Giant African Bush Rat
Customs officials have confiscated the luggage of an American man who was attempting to smuggle 19 pounds of rat meat into the country from Africa.
The unpreserved meat, known simply as Bush Meat, comes from wild species in Africa, legal or illegal and includes antelope, elephant, monkey, and rodents. Authorities consider it to be a potential carrier of zoonotic, or animal-to-human, viruses like Ebola, HIV or monkeypox, and have banned its importation into the States.
Cane rat was was added to the ban list in June 2003, after the African rodent species were found to be responsible for an outbreak of monkeypox.
“This gentleman was carrying a lot of stuff,” said the chief agricultural specialist of the Customs and Border Protection service, Basil Liakakos. “He had no clothes, only food,” in the suitcases. Packed along with the Bush Meat inside the man’s three suitcases were various dairy products and fruit.
African Cane Rat
This marks the 6th seizure of illegal importation of Bush Meat into the States since last October. Last year, 88 pounds of Bush Meat was confiscated, including small bats and monkey heads.
The man was caught in Newark airport as he attempted to transfer to another plane. He was fined US $300 and released. His luggage was confiscated and destroyed.
Richard Schroeder, the assistant director of the Center for African Studies at Rutgers University, is not surprised people are trying to smuggle Bush Meat into New Jersey, given its large African immigrant population. “It’s people interested in preparing certain dishes and who miss those foods,” he said. “At a very basic human level, this is food from home.”
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You have no right to conficate food from Africans coming into the U.S. You kidnapped them through the middle passage and confiscated their identities, names, religions, customs and culture. Now you go after their food. I am sure this is no worse than McDonald’s, Wendy’s and certainly not KFC/Taco Bell which already contains rat droppings. Take a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su0U37w2tws
Have you ever tried deliciously prepared rat meat? It tastes sort of like a combination of gefilte fish and lox and bagels.
Go and see the film “Planet of the Apes” again America, because that’s going to be your future.
They do have the right to confiscate it. It is banned for entry by law. This has nothing to do with slavery or good taste. The FDA aproves or disaproves of items to promote health and saftey. Just like Indonesia can give you life for an ounce of dope. Countries can enforce the laws they see fit as they want. I just got trolled didn’t I?
It has nothing to do with being “african” and everything to do with disease. Get real. If it’s wanted that badly to expose others to pathogens, they are free to go back home and eat all they want. Why is everything turned into something to do with race?
And for this they limit immigration from European countries, as they did with the 1965 Immigration Reform Act.
Celebrate diversity!
I wish schvartze/etb/alleypoop or whoever would call in and troll our eardrums for a change.
They should embargo Chinese food. They don’t call it
FLIED LICE for nothing!!
Hey if they want to eat rats let them just as long as they are USDA American Grown New York or L.A. Rats !! LOL
These people care nothing for this nation or it’s citizens. Third world losers should be sent home to live with all the diseases they want, but do NOT bring it here!! Go home if you want to eat rats and monkey heads that badly! Gross! Sickening! Pukes!!
Poor planning, it would have been easy to bring additional “rats” across the mexican border.
Well, for people that are raised as cannibals this is a step up! We now have diseases that were wiped out over a hundred years ago, and new ones brought in by these criminals. A Rome wasn’t built in a day, it didn’t fall in a day. It was a slow process. Rome still looked the same as it declined, so it is with us. We are poisoning our nation, bringing in people who are so detached from our culture that they can’t adapt to it. Look at the difference when this was a White Europeanic culture. Look at the violence that has been visited up on us, the ignorance, the diseases. Yet we allow the politicans to continue to destroy a once great nation!
Zenzile Xhoisan is gay!
Another case closed. Confiscating this meat probably saved lives. If they want to eat this trash, they are more than welcome to go there, eat it and never come back.
Zenzile, you are a 3rd class loser.
Oh My God!! What a racist, homophobic and sexist site! I’m rubber, you’re glue; whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you!!
Alley Oop/ETB/Schwartz sock puppet.
-Admin.
Any country’s Customs has the right to confiscate items on their banned list. OTOH, those giant rats do look large and mighty tasty! Maybe if we can control the disease, we could farm them over here and we might see them in the supermarket. Joint venture…?
That last comment sounded a little kindergarten-ish. The bottom line is the health and safety of people living in this country regardless of where they are from or where their ancestors are from. African-Americans no more want disease ridden food entering this nation than Asian-Americans, Caucasions or anyone else. Everyone suffers when pandemics occur, not just one race or nationality. Pandemics kill! And keep in mind that even US meat is destroyed if it is suspected of carrying disease. The USDA would kill a whole herd of cattle on any ranch in the US if mad cow disease was found present in the herd. It’s not just meat from other countries that is in question. This is why we have an agency–the USDA to help protect our food supply–and laws to give it the authority to do so. Meat properly imported by legitimate companies and inspected is allowed here, but not meat carried in suitcase which has been sitting on a plane for ten hours. In some of our states, you can’t even bring your pets over the border into another state without prior permissin from the state you are entering. And some states completely ban any plants from being brought to their state. Africans coming into the US are not being “picked on”. They are being required to adhere to the laws which we, who already live here, have to abide by–for everyone’s protection.
Sorry Sgt. Smith, my statement that, “That last comment sounded a little kindergarten-ish” was meant for the previous writer.
Barb: I know you are but what am I?