These Kombucha sipping liberals have gone too far! http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/...s-peta?utm_source=slashdot&utm_medium=twitter "PETA believes Nintendo's iconic plumber Mario takes a 'pro fur' stance" because he 'wears the skin of a raccoon dog to give him special powers' in the new handheld game released Nov. 13. PETA illustrated its disgust with Nintendo in an online campaign called 'Mario Kills Tanooki.' The page includes a side-scrolling Super Mario-style game called 'Super Tanooki Skin 2D,' where you play an angry, skinless tanuki that must chase a bloody raccoon-pelt-wearing-Mario across a 16-bit world and try to reclaim its fur."
Typically I hate PETA's tactics, but this time they seem oddly on point. Until this came out I didn't even know about Tanuki raccoon dogs, or that their numbers are dwindling mainly due to the fur trade, which is one PETA goal that started the organization in the first place. I may not agree with the fur trade being a big deal (unless endangerment of species are involved) but I would respect PETA a lot more for this type of introduction or awareness.
Did they forget about Mario's other animal abuse for decades? Where was PETA, when Mario was killing turtles by jumping on their shells and shooting fireballs at them? Hmmm....
And Mario started wearing the raccoon suit around 1990, right? I see they didn't object to the frog suit. **** those frogs. PETA is really with the times, aren't they?
The difference is that people don't skin frogs to wear them. Tanuki abuse is a real thing in Asia. Now, there isn't really a damn thing Americans can do about it, either. I'm just saying that PETA brought this to people's attention, similar to shark fins, and the like.
Don't people have to break turtle shells to make turtle soup and and kill frogs for frog legs though?
So are lots of things that civilized people have given up. And yeah, I've had turtle soup (made from real Loggerhead!) and shark fin soup and a few other regrettable choices.... What is it with Asian culture and Eastern medicine that requires the wanton slaughter of various endangered animals?
Because once upon a time these animals weren't endangered. But more efficient fishing/hunting, plus increasing wealth, means that more people demand them and more people can extract them from natural resources. Unsurprisingly culture is a lot harder to change than the number of certain species left in the wild. Plus, often there are just more pressing issues to deal with than animal conservation, as important as that it. If you have 20 million to spend as a government, and on the one hand you can use it increase wildlife protection, or, as a developing country, you can use that 20 million for additional primary education, food subsidisation, and building clinics and hospitals, what would you, as a governmetn do?
