Amazing Race Canada snake segment upsets vet
A challenge on this week’s episode of The Amazing Race Canada on CTV was cruel and should never have made it to the screen, according to an Alberta veterinarian.
Dr. Teresa Bousquet, a vet for small and exotic animals in Sherwood Park outside of Edmonton, says while she’s a fan of the series, she believes the segment where live snakes had their gallbladders removed was inhumane.
“I always emphasize to people that they (the snakes) still feel pain, they still need humane treatment. Just because it’s a snake ... it doesn’t mean it’s not a thinking, feeling creature and it still deserves respect,” Bousquet says. “I felt that the only way they could justify what they were doing is to say, ‘Oh, it’s only a snake.’ They would never, in a million years, whether it was part of the culture or not, have done this with a puppy ... or anything else that is cute and fuzzy.”
On Tuesday’s episode, competitors had to make their way to the She Wong Lam restaurant on Hillier Street in Hong Kong. Once at the eatery, which has been in operation for more than a century, the restaurant’s “snake master” made a slit in a live snake’s abdomen and then extracted the animal’s gallbladder.
He then pressed the bile from the organ and one member of each team had to drink the liquid before downing a bowl of snake soup. This was repeated for each of the nine teams in the running.
In a statement, CTV says that in planning the challenge, producers at Insight Productions (which makes the series) confirmed that the snakes in question would then be cooked in the restaurant, “as is the local practice.”
“As can sometimes be the case when providing accurate, real-life depictions of cultural norms accepted in other parts of the world, some viewers might not always agree with such practices,” the statement reads. “We apologize if this specific challenge was disturbing to some viewers.”
According to CTV, 1.94 million viewers watched the episode, with the audience growing to 2.4 million when it was revealed married couple Laura Takahashi and Jackie Skinner were eliminated from the competition.
Bousquet questions why, with all the options available to it, The Amazing Race Canada chose to feature a challenge involving live animals. She says she wouldn’t have an issue if the snakes had been killed first before the bile was extracted and then the meat used for soup.
CTV says the challenge represented “a traditional exercise in Chinese cuisine that dates back centuries, and continues to be practised there today” and that one of the goals of the series is to “showcase diverse culture, customs and experiences.” But Bousquet says that argument doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
The vet wants an apology from the network and Insight Productions. In addition, she’s asking that they make a donation to a reptile-associated charity.