(Photo Korean Herald)

With the largest cull in Korean history in progress--in fact, two culling operations, one for foot-and-mouth disease and one for avian flu--the Korean Vegetarian Association staged a cull protest and a promotion of vegetarianism in Seoul over the weekend (Jan. 8 and 9).

The culling has claimed over a million and half lives at the time of writing and perhaps a million more will be culled in the coming weeks.

Too little too late perfectly describes the Korean government's response with vaccination measures. Typically, a large part of the problem has been economic. It takes longer to regain disease-free status from the World Organization for Animal Health if a country has been using vaccinations. That means exports suffer, so the government held back.

With a truly incompetent and flagrant lack of foresight, it gambled on beating the disease by vaccinating cattle but cruelly burying hundreds of thousands of pigs alive. The gamble did not pay off, however, and the disease continues to spread.

The government is now saying that 1.2 million pigs and cattle across the country will be vaccinated over the next few weeks and it will try to get vaccines for 6.5 million animals by the end of January.

This promotion of the connection between diet and reducing animal cruelty is something we need to see more of in Korea. It's not widely understood by the general population.