A crayfish is a smaller version of a lobster in New Zealand. The Crayfish and The Albion Hotel is in the centre of what you may call a storm in a tea cup.
Those of you may have been to fun arcades and tried your luck in the "Catch a soft toy" machine. Apparently, the machine is programmed such a way that a toy is "caught every thirty times of attempt.
Today, a group of animal lovers are targeting the Albion Hotel over a "Catch a Gray". People pay $3 for a try to catch a cray inside the tank of water. The claws catch the cray out of the water, but always drop the cray fish back in the water. The lucky 30th punter gets the cray. He either sends it back to the kitchen to have it cooked or he has it packed and taken home.
Nothing wrong, according to the operator. Not so simple, according the animal lovers. Apparently, the guys who catch the cray usually chase their girl friends round the hotel,among laughter and screaming of the hotel clients. They even throw the cray to one another and this is extremely cruel to the cray.
Thee water engineer worked as a cleaner in this pub aka hotel during his university days. It was the most awful job he had. There is no need to be a rocket scientist to know why. You can imagine drunks puking everywhere. A good thing to teach our kids that we didn't have things handed to us on a silver platter. Whenever we drive past this hotel, I always tell this story to the kids.
The Albion, built in 1873, is one of New Zealand’s oldest hotels. Itis located in the heart of Auckland City. It is a pity that it has ridden itself with such controversy. The proprietor is going to take the group S.A.F.E. to court.
An elderly American tourist was going to join the fun, and was happy to appear on Television. After talking to the reporter, admitted she had not thought of the stress issue and decided she didn't want to catch any more cray fish this way.
7 comments:
Yeah...when killing a chicken to eat we also need to slaughter humanely.
I hate listening to pigs screaming when they are being killed in the abattoir. Good thing I don't live near one now and farms are far away.
I once saw a mother shark being cut up and the baby sharks floated out of the open stomach in the Miri market. People coldly watched. My children cried..."Imagine it is you mama...." And I wished I had a digital camera then. Better still a video camera...No one stopped the fishmonger. No big deal he said.
I am not sure if I have eaten them before. Yes, I agree on the humanely way to kill them...though nowadays, i eat beef so much lesser..after I saw one program on how they killed cows. Not eating much chicken either..but cant say dont eat, just eat lesser..Come over and see my CNY post! wish you were here for sure :)
caught every thirty times of attempt? oic, that's the trick there.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10625145
SPCA blocks contentious crayfish game
Updated 6:21 PM Tuesday Feb 9, 2010
The Auckland SPCA has warned its inspectors will take a police escort to close down an arcade game involving live crayfish if it does not get co-operation from pub managers.
The SPCA today said it would close down several games in pubs in Auckland where patrons paid to try to catch live crayfish in a tank using a metal claw.
The animal welfare organisation would visit the three pubs it knew of in Auckland running the game and would make the games inoperable. Other outlets around the country would face similar action.
Soon after the SPCA announced what it was doing, one of the pubs, The Albion in inner city Auckland, said it would not close down the game and had not been visited by the SPCA.
Hotel manager Andrew Jackson said the crayfish were not being abused and the machines would not be shut down.
The national animal advocacy organisation Safe said seven bars had removed the machines after animal welfare complaints from patrons but "some bars have taken a more defiant position".
I think its cruel Ann and hope the authorities stop them. - Dave
I am always amazed how people always use animals, most of the time in a cruel way to entertain themselves in a stupid, thoughtless way. Disgusting behaviour.
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