Inside San Francisco’s Chinatown ‘wet market’ where animals are cruelly butchered and ‘unsanitary conditions’ run rampant
Turtles are allegedly brutally beaten and slaughtered in San Francisco’s Chinese ‘wet markets’, and the ‘illegal’ activity has now been captured on video by an animal rights group.
Exclusive video obtained by DailyMail.com showed workers cutting open turtles while their legs were still moving, partially suffocating frogs and then beheading them alive, leaving fish out of the water to slowly die and clubbing other animals to death.
Other images showed potential health hazards, such as bloodied storage containers and live fish picked up from dirty shop floors and left on the street outside.
The alleged animal abuse was documented by nonprofit Animal Outlook, which filmed undercover at three live animal markets in the California city in September.
The charity has already called for similar circumstances in 2022 and complains that the city has done little to stop this – despite what Animal Outlook claims clearly violate the law.
A DailyMail.com reporter visited the three Chinatown markets on Christmas Eve to investigate what was discovered in the nonprofit’s footage.
At Liang’s Seafood, bloody fish carcasses were spread out next to a shallow crate of live fish gasping for air in four inches of water.
Frogs squirmed in another packed container. An employee picked up an apparently dead frog and handed it to his manager, who tossed it near the sink at the register.
A DailyMail.com reporter visited the three Chinatown markets on Tuesday, December 24, to investigate what was discovered in the Animal Outlook footage – including the Liang Market where bloody fish carcasses were seen
One of the tanks at one of the markets where frogs were swimming in murky water. For the larger aquarium, the turtles were placed in small green tanks where they huddled together
Exclusive video obtained by DailyMail.com from an investigation by the nonprofit, which was conducted on September 14 and 15 at three separate stores in the area, showed San Francisco workers cutting open turtles in Chinatown while their legs were still moving
Staff at Liang’s and MP Seafood Market did not speak English, and managers at both declined to comment after being asked questions in Cantonese.
Both stores were filled with crates and fish tanks, and blood and slime dripped from the counters onto wet floors. The stench of the carcasses wafted onto the sidewalk.
Pacific Street Seafood was closed Tuesday morning and the owners could not be reached by phone for comment.
These conditions observed in the markets could also raise public health concerns. A 2024 Harvard study found that live animal markets are “high-risk locations for zoonoses.” [disease] overflow,” and pointed out that “SARS is believed to have spread to an animal market in China, where wild civets were kept in tight wire cages.”
“Animal markets where animals are stored alive and often slaughtered on site are critical contact points where pathogens can move and cross from animals to humans,” the study said.
When researchers from Animal Outlook visited the markets in September, they filmed “a turtle being hit with a hammer, its legs moving in response to being cut apart,” “frogs being decapitated without prior anesthesia,” fish that are knocked down and slaughtered several times’. and ‘live fish falling onto the street while being unloaded from a truck’.
The charity’s lawyer Jareb Gleckel wrote to the San Francisco Department of Animal Care and Control (SFACC) on September 25 detailing the shocking findings.
‘I documented a customer who selected a softshell turtle. A worker then hits the turtle twice with a hammer near its head and begins butchering it,” the unnamed researcher wrote about their visit to MP Seafood Market on Jackson Street.
Bloody fish carcasses lay atop unclean green and brown discolored cutting boards – next to their remains, live fish lay gasping for breath in small pools filled with four inches of water
The charity’s attorney, Jareb Gleckel, wrote to the chairman of the San Francisco Commission of Animal Control and Welfare on October 30 detailing their findings. The chairman told DailyMail.com that the ‘inhumane’ conditions in the markets ‘must stop immediately’
Another video from the nonprofit showed live fish delivered by truck falling to the ground – citing possible unsanitary conditions
The DailyMail.com reporter also witnessed blood and slime dripping from the counters onto wet floors and noted the stench of the carcasses wafting onto the sidewalk.
Fish swam in unclean, murky water and crates of bloody fish carcasses filled the room. There were more cut up fish at the front of the ice, but beneath the ice there seemed to be entrails and other unknown substances
‘You see the turtle’s legs move in response to being cut apart.
‘I documented a worker putting three live frogs into a small plastic bag. He kept them in the closed bag for at least 30 seconds before killing them.
“Another worker then took them out of the plastic bag and killed them by beheading them with a cleaver. He didn’t tranquilize the frogs before killing them.’
At Pacific Street Seafood on Stockton Street, the investigator documented a heartbreaking incident of a turtle that “tried to escape by climbing the side of the container and then fell backwards.”
They also saw the legs of turtles moving as they were slaughtered there, indicating that the animals were still alive.
According to the letter, there were potentially unsanitary and allegedly inhumane conditions at Liang’s Seafood, also on Stockton Street.
‘I documented frogs and turtles kept in plastic containers. One frog was missing a left eye,” the researcher wrote. ‘There was visible blood in the plastic container containing softshell turtles, both on the bottom of the container and on the shell of one turtle.’
Workers delivering live fish from a truck reportedly dropped some on the ground and left them there for about a minute before placing them in a “large gray garbage bin” for delivery.
The photos taken by our reporter were at one of several wet markets in San Francisco. The markets had everything that lives in the water, such as turtles, fish, crabs, shellfish and frogs
A detailed outline of the anonymous researcher’s findings, including unsanitary conditions such as leaving fish on the ground both in the market and on the streets, as well as the inhumane way they slaughter frogs, turtles and fish
The nonprofit told DailyMail.com that when they called to report the cruelty to San Francisco’s Department of Animal Care and Control, they were told no officers were available to inspect the property for weeks.
The anonymous researcher noted in his research: ‘I documented frogs and turtles kept in plastic containers. One frog was missing a left eye. There was visible blood in the plastic container containing softshell turtles, both on the bottom of the container and on the shell of one turtle’
“The worker on the ground occasionally throws fish back onto the truck and they are left there alive from the water,” the investigator wrote.
“Cutting open and dismembering live animals constitutes torture, torment, cruel mutilation, cruel murder, infliction of needless suffering, and infliction of unnecessary cruelty, all of which are prohibited under California’s general animal cruelty law.” , Animal Outlook said in a statement to DailyMail. com.
“Unlike many other states, California law does not provide an exception for customary or routine livestock production practices.”
The nonprofit said it has been trying for more than two years to get SFACC to take action after documenting similar incidents in 2022, but claimed the department has issued only one citation and repeatedly refused to inspect markets when alleged abuse occurred .
“SFACC has previously indicated that its officers must witness first-hand brutal acts while they are underway in order to take enforcement action,” the charity said.
“But when we subsequently called SFACC to report an atrocity – a worker suffocating a frog in a plastic bag – the agency explained that no officers would be available to inspect for the next few weeks.”
SFACC and the city government did not respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
Animal Outlook is supported by an advisory body of the city council that advises the mayor and board of supervisors on animal-related matters.
Michael Angelo Torres, chairman of the Commission for Animal Control and Welfare, told DailyMail.com that he believes the “inhumane” conditions in the markets “must stop immediately.”
“As chairman of the commission, I unreservedly support doing everything we as a city can and must do to immediately end the inhumane conditions in these markets,” Torres said.