Tesco have opened there first store in China and are selling LIVE Turtles. 70% of turtle species are critically endangered and Tesco are now selling hundreds of juveniles in tanks.

Here is a BBC video report, part of which shows the turtles in a Tesco store in China. Look at the larger turtles kept in the high level blue coloured tanks, then the smaller ones kept below. The turtles are kept in these brightly lit cramped conditions while they await their fate of being butchered alive. You can view the video here BBC News Player

Tesco butcher these turtles while they are still alive, with no pre stunning. The procedure used to butcher them is to cut the head off and then to crush it.

Until the head is correctly crushed, destroying the brain, the turtle can remain conscious throughout the procedure. If the head is not correctly crushed, the turtle's severed head can continue to remain conscious for up to an hour before it dies.

These turtles are known to move their neck and head with lightning speed and can easily withdraw into their shell ( shown HERE ). This can make the butchering task very unpredictable and far from easy, only prolonging the pain and suffering of the turtle while it is being butchered ALIVE.

I want pet turtles Can't they just send these turtles over here so people can keep them and be happy?

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That depends if you want a 1.5m long turtle which smells and could potentially kill you in 100 years time.

These turtles are 1.5m long??

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Oh my gosh
thats awful
fucking chinese (no offence to any chinese people)
fucking tesco

stories like this make me really angry...and sick.

another video showing how TESCO produce the turtle meat and then leave live turtles without there shells and organs to die slowly.
Flix55.com: Turtlesco — Fresh & Easy in the USA are TESCO who butcher turtles alive

Sign the petition guys!
Turtle Conservationist

I think we should protest those posh restaurants that kill lobsters, too.

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No these are baby ones. It doesn't state which type of turtle they are so I don't know how large these would grow in adulthood but most grow to at least a metre in length, some larger.

Innit weird how EVERYONE wants a turtle.

Don't worry, you have a better chance of offending HereKitty. I learned my lesson from the Dolphin thread.

I know lobster killing isn't funny, but this advert I do find rather tickles my funny bone:
YouTube - HEINEKEN FUNNY LOBSTER ADVERT

good god. thats so awful. i couldnt bear to read the whole post but what the fuck do they kill them for? soup?

Even though those turtles aren't very cute, I am the 7,453th person to sign the petition.

Yeah they are definately not, they've got the ugliness factor like terapins actually.
EDIT They are freshwater pig nosed turtles!

Yes for soup primavera. I feel like buying them all and settig them free. Tesco's response to critisism of selling them is that they are apparently 'farmed' and don't affect wild numbers, however turtles don't mate until they are roughly 25years old so I cannot see how this is true, or logical.
Its so wierd that the head can still be alive and consious after being cut off for an hour. I didn't know that was possible. Poor little guys.
It's going to be hard to boycott Tesco though

Thats so horrible

me too

their "response" is such a fucking cop out, do they honestly think that people out there dont know the facts. i dont know much about turtles or tortoises myself but i know that they are slow breeders & that often they live for up to 100 years and when the eggs are laid in the wild they often get eaten by other animals therefore few survive. people must be paying a lot for those animals (isnt turtle soup some kind of luxury food like frogs legs and caviar?) for tescos to have them in the first place...makes me sick what some people will do for money.

fuck the turtles, i want soup

I'd read somewhere that the french do the same thing only with frogs. They just chop off their legs and let them go.

Oh man, I thought you were talking about these turtles:



THAT would have been awesome.