For detailed information on Ratites please read
www.bwcindia.org/Web/Awareness/LearnAbout/Ratites.html

Fish

Sushi is commonly known Japanese preparation: it consists of a rice ball made with vinegar in which a raw fish/seafood is placed. A 2017 study published in the British Medical Journal Case Reports stated that sushi’s popularity in the West could be linked to a rise in parasitic infections.

Fugu or puffer fish is a deadly delicacy of Japan. So much so that chefs undergo extensive training in preparing it and have to themselves taste the fish before serving.

Ikizukuri is also a Japanese delicacy. The fish is served live in order to prove how fresh it is. The fish is tortured to death on the plate. It endures great suffering with amputation after amputation – bits are cut off and eaten.

Yin Yang is a fish that is deep fried for no more than a few seconds – i.e. its skin in scalded but served alive. Although Taiwanese, it is prohibited in Taiwan and also in Australia and Germany.

In 2007 Beauty Without Cruelty began writing protest letters to the Government about pâté de foie gras (paste made of diseased liver of ducks, geese or guinea fowls) imported from France and sold in India.

A few years ago, as a result of Beauty Without Cruelty’s presentations depicting force feeding of geese to produce foie gras, the Sevilla at Hotel Claridges and Smoke House Grill, high-end restaurants in Delhi, struck it off their menus. Dorabjee & Co Pune’s leading department store stopped stocking it and Air India stopped serving it to their First Class passengers in 2008. But many others continued to import, sell and serve it. For example, top restaurants like the Taj Mahal hotel refused to take it off their menu.

Foie gras has been banned in many countries: Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, Israel and Argentina. And, in July 2012 American animal activists managed to ban its sales in California; earlier the cities of Chicago and San Diego banned it. Beauty Without Cruelty therefore hoped that the Government of India would also ban it. Eventually, that’s what happened: BWC wrote to the then new Prime Minister, in response to which the Government of India promptly prohibited the import of Foie Gras in July 2014.

Despite this, a March 2018 Indian Express food review of the Baoshuan restaurant at the Oberoi, New Delhi recommended “Cantonese honey roast pork with grated foie gras” as a must try dish. BWC wrote to the General Manager informing him that the import of Foie Gras was banned by the Government of India in 2014 (a BWC achievement) and since it was not allowed to be produced in India, serving it was illegal. We also sent a flyer depicting how ducks were force fed several times a day with a funnel pushed down their throats till such time as their livers get 10 times their normal size. They were then slaughtered and their diseased livers turned into a paste called Foie Gras. A week later the Oberoi e-mailed BWC that “we would like to state that Foie Gras is no longer served at our establishment."

Foie gras is produced in France, Hungary, Bulgaria, USA, Canada, China, Belgium and Spain. In 2014 with the view of dodging China’s ban on import of foie gras, a French firm set up a farm to produce it within the country.

Beauty Without Cruelty relentlessly spent over a decade convincing the Government of India to stop exporting frogs’ legs, an exotic food (French cuisine) in the West. The ban finally came into force in 1987 when BWC publicly appealed to the late Bhajan Lalji, the then Union Minister for Environment & Forests, at a political rally in Mukkam (Rajasthan) and put pressure upon him via the Bishnoi community. (For decades the Bombay Natural History Society and the Blue Cross, Madras, had also been campaigning for the ban, but this strategy by BWC eventually worked.) Facts such as the barbaric manner in which the frogs’ hind legs were chopped off and the ecological imbalance created were stressed.

Beauty Without Cruelty has heard of frogs’ legs being served all year round at certain big restaurants of Goa who stockpile them in their freezers by purchasing live frogs from village youth for amounts ranging from Rs 75 to 250 each. They are sold as “jumping chicken” but every one knows it is frog meat. Also, in Kerala frogs’ legs are an illegal delicacy but fried and served by the innumerable toddy and arrack (liquor) shops particularly in central parts of the state. And, live frogs are sold in Dimapur, Nagaland because Nagas relish them, saying they taste like chicken. Frogs’ legs are eaten by the Sikkimese too.

For detailed information on frogs please read
http://www.bwcindia.org/Web/Awareness/LearnAbout/Frogs.html

For detailed information on honey please read
www.bwcindia.org/Web/Awareness/LearnAbout/HoneyandotherBeeProducts.html

Kopi Luwak is civet coffee – famous in Indonesia. (Kopi is coffee and Luwak Asian palm civet – a small mongoose like creature, also called toddy cat.) It is brewed from the coffee beans (typically Arabica or Robusta variety) that civets excrete after eating pulpy, ripe coffee berries which the cats supposedly love to consume. Collecting and salvaging the excreted beans from wild civets is so laborious that civet coffee, known for centuries, has been very costly to produce. But, cruel battery-cage civet farming in coffee-growing areas has, due to mass-production, brought down the price of civet coffee making it a little cheaper, but expensive nevertheless. Each civet is jailed in a 2x1½ metre dark wooden cage with cement flooring. Since authentic Kopi Luwak fetches $50 online for a sample of 2 ounces, scientists have developed a test to determine it has not been mixed with other coffee beans. However there is no way of knowing if the Kopi Luwak is from farmed or wild civets. Undercover investigations have revealed that farmed coffee is passed off as wild coffee because it commands a higher price.

Sumatra, Jawa, Bali, Sulawesi, Philippines and Vietnam as well as some parts of Africa, are places where Kopi Luwak is also produced. In the Philippines the palm civet is not known as Luwak but Alamid so the final product is called Kape Alamid. In Vietnam, weasels eat the coffee berries but the difference is that they regurgitate (bring up) the beans in the forest from where they are collected, then processed and marketed as Weasel Coffee or cà phê Chồn in Vietnamese.

India is no better! An estate in Siddapur, Coorg is investigating extraction of coffee seeds from elephant dung.

As if this were not enough, Kari Beck or Beckoo in Kanada, the Indian version of Kopi Luwak is sold mainly to hotels at Rs 15,000/- to Rs 20,000/- a kilogram. Estates in Biligiri Rangan Hills of Chamarajanagar district in Karnataka have begun gathering civet cat droppings, washing and processing them during the end of the harvest season when the wild civets visit coffee plantations. (Luckily the marapatti (meaning tree dog but actually the civet cat) of Kerala has not been exploited thus simply because it is detested due to its unbearable stink.)

We should not forget that when a small commercial venture of less than 4 kilograms starts doing well and is so paying as in this case, marketing will make demand definitely increase. That’s when the animals are bound to be bred and fed in captivity – let’s face it, no businessman is going to patiently wait for wild animals to visit his plantation, eat the coffee beans and shit! No wonder, in September 2014, two palm civets that had been hunted in the Maadhalli Reserve Forest and kept in a cage at Mysuru, were confiscated and the owner arrested. (Of the 4 civets found in the state, 3 are under Schedule II, and the Malabar Civet is placed under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act.)

Our apprehensions were right… in 2017 a start-up firm, Coorg Consolidated Commodities, under the brand name of Ainmane, began selling civet coffee alongside local spices at the Club Mahindra Madikeri Resort. This Coorg Luwark Coffee will be promoted alongside Cappuccino, Expresso and other varieties at their café. Luckily they are unable to export due to their low production and high cost for the necessary certification. But, for how long we wonder will they continue this way gathering coffee beans from the civet poop deposited on plantations near forest areas and not farm civet cats in cages to easily gather their droppings.

Panda tea, said to have a mature and nutty taste, is grown from the excrement obtained from a panda breeding centre in China.

Octopuses

Every one remembers Paul the oracle octopus who possessed psychic powers. No doubt, the species are highly intelligent – in fact, the most intelligent among invertebrates.

The octopus is a cephalopod mollusc. It has a beak with its mouth at the centre point of its arms which are boneless. There is scientific evidence that octopuses experience pain, suffering, distress and lasting harm.

Octopuses live in abandoned shells or even empty cans. Believe it or not, babies are so innocent and fearless that they permit to be touched smooth and close their eyes in pleasure, and, just like cats, they are happy to rub themselves against human legs.

White colour “attracts” octopuses (like red for bulls) so hunters show them a white cloth and lure them out of hiding. When suddenly stabbed with a long sharp knife between their eyes, they squirt venomous ink. They are then beaten, literally 100 times, to death so their flesh gets tenderized. A Master Chef TV cookery show had a contestant objecting to beating the creature but was forced to continue.

Octopuses feature in Japanese, Hawaiian and Portuguese and Korean cuisine where they are some times sliced up and eaten alive while still squirming on the plate. For a South Korean dish called Sannakji the octopus is washed, cut up and served with the tentacles still wriggling. A variation includes consuming a living baby octopus. Incidentally, the suction cups on the tentacles can stick to the human food pipe!

Despite strong objections from animal activists, an aquaculture octopus farm has being established and is expanding (to produce nearly 3,000 tons of octopus annually) in the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago located in the Atlantic Ocean. Millions of these intelligent creatures are bred and painfully killed by being frozen alive.

Fisherwomen of Sindhudurg on the Konkan coast who undertake crab farming as mentioned above, are also interested in oyster farming. The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) says the demand for crabs and oysters is on the rise. Way back in the 1970s the CMFRI developed the oyster culture technology but it was not put to use till Maharashtra decided on doing so at Sindhudurg. Thus bivalve farming projects began in Wadatar, Taramumbri, Achra and Devbag villages along the coast. Like crabs, oysters do not need to be fed. Bamboo poles were erected in the creeks and empty oyster shells strung up on ropes. These make resting places for oysters so that they can collect here instead of flowing away into the sea. The estimated production from a single raft of 150 sqm is 187 kgs in 15 months. In the first round 6,000 oysters were killed for 125 kgs of meat worth Rs 50,000/-.

Quail meat is also eaten across North India covering Punjab, Rajasthan and Bihar, particularly during winter although its consumption is fast increasing in other parts of the country like Telangana. And, in North-East India, Japanese Quails are found in the wild.

Then in 1997, realising that Japanese quails (Coturnix japonica) were protected under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 (WLP Act), the Ministry of Agriculture requested the Ministry of Environment & Forests to delete the specie from the purview of the WLP Act. Although they refused to do so because the birds were found in the wild in North East India, atrociously bending laws in the interest of quail farming, the two Ministries decided to delegate the power of issuing licences for Japanese quail hatcheries to the Officer of the Department of Animal Husbandry, Government of India, under the WLP Act.

There was no difference between farmed quails and those poached from the wild listed as an endangered species. Since it was difficult for an untrained person to differentiate between hybrid and wild bustard quail/bater/lava, almost all Chandrapur restaurants began serving the so-called tastier flesh of the small, “protected” wild bird, hunted and supplied by the Pardhi community of Maharashtra. The hybrid variety, which came from the poultry farms of Nagpur were legally sold, so, if questioned by the Forest Department, restauranteurs said the quails they were serving were not from the wild.

Unfortunately, the Union Ministry of Environment & Forests’ directive to totally ban quail farming and close down all quail farms was not implemented. As the saying goes, the left hand knew not what the right hand was doing because the Animal Husbandry Departments under the Union Ministry of Agriculture were on one hand promoting Japanese quail farming, whereas on the other hand the Union Ministry of Environment had imposed a ban on it.

Consequently, in February 2012 the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, in response to an NGO challenging the Union Ministry of Environment & Forests’ above mentioned circular order, restrained the Ministry from interfering in the business of quail farming since the Japanese quail germplasm was being supplied to farmers by the CARI and quail farming was being promoted by NABARD and ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) for commercial production.

Eventually, in December 2013 a Notification was issued by the Union Ministry of Environment & Forests making an exception regarding quails as listed under Schedule IV of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, so that entry No 57 read “Quails (Rhasiandae) – except Coturnix japonica (Japanese Quails) of farm bred variety.”

As a result of this permission, rearing of Japanese Quails, locally called Kamju Pitta in places like Khamman district of Telangana and Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, has since flourished and continues to expand as backyard farms of villages from where quails’ eggs and meat are supplied to traders and restaurants. In fact, a number of outlets sell live quail birds, frozen quail meat and quail eggs. Similarly, a number of quail farms have sprung up in and around Bengaluru. Quails are known here as gowjala hakki.

For detailed information on Quails please read

Sharks’ fins are derived by “finning” or cutting off fins from live sharks. Shark meat is worth much less than the fins and so the fin-less sharks are usually thrown back into the ocean – fishermen need space in their boats to collect more fins. Unable to move, the sharks sink to the ocean floor or are consumed by other sea creatures. Weight-wise fins are 7%, but value-wise 40% of the shark.

A ban imposed in 2001 by the Union Ministry of Environment & Forests was partially lifted soon after due to pressure from the industry. The loop hole for the flourishing trade in sharks’ fins was that some shark species were allowed whereas some were banned and the fishermen did not know the difference although they sold the fins they cut off to exporters for a pittance. Consequently one found shark fin soup on high-end Indian restaurant menus, especially in Goa. But overall consumption of shark fins was never high in India. This indicated illegal export: quantities of shark fins exported from India did not match the annual catch of over 70,000 tonnes.

The good news however was that in 2006 Morari Bapu, the Guru famous for his Ram Kathas, appealed to the Kharwa community to stop catching sharks and they abided by his request. He told them that the sharks migrated to the Arabian Sea to breed just like a daughter came home to give birth. Each year when they visited between January and March, around 250 sharks used to be killed off the coast of Saurashtra by fishermen who modified their boats to carry harpoons weighing 8 to 10 kgs and ropes were tied to empty plastic barrels. The Veraval and Bhidiya harbour used to turn red with their blood. Fins were not the only attraction for these fishermen because export firms would pay them up to Rs 1 lakh for a 40 foot whale shark weighing 8 to 10 tonnes. Liver (from which oil is extracted) and meat was also bought.

Gujarat celebrated its first Whale Shark Day on 25 January 2011 after having till then rescued 240 vhali or whale sharks. Although a decade back these creatures were brutally hunted for their liver oil to waterproof boats and their meat was exported, for some years, conservation initiatives had been put in place to the extent that the state government provides relief for the loss of fishing nets up to Rs 25,000/- and Tata Chemicals Ltd funds the project.

Tamil Nadu and Andaman & Nicobar Islands also fish sharks. In mid-2011, Traffic stated that indiscriminate shark-fishing in Indian waters to feed markets abroad may be driving the shark to extinction. 18 of the 70 shark species found in India and of these several including the Ganges Shark and Pondicherry Shark were critically endangered. India was ranked second (was third in 2008) on a list of the top 20 shark-catching nations. Indonesia accounted for 13%, India 9%, and Spain 7.3% of the global catch.

Meanwhile on cruelty grounds (an estimated 73 million sharks are killed annually by the horrific practice of “finning”) 65 countries banned “finning”. Several states in America have passed laws banning the sale, trading, distribution and possession of shark fins, while similar legislation is pending in some of their other states.

In 2014 Etihad Airways and Jet Airways promised not to carry shark fin cargo. The Emirates, Philippines Airlines, Asiana Airlines, Quantas and Air New Zealand had already stopped doing so.

In 2011 BWC wrote to the Ministry of Environment & Forests saying the Government of India also needed to protect sharks by imposing a ban on fishing, catching, killing, “finning” and consumption of shark products in India, and for export.

Two years later, in August 2013, in a bold move (given that India was one of the highest shark-hunting nations) the Government announced a ban on “finning” sharks at sea – meaning they must be landed with their fins. The Ministry of Environment & Forests declared: “The policy prescribes that any possession of shark fins that are not naturally attached to the body of the shark would amount to “hunting” of a Schedule I species…” Therefore, fishermen found with fins risked a 7-year prison sentence for hunting an endangered species. Again this attracted a number of objections like the earlier short-lived 2001 blanket ban on catching sharks.

No wonder sharks continued to be caught and their dried and salted fins and flesh sold by numerous companies openly on indiamart.com, tradeindia.com, etc. Their skin is processed into leather and oil is extracted from their livers. And to top it off Taiwanese, Cantonese and similar cuisine restaurants in the capital served shark fin soup! These facts were passed on to the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau by BWC in 2014.

BWC was glad to have been instrumental in influencing the Government of India to prohibit the import of shark fins, and the export of shark fins of all species of shark in February 2015.

Fried or boiled silk worms are consumed as a winter snack in Meghalaya. The eri/era worms which produce Assam silk and are known in the Khasi-Jaintia Hills as Niang Ryndia from which the Ryndia shawls worn by men there are made, are the particular variety of worms that are eaten. They are sold by worm-vendors in Lewduh (Bara Bazaar), one of the biggest markets of the North East. The cooked silk worm pupas or eri polu in Assamese are served with fermented bamboo shoots called khorisa. Whereas fried polu leta (silkworm chrysalis) is considered Assam’s star dish. In Assam jikaburi (a grasshopper-like insect) found in fish ponds are also considered a delicacy, and ants as well as their eggs are eaten during festivals. In fact, 29 species of insects are regularly dried and consumed by the Bodos: caterpillars, termites, grasshoppers, crickets and beetles. The Assamese also consider johamol or civet cats a delicacy.

Beondegi or boiled silkworm chrysalis/pupae are commonly sold on the streets of Korea. Witchetty grubs are larvae which feed on the wood and roots of the Witchetty bush of Australia. They are eaten by Aboriginals and are also used as fishing bait. Palm grubs are edible weevil larvae. Mealworm is a worm, and Mopainie worms are caterpillars.

In 2023 Odisha got the Geographical Indication (GI) tag for Kai chutney made from red weaver ants found commonly in the forests of Mayurbhanj. Ants and their eggs are gathered from their nests and cleaned before using. The chutney is made by grinding them along with a mixture of salt, ginger, garlic and chilli.

Ants and their eggs are not only eaten in Odisha but also in Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam, but in several other parts of India. Leaf bundles of ants’ eggs are sold at tribal fairs in Bihar. The Dhruva tribe in Chattisgarh consume red ants: they ambush, handpick and grind them to death along with their eggs together with spices to make chutney called chaprah. Similarly, in Jharkhand especially at Chaibasa a spicy condiment made of red ants is consumed. The Adi people of Arunachal Pradesh also eat ant eggs, bee larvae and a stink bug called koroi puk. In Brazil, icas or queen ants are hunted and consumed as a rare delicacy. Mexicans call the larvae of ants that they eat escamoles.

All these creatures, and grasshoppers, crickets, locusts, cicadas, beetles, bugs, bees, wasps, termites, dragonflies, flies, beetles, cockroaches and other insects, butterflies and moths included, are eaten some where around the world. Globally, the most commonly consumed insects are beetles (31%), caterpillars (18%), bees, wasps and ants (14%), grasshoppers, locusts and crickets (13%), cicadas, leafhoppers, plant-hoppers, scale insects and true bugs (10%), termites (3%), dragonflies (3%), flies (2%) and miscellaneous others (5%).

Indians who have tasted such street-food in Thailand say the insects taste just like fried bhindi or ladies fingers. Thailand is famous for “the original cricket bar”.

Laithwaite’s Wine of UK created the world’s first insect and wine-matching guide, while Belgium (the first in the EU) officially approved insects in food following which a mealworm spread is sold in supermarkets. And, in America grasshopper tacos and silkworm soup are marketed as “super-foods”.

Unfortunately attention drawing articles of bizarre foods periodically appear in Indian publications. For example, one showed the picture of a chocolate-dipped grasshopper. Another article showcased Sardinian casu marzu, a cheese that contains live maggots said to leap into the eyes of the person eating it – moreover if consumed, these maggots are poisonous.

Escargot (pronounced es-ka-go) is French for snails and is one of the highlights of French gastronomy imported into India. The snails are “hygienically grown” being fed on a special diet of ground cereal, then “cleaned and gutted and made ready for cooking” in garlic butter with parsley and wine or cognac. Escargot caviar or pearls of Aphrodite consists of processed (pasteurised to preserve) eggs of land snails.

In fact, heliciculture or land snail breeding has for centuries been producing escargots and escargot-pearls (snail eggs, a type of caviar) popularly eaten in France. But a high demand for snail slime used as an ingredient in cosmetics has resulted in a 325% rise in production of snails in Italy alone where 44,000 tons of snails are bred annually.

Closer home Nagas consume river snails which are cooked with daal and sucked. They are purchased by the kilogram from the Dimapur bazaar.

Manipuri cuisine also includes river (fresh water) snails. Their “faces” are individually scooped out and discarded. This is followed by cutting off their tapering ends on the third ridge or band so their meat can be sucked out easily. Then to kill them they are placed in a pot, a large quantity of salt is dumped on them and water is poured so they get submerged in the solution. After some time they are thoroughly rinsed, only after which they are said to be clean enough or ready for cooking.

The Central Inland Capture Fisheries Research Institute also sees nothing wrong in breeding Giant African Snails (an invasive species in India) so that they can be converted into “gastronomic delights”. This is another form of exploitation ending in two thousand snails being packed into a one square metre tray without any nourishment for two to three days for their final journey to the place where they are to be killed for food.

For detailed information on snails please read www.bwcindia.org/Web/Awareness/LearnAbout/Snails.html

Beauty Without Cruelty has confirmed from the Forest Department officials that the nests of Indian swiftlets or swift birds were removed from remote caves in places like an island off Vengurla in Sindhudurg (Maharashtra) along the western coast of India and illegally smuggled out from Chennai. Poaching of nests had resulted in an 80% decline in the swift birds’ population because more often than not chicks and eggs are thrown out.

These nests made of saliva are turned into soup – bird’s nest soup – a rare delicacy in Chinese cuisine and one of the most expensive animal products consumed by humans – a bowl of soup is sold for around Rs 3,000/-. Male swift birds have a gelatinous substance in their saliva which they use to build their nests and this is why the bird’s nest soup is perceived to be an aphrodisiac and also said to boost immunity. Shockingly, there was an article in a leading newspaper by an Indian dermatologist promoting edible bird’s nests consumption.

In 2008, Beauty Without Cruelty requested the Indian Customs authorities to intercept the smugglers. Consequently we were shocked when the National Board of Wildlife de-listed the “edible nest swiftlet” found in the Andaman & Nicobar Island, from the Wildlife Protection Act for three years commencing August 2009. The justification for legalising this activity, thereby helping poachers, seemed ridiculous: how would the authorities ensure that the nests, which fetch between Rs 1.50 to 7 lakhs per kilogram in international markets, would not be stolen and the eggs or chicks contained therein thrown out, before the birds vacated them voluntarily? BWC therefore felt that de-listing was bound to encourage the sale and consumption of these nests while commercially benefiting poachers posing as protectors. Poaching did continue to occur, but only in places where the unique conservation plan was not in force.

Trout and Carp

Several restaurants in major cities of India have trout on their menus. In Jammu and Kashmir trout and carp fish are being farmed since about 2008. Tourists are taken for a fortnight on a special tour to trout and carp fish farms in Himachal Pradesh. Initially the mandate of these farms was to produce the seed and stock in rivers and reservoirs with the aim of replenishing fish in the water bodies, but now the fish are bred for sale.

Truffles

The use of pigs and dogs does not absolve the end product from being free of animal exploitation. The vegetarian-ness of truffles is therefore questionable.

It is believed that the natural hormones of the male pig and the truffle smell alike. A female pig is therefore trained on a leash to locate truffles as much as three feet underground. They are called truffle hogs. Similarly there are truffle hounds or dogs, also trained to locate truffles. Truffle hunting dog schools exist.

Truffles are a seasonal delicacy, typically available in October, November and December. Alba’s white truffles are more expensive than Périgord black truffles. Although the price of white fell considerably, in 2014 they cost as much as €220 for 100 grams in Italy.

Truffles are usually fried in goose fat and used as a condiment for potatoes/eggs. And in recent years they have been introduced as a topping on pizza.