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Right across the San Francisco Bay Area are dozens of live markets where animals are sold live or slaughtered and sold right to customers. Undercover investigators with Animal Outlook recently visited 18 live markers in San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland and were shocked by what they saw.

These live markets are located in plain sight. They sit among homes and neighborhood shopping centers, and children walk past them on the way to school. The investigators took hidden cameras to make sure that existing animal welfare laws were being enforced. They also hope to call attention to these inhumane markets that people might see every day but don’t give a second thought to what’s happening there.

Source: Animal Outlook/Youtube

According to investigators, when they visited these 18 live markets, they discovered numerous inhumane practices including:

  • A live turtle having their head chopped off with a butcher knife in front of other animals.
  • Fish being bludgeoned before being dismembered, and if they’re still moving being hit multiple times with a club or the flat side of a knife.
  • Frogs kept in a tub with no water or a small amount of dirty water, and softshell turtles in tubs with no water.
  • Fish swimming weakly upside down in small, shallow plastic containers, and fish attempting to swim in small tanks surrounded by dead and dying animals.
  • Fish left to suffocate out of water.
  • Fish with visible wounds.
  • Animals, once purchased, being put into plastic bags while still alive, prolonging their suffering.

These live markets are a nightmare for animals. These poor creatures are kept in crowded tanks and cages, slaughtered mercilessly, and even placed in plastic bags where they suffocate.

Not only are these live markets a horrible place for animals, but they are also breeding grounds for bacteria and viruses. The WHO has even called for a ban on live wild animal markets after scientists identified a local live market in Wuhan, China as the origin of the coronavirus. According to Animal Outlook, because of the mix of different species in close proximity at these markets, zoonotic diseases can spread quickly.

These markets are not hidden like most cruel factory farms. They are right under our noses, and no one is doing anything about it.

Sign this petition demanding an end to live animal markets in the United States.

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