing on the H7N9 flu virus to humans. This time, one bird was found with the virus so 20,000 had to be killed. Past experience suggests this course of action is wise given the virulence of this virus, which last year killed about a third of the 144 people infected on the mainland. Another suspected avian virus causing the Spanish flu in 1918-19 killed 20 million people.

Clearly, our government is correct in taking no chances, and its offer to compensate the chicken farmers to cover their costs is appropriate. However, seldom discussed when another round of slaughter takes place is the moral cost of wasting the lives of myriad chickens, and the broader hypocrisy harboured in our treatment of animals.

Here in Hong Kong, frequent stories about the deliberate poisoning of dogs make headlines when a handful of pets are found dead. Their owners are rightfully outraged. Yet, before these dogs died, they were probably being fed the meat from farm animals called "pet food", for much of their lives. And in most cases, the chickens, pigs and cows that sacrificed their existence to end up in a can lived miserable lives.