Author: Sandra Kyle

‘Your Pain Is Mine’ Q&A: Indian Politician and Animal Activist, Maneka Sanjay Gandhi

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle | 14 Comments on ‘Your Pain Is Mine’ Q&A: Indian Politician and Animal Activist, Maneka Sanjay Gandhi

When End Animal Slaughter’s Sandra Kyle visited India in 2018 as the recipient of the Philip Wollen Animal Welfare Award, she was presented with her certificate by Maneka Gandhi, then Minister for Women and Child Development in the Narendra Modi government.  Her brief meeting with the formidable Mrs Gandhi left a lasting impression on her:-  

“At the back of her office was an enormous whiteboard filled up with animal campaigns she was currently working on, a ‘to-do’ list that covered every aspect of animal rights and welfare in India.  Of this long list, only a few had been marked as completed, reflecting the difficulty of the work she grapples with every day.  I was so impressed that this one individual, through force of character and hard work, and despite her enormous governmental responsibilities, had achieved so much for animals in India, earning her an international reputation.  Maneka no doubt has a brilliant mind, but what she does also requires vision, imagination, patience and determination.    For much of our meeting she was businesslike, even a bit brusque, but every now and then the sweetest smile broke through.   In her presence I could feel the breadth of her intelligence, but also her compassion.  As Eileen Weintraub, founder of Help Animals India, describes her:  ‘Maneka has a golden heart”. 

 

1. Have you always loved animals?  

I don’t know whether what I felt or feel was love . It is respect and compassion and a sense of oneness and a desire for fairness that drives me. I feel each animal/insect/bird  stuck in this man-made world, bewildered, grappling to survive, is part of my soul. I simply cannot see the difference between me, a leaf, a crow, a goat, or an elephant. I cannot understand how the human species can create so much pain around them and expect to be happy.

2. When did you start actively campaigning for animal rights and welfare in India?

I made the first animal shelter in India with the money that my husband, who died when I was 23, left me. I ran the shelter first and then because I was in politics, used that platform always to change things for animals.

3 You have enormous responsibilities, and have achieved much in your political career.  And yet you also manage to be so productive for animals, through the Sanjay Gandhi Animal Care Centre, and in your writing and other activist platforms.  You are the longest serving Member of Parliament in India, having won 8 times.    How do you manage to do so much?

I don’t stop for a minute. And I do everything that I can.  I study very hard every day to improve my knowledge of animal issues so that I can speak/do with correct information.

I feel the heart is a door. When it opens, it opens for every being. My heart and energy is open for all kinds of pain, and I endeavour to lessen it for as many beings as I can. That is what gives me the ability to work hard.

4 What is the hardest thing about your work advocating for animals? What are the main obstacles you face?

Ignorance, the ignorance of politicians and bureaucrats especially. When I started, it was considered the domain of “little old ladies”. Now fortunately the movement is coming into its own, with groups starting everywhere.

5 What are some of the campaigns you are currently working on?

I work on 50-100 things at the same time . At this exact moment we are getting pet shops and dog/cat breeders banned.

6 At the beginning of the Covid-19 Lockdown you issued a press release saying that people should continue to feed stray dogs and cows, and even gave your personal number out all over India to help people get special passes to feed animals without the police hassling them.   Can you put into words what drives you to work so hard to fight animal cruelty and injustice?  

The fear of pain. Your pain is mine, so I need to get rid of it.

7 Are things beginning to change for animals in India?  If so, why?

Some things change. But for every good thing, some politicians will make sure three more policies are made that are bad. But last year I made the government give money for the scientific exploration of making clean meat (meat by cell multiplication). We are the first government to do so . That is going on now, and if we can do this, it will change the world as we know it.

8  What would you like to see happen in the future?

Clean meat, clean milk – milk/meat made without animals.  The banning of any meat exports until we get there. A sharp rise in veganism.  Compulsory training in animal welfare in schools… I have a booklet in which I have listed 170 things I want to do or I want to see happen before I die.

Of course they will not be all done but even if I can get half, I shall die happy and not have to come back!

Duck Shooting Season A Licence To Kill Endangered Native Species

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle | 6 Comments on Duck Shooting Season A Licence To Kill Endangered Native Species

On the Eve of the New Zealand duck shooting season opening, End Animal Slaughter contributor Paul Judge calls for an end to the carnage.

 

As I write, the murderous mayhem of duck-shooting season has been given the go-ahead by the government during New Zealand’s level-2 Covid-19 lockdown.

I walk down to my favourite spot on the Waikato River most evenings. I hear the ducks as I approach, quacking away and going about their duck business. And there they are, on the river’s edge sitting calmly in their flock, or sometimes, led by a brave duck, waddling up the bank to look for food. Something will suddenly spook them and they all take off into the air as one, swooping past me with flapping wings, circling way out over the river before settling again on the sandy beach. These are the lucky ones, I think to myself. As long as they stay here they will escape the horrors of the hunters’ guns.

How I loathe duck shooting. It is so obviously cruel I cannot understand how it is still legal. Australian studies show that around one in four ducks are not killed outright, but instead fall to the ground mortally wounded, dying an agonising, lingering death. While a good percentage of geese and swans are monogamous, ducks can also pair bond for extended periods.   If a single duck manages to survive the carnage duckshooting causes, then they will ‘mourn’ the partner they bonded with.

The mayhem and murder is not only normalised by the media but is celebrated. Blokey, camouflaged duck-shooters are shown stocking their maimais (concealment huts) with beer and talking about how it’s the best thing since Christmas. Small children are dressed up in identical camouflage to their proud dad’s and declare on camera that they have shot their first duck. Often the children will speak with trepidation in their voice, not understanding fully why they have killed a beautiful living bird.

Duckshooting family.  Teaching our children violence from an early age. (Photo credit: TVNZ)

When it comes to duck shooting, the law is truly an idiot. The large numbers of maimed, wounded ducks flies in the face of humane slaughter laws in the Animal Welfare Act. Duck-shooting should be banned on these grounds alone. I know it will be a long battle, given the powerful enculturation of the practice, and I will never give up the fight to see it happen. But there is another Act of Parliament that can and should be properly updated – the Wildlife Act 1953.

When it comes to duck shooting, the law is truly an idiot. The large numbers of maimed, wounded ducks flies in the face of humane slaughter laws in the Animal Welfare Act. Duck-shooting should be banned on these grounds alone.

All New Zealanders should know that some species of native duck, which are in decline or classified as endangered, are allowed to be shot under the Law.

Notwithstanding the regional variations regarding bag limits, the hypocrisy of killing our native species is absurd. We spend millions of tax-payer’s dollars – expensive aerial poison drops, hours upon hours of both government paid work and unpaid volunteer work – protecting our precious native birds. To allow our native species to be slaughtered makes absolutely no sense.

The only ducks that are legally protected in New Zealand are the Brown and Grey Teals, (Patekeke and Tete Moroiti respectively),  NZ Scaup (Papango), and Blue Duck (Whio).  Native species so recklessly assigned to the carnage are the Grey Duck (Parera), the Shoveler (Kuruwhengi) and the Paradise Shelduck (Putangitangi).  

The Grey Duck is in rapid decline and has been declared “critically endangered”.  It is thought to be extensively hybridised with the mallard, and this hybrid is allowed to be hunted.  Good luck with telling the difference!   The true Grey Duck is in danger from being shot by hunters as both sexes look similar to the female mallard.   The Grey Duck has a pattern of stripes from the bill and over the head.  The general similarity of appearance to the mallard is one very good reason to ban all duck-shooting.

The female Grey Duck (Photo credit: NZ Birds Online)

The introduced Mallard is, of course, the most common duck. We see them almost everywhere, the female with her uniform, dull brown feathers, the male with his handsome, dark green, iridescent head and neck feathers. These ducks are considered pests. They apparently disturb the replanting programmes along the waterways and they overcrowd the wetlands for native species. What? Hang on a minute. We are shooting the native species! And as for overcrowding, wetland habitats have been devastated in this country, largely due to intensive agriculture. 90% of our original wetlands have been destroyed. And it’s the duck’s fault?

Male and female Mallard ducks  (Photo credit: NZ Birds Online)

Conservation of remaining wetlands is a contentious issue in the duck-shooting debate. The hunters become ‘greenies’ in regard to wetlands, but only in order so there will be plenty of game next year to carry out their blood-sport.

The native Shoveler duck also deserves immediate protection.  It is estimated about 30,000 of these birds are killed every hunting season. That’s around 20% of their total population. That is not sustainable and certainly not acceptable. Once again, the females look quite similar to the plainly embellished female mallard. The male Shoveler, however, must be New Zealand’s most handsome waterfowl, with his blue-grey head with white vertical stripe between eye and bill, his striking reddish-brown breast and blue wings.  It is inconceivable that such a bird, endemic to New Zealand, can be legally shot.

The Shoveler duck (Kuruwhengi) (Photo credit: NZ Birds Online)

The Paradise Shelduck is sometimes mistaken for a goose, possibly due to the male’s goose-like honk or the female’s white head. The male Shelduck is a uniform black or dark grey with green iridescent head feathers, while the female is a chestnut brown with a distinctive pure white head and neck. After the mallard the Paradise Shelduck are the most abundant waterfowl in New Zealand. Ironically, they have increased their numbers since colonisation due primarily to their ability to adapt to feeding on grassland. Thus farmers see them as a pest and shoot these beautiful creatures relentlessly.

Of an estimated population of 700,000 about 200,000 are shot annually. And this is a native bird! Under this logic, Will we see the hunting of kiwi if the conservation programmes are hugely successful and their numbers increase?

Male and female Paradise Shellducks  (Putangiangi) (Photo credit: NZ Birds Online)

The Paradise Shelduck was listed in 2008 as “not threatened”. That, of course, seems an absurdity given the overall decline of all waterfowl species since that date. Habitat loss, predation, overhunting and extreme weather events due to climate change are taking their toll on even the abundant mallard, so much so that the 2015 season was shortened to one month, with bag limits for all duck species reduced.

And why is the beautiful, iconic Pukeko, another native to Aotearoa, allowed to be killed en masse? Large numbers of these stunning birds are killed ‘for fun’ by duck-shooters. Conservation groups have estimated 50,000 are killed each season. But Fish & Game say this is wrong, and that only 20,000 are killed. Hold on a minute. That’s a bit like saying the use of napalm in the Vietnam War was not so bad because the civilian death count was over-estimated.

Pukeko and chick

The Pukeko is almost as iconic a bird as the kiwi. Check out any tourist trinket shop and there they will be, adorning ceramic tiles, headscarves, countless prints and paintings. Killing the Pukeko is as dumb as the Australians killing the kangaroo, an animal that adorns the tail of the Qantas aeroplanes, the national symbol. Shhh! Keep quiet, we don’t tell the tourists anything about this.

All duck shooting is unacceptable, but native birds still being shot in this country is a total outrage and simply beggars belief. The Wildlife Act of 1953 is in urgent need of extensive revision.

The most well-known of our protected ducks, thanks to the media coverage of conservation efforts, is the Blue Duck (Whio). But here’s an idea; let’s protect all the native ducks shall we? Or better yet, all the ducks, native or otherwise.

But here’s an idea; let’s protect all the native ducks shall we? Or better yet, all the ducks, native or otherwise.

Blue duck (Whio)  (Photo Credit: NZ Birds Online)

COVID-19

With the Covid-19 pandemic the world is in crisis, but are we learning anything? Are we looking at the root causes of this catastrophe? Are we examining our relationship to our evolutionary partners who we exploit and maim and kill in the most horrendous ways?

Can we not even develop a new empathy for those we define as our prey, when we ourselves are experiencing the horrors of becoming prey to a biological enemy out to destroy us?

And before the Covid-19 crisis there was the biodiversity crisis. Well guess what? That is still happening, and overhunting, along with habitat loss, pollution and climate change, is a root cause.

There is so much morally and ethically wrong with duck shooting – the scale of the suffering of the birds, the enculturation of children into violence, the poisoning of the environment with lead (yes, still used, not to be phased out until 2021), the list goes on. But to put endangered native species in harm’s way every duck shooting season is incomprehensible, and cannot be allowed to continue.

 

Paul Judge (seen here with his beloved companion goat, Robert) is a filmmaker and animal rights activist. He taught film production in the tertiary education sector for 17 years.  

It’s Time To Wash The Blood Off Our Hands

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle

We will never find peace within ourselves until we stop treating other animals so appallingly, writes End Animal Slaughter contributor, Paul Stevenson. (Featured art by Lynda Bell (artbylyndabell.com).

 

Although the nature/nurture debate has raged for decades, recent studies have shown convincing evidence that humans are innately moral: we are born with the capacity to care about others.  In fact as far back as 1871 Darwin countered theorists who argued that humans are naturally selfish, identifying components of a ‘moral sense’ throughout the tree of life.  As a product of evolution, we would expect that moral behaviour is within other animals as well, not just humans, and so it appears to be the case.  Primatologists like Frans de Waal, Jill Pruetz, and Christophe Boehm have shown that our closest kin in the animal kingdom, from chimps to bonobos, possess within themselves the building blocks of morality and moral goodness, treating treat each other with empathy, compassion, and self-sacrifice. And it by no means only found in primates, as Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce show in their book ‘Wild Justice.’

As humans, this moral sense culminates in us, and our caring and morality extends beyond people to include other animals, plants and the wider environment.   When we go against our fundamental nature by ignoring our humanity and unnecessarily harming others, we consequently feel bad inside, and cannot experience peace of mind. As we can never know real happiness or contentment when we are not at peace within ourselves, it is the greatest of follies to harm others when there is no need to do so.

The less we care about others the lower our humanity, and the lower the quality of our own lives. The criminal destroys himself for this reason, because the more he takes from others the more he steals from himself, by robbing himself of his own humanity and self-respect. He may have lots of material things – quantity – in his life in the form of money and possessions, but he lacks all quality. That is because our quality of life is almost entirely an inner thing, non-material, the product of our mind, and largely to do with our opinion of ourselves. It depends on our self-esteem and integrity, which in turn is related to how much we care about others.

Killing and eating other creatures not only destroys their entire existence for something as trivial as our food habits, it also subjects them to unspeakable suffering and indescribable horrors.

Killing and eating other creatures not only destroys their entire existence for something as trivial as our food habits, it also subjects them to unspeakable suffering and indescribable horrors.

But unnecessarily causing other animals to suffer and die for our palate also has a direct effect on us.   It is self-sabotage, because such actions are contrary to our fundamental caring nature, and rob us of our humanity as well as all hope of achieving the contentment we crave.  So if we want to be kind to ourselves we must first treat others, including other animals, with kindness and respect.   The natural consequence of this is that we must stop supporting all forms of animal agriculture, as well as fishing.

Our treatment of animals that we raise for food is horrendous.   We treat them as if they were nothing.  They are sensitive, intelligent cousins of ours, but we regard them as no better than lumps of rock, sacks of coal, logs of wood, good only for cutting up, cooking up, and eating up.  For the dead-hearted people involved, these sentient beings represent nothing more than money.

Yet as intelligent creatures with the brains to examine our actions, to self-inspect, and evaluate our behaviour, change is always possible.  Because our nature is fundamentally good, we know in our heart when we see how animals are raised for food, that we are committing terrible crimes that cannot be justified on any grounds.  We can never rest with a clear conscience while we abuse others so terribly.

Because our nature is fundamentally good, we know in our heart when we see how animals are raised for food, that we are committing terrible crimes that cannot be justified on any grounds. 

These days it is easy to adopt a vegan diet, that is just as delicious as any other, and is healthier both for us and the planet.  Covid-19, and all other ‘spillover’ diseases, came from eating animals, not plants.   This is a good time to start transitioning to a cruelty-free vegan diet.   We will discover how much better we feel about ourselves.

Paul Stevenson has a lifestyle block in Northland, New Zealand, and is Dad to a number of kunekune pigs.

Is Eating Meat ‘Sinful’?

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle

The remark this week by American broadcaster Jim Cramer that ‘Eating animals is dirty, broken and sinful’ prompted End Animal Slaughter’s Sandra Kyle to consider why so many Christians continue to eat meat.     

 

In animal rights circles, you don’t often see the word ‘sin’ used, but growing up as a Catholic schoolgirl in New Zealand, it is a very familiar term to me.

Apart from its obvious connotation with organised religion, and its negative association with fear and punishment, the word ‘sin’ has a general meaning which is ‘wicked and immoral behaviour’.   I would like to discuss this definition as far as it regards other animals.  Although the concept of sin is in all the Abrahamic religions, I know more about Christianity than Judaism and Islam, so will confine my remarks to this.

I think most Christians would agree that Jesus’ essential message is about love and mercy.  The nuns and priests instilled this in me from a young age, and even now, the iconic image of the ‘Sacred Heart’ (Heart of Mercy) comes to mind when I think of Jesus.  I wonder what He would say if he were alive today, and entered a slaughterhouse.  Do you think He would condone what goes on there?  Seeing animal after terrified animal having their brains shattered and throats slit?  Do you think there might be factory farms and slaughterhouses in Heaven?   In Hell, perhaps, but what did innocent animals ever do to deserve to be punished?   Didn’t Jesus challenge us to live mercifully?   Isn’t His own example of caring, rescuing, and healing what Christians should aspire to, and for all sentient beings not just humans?

If Christians believe they are to live with mercy and compassion, then it stands to reason that causing animals suffering is morally wrong. If factory farming and the associated mutilations, drugs and imprisonment are not cruel and ungodly; if lining up tens of millions of knowing, terrified individuals every single day to have their throats slit is not cruel and ungodly; then I am at a loss to know what is.

Many Christians think that causing pain to an animal is not the moral equivalent of causing pain to a human being, and so this exempts them from sin.  They believe that humans are special, fashioned by God to be above the rest of creation, and entitled dominion over it.

But if the victim can suffer, and feel pain, then surely the moral obligation is there not to hurt them.

That animals suffer in the same way we do has been well established by Science now.  ‘Even’ fish have analogous pain pathways to mammals.  And if it were not already obvious, studies have shown animals suffer when deprived of their natural behaviours, such as walking, and being in the company of their family and friends.  As innocent, sentient beings, with natural desires and inclinations, do they not have the moral right not to have suffering inflicted on them?  And why do we create differences between species?  ‘Why’ as the say goes,  ‘do we love one and eat the other?’

I know I am asking a lot of questions, and here’s another one: Why doesn’t a sentient calf, pig, and chicken have the same rights as our own cats and dogs not to be abused and killed?   Is there not a major disconnect in our thinking that maintains that they do not?

I know I am asking a lot of questions, and here’s another one: Why doesn’t a sentient calf, pig, and chicken have the same rights as our own cats and dogs not to be abused and killed?   Is there not a major disconnect in our thinking that maintains that they do not?

If God created animals, then He created them with needs, wants, and a design for their life.   Animals in intensive agriculture are completely denied these basic rights. If Christians believe that God created pigs and chickens, then doesn’t it follow that He created them to live according to their natural instincts and inclinations, including to roam free in the outdoors, root around in the soil for their food, build nests, mate, and properly nurse and care for their babies?  It is well-known that in factory farming they can do none of these things.

In fact such is our entitlement of dominion over animals that we have turned ourselves into God, manipulating and controlling every aspect of their lives, thwarting their every natural desire to our own ends.   We genetically alter them so they grow bigger and fatter to be more profitable, no matter what the cost is to them. Broiler (meat) chickens have upper bodies that grow six times faster than they did when I was born seventy-one years ago, and throughout their entire lives they suffer from lameness, crippling leg deformities and fractured bones, because their legs can’t keep up with the artificially-induced growth.  Enter into any meat chicken shed anywhere in the world and you will find many birds just lying in their own faeces, unable even to move, a percentage already dead before they reach the slaughter weight of 5 or 6 weeks old.  And speaking of poultry, genetically-altered turkeys cannot even mate naturally any more.  But whether raised intensively or not, all farmed animals have to suffer.  They are all trucked, without food or water, to a hellish death at a slaughterhouse, against their will, and at only a fraction of their natural lifespan. 

Everyone agrees that their beloved pets should be protected legally from the worst abuses, but why do tens of billions of equally sentient animals have no such protection under the law?   Farmed animals regularly undergo painful procedures such as castration, debeaking and dehorning without painkillers, which would be unthinkable for our pets. In slaughterhouses there is even evidence of cattle having their legs hacked off while they are still conscious, and in traditional halal and kashrut slaughter, they have their throats slit while completely conscious and able to feel the searing pain for some minutes before they die.  If castrating your dog  without painkillers is not OK, if giving growth hormones to your cat so that she gets disproportionately so big that she cannot even walk, if slitting your dog or cat’s throat open and hacking off their limbs while they’re still conscious is not OK – then why is it any different to do this to a farmed animal?  What part of the word ‘sentient’ are we not understanding here?

If castrating your dog  without painkillers is not OK, if giving growth hormones to your cat so that she gets disproportionately so big that she cannot even walk, if slitting a dog or cat’s throat open and hacking off their limbs while they’re still conscious is not OK – then why is it any different to do this to a farmed animal?  What part of the word ‘sentient’ are we not understanding here?

I no longer consider myself a Catholic, but the idea of the Sacred Heart of Jesus has been a guiding principle throughout my life, and for me it means mercy for all sentient beings, not just human beings.

That is why I cannot understand why at many religious people, including the majority of Christians, continue to eat meat. Is not persisting in causing horrific suffering to animals unnecessarily immoral behaviour?  As Christian and Animal Rights Activist Matthew Scully, author of Dominion,  says:-

“When a man’s love of finery clouds his moral judgment, that is vanity. When he lets a demanding palate make his moral choices, that is gluttony. When he ascribes the divine will to his own whims, that is pride. And when he gets angry at being reminded of animal suffering that his own daily choices might help avoid, that is moral cowardice.”

If we believe in a merciful God, and we continue to cause sentient beings pain and suffering just because we like the way they taste, then we had better get down on our knees and pray for forgiveness.

The good news is that once we become aware of the inconsistency in our moral behaviour regarding our food choices, there are clear and immediate practical steps that we can take in response.  We can begin to reduce, until we have eliminated altogether, our consumption of animal products.

I wish more Christians would try it.  I know Jesus would approve.

 

 

  Sandra Kyle started the website End Animal Slaughter in 2018 with the goal of ending animal slaughter by 2025

Factory farms are manufacturing our modern diseases

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle

KEY POINTS

–   As well as Covid-10, this century we’ve had a long list of diseases spilled over from animals. 
–  The number is increasing in recent years owing to population increase, global travel and trade, and also in the ways modern farming forces humans, animals and microbes together.
–   Scientists have demonstrated a link between intensive poultry production and the emergence of highly pathogenic forms of avian flu, and a link between intensified pork production and swine flu.
–   Infectious disease is not the only consequence of industrialised farming. Others include antimicrobial resistance and elevated greenhouse gas emissions.
–   To avoid pandemics in the world we need to take a long, hard look at our relationship with the natural world, and particularly with other animals.
–   We need to acknowledge that we are manufacturing our own diseases, start talking about our lifestyle choices and the industries that satisfy them.
–   The time to do that is now.

 

Read the Time article here

Mother’s Day: Nothing To Celebrate For Animals Raised For Food

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle
It is May 10th – Mother’s Day – when we celebrate the sacred bond between mother and child.
Mother-Infant bonding is strong in nearly all species, but the animal agriculture industry holds this natural bond in contempt.
Dairy mothers have their babies taken away from them almost immediately, so they cannot drink their mother’s milk.  Some calves go to slaughter at just 4 days old; others are raised in isolation to produce veal.
Sows in factory farms are socially isolated in tiny cages where they can scarcely move in a cycle of pregnancy, giving birth, and nursing their piglets.  Their strong maternal instinct to build nests and properly care for their babies cannot be realised. Consequently, these highly intelligent animals live lives of endless suffering.
Chickens in factory farms never meet their mothers, and never know their affection and protection.
Some mother cows are pregnant when transported to slaughter, and give birth in the truck or the kill floor.  The calf’s life ends as soon as it has begun.
But there are some good news stories too.  The day after this year’s Oscars, Joaquin Phoenix helped liberate a cow and her newborn calf from a Los Angeles slaughterhouse.  Phoenix named the mother Liberty and her daughter Indigo.
This is another heartwarming story about Charlotte, delivered after her mother was slaughtered for meat.  
Read the Sentient Media article here

Wading Into Murky Waters: The Truth About Duckshooting

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle | 2 Comments on Wading Into Murky Waters: The Truth About Duckshooting
Duckshooting in New Zealand is a centuries-long activity.   It’s time to bring it to a stop, writes End Animal Slaughter’s Sandra Kyle.

 

In a few short days, the pitter-patter of tiny bullets will be heard near wetlands all over New Zealand. The air will be thick with the smell of gunshot, and dead and injured birds will rain on the ground.   In an estimated 25% of cases these birds will not be killed outright, but will suffer an agonising, lingering death. Is this the kind and compassionate New Zealand our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern keeps talking about, or is it government-sanctioned carnage?

The opening of the gamebird season – generally the first weekend of May, but delayed this year because of Covid-19 restrictions – has been part of New Zealand’s history since the early nineteenth century.  Although it is declining in popularity, over 30,000 gamebird hunting licences are still sold in New Zealand annually.

Every year during the weeks-long season, shooters get up before dawn, don camouflage suits and war paint, trek down to lakes, ponds and rivers, and install themselves in hidden huts called maimai, or sit in dingys near reeds, away from the ducks’ keen eyesight.  The first rays of daylight reveal a bucolic scene. Sleeping birds rest their heads gently on their backs, next to their lifelong partners, also sleeping.

Suddenly shots fire out, and the quiet scene become turbulent with panicking family and friends, the air filled with their cries.

Terrified, they take to the sky in an effort to escape, only to be picked off by shooters who fist pump and whoop in delight when they strike their mark. This wetland was the birds’ refuge, and now, cruelly and senselessly, their life is over.

Birds who do not die outright (it takes a good marksman to kill them immediately) may perish in the mouths of retriever dogs, or have their necks wrung by shooters. Many will just lay where they fell, undiscovered, until the life ebbs from them.

There is so much wrong with duck shooting that it is hard to know where to begin, but we could start with sentience.

Ducks are animals, like us.

They know hunger and thirst, heat and cold. Like us, they can feel excitement, joy, and fear, and form attachments to their families and friends.

Their perception of pain is analogous to ours also.  Vets use a combination of opiods, corticosteroids, anti-inflammatories and local anaesthetics to manage the pain of birds.  I have looked after birds as a volunteer for bird rescue organisations, have applied pain relief, and seen the results for myself.   Universally, animals in the wild generally do not show their pain or weaknesses, because it makes them vulnerable.  It is hard by looking at a bird to know if they are in pain, but you can almost immediately see them relax and settle once pain relief is administered.

What about the ethics of shooting ducks?  It is called a ‘sport’, but a sport requires two equally matched parties playing by the same rules.  Duckshooting, and hunting in general,  is hardly  a ‘sport’  ‘Carnage’ is a better word.   And not only ducks are shot.   Protected species are also killed and injured because of incompetent shooters, or those who are deliberately flouting the rules.

It is certainly not heroic either.   For all its macho image, duckshooting  is a cowardly activity. The shooter lurks in a hiding place and employs deceptive techniques such as decoy ducks and hooters to lure his mismatched opponents.  This would be laughable if it were not so tragic.

There is not one compelling reason for shooting ducks.

It goes without saying that we don’t have to kill them for our food.  In fact many shooters don’t bother eating their prey.  While some may dine out on duck for weeks, others simply discard their bodies at the sides of roads and in rubbish dumps, or bury them.

The conservation reason is also a myth.   Contrary to the belief they would “blacken the sky” if left alone to breed,  Nature has her own way of culling. When numbers are low, and the environment can support them, species breed more, and vice versa.  While no one wishes starvation, disease or predation on waterfowl, shooting an animal because he or she might starve or get sick is arbitrary, and in the end, pretty much useless. Professor Richard Kingsford, who directs the Centre for Ecosystem Science at the University of New South Wales, has been conducting yearly surveys of waterbird populations across eastern Australia for three decades.  New South Wales is one of the Australian states where duckshooting is banned, and Professor Kingsford and his team have not detected an increase in numbers of birds as a result of the ban.   If anything there is a slight decline, but it is due to habitat loss and not hunting.  It is frankly unbelievable to me that shooters kill birds for conservation reasons.    They even cooperate with the government to establish wetlands, so, as the Fish and Game website states, that they can have more ‘fun’ next year.

For the princely sum of $23.00, a parent can buy a child’s season’s pass to kill ducks. A few years ago Fish and Game promoted the season by showing a young boy with a firearm over his shoulder and holding a string of dead ducks.   What traits are we fostering in our children and in our communities by perpetuating the annual duck shooting season? Indifference to suffering? Irreverence towards other forms of life? Cruelty?

Why don’t we recoil from seeing children take up arms and shoot harmless animals?

Why aren’t we modelling kindness and compassion to our children? Why don’t we teach through our own behaviour a respect for all life, and for other species’ natural right to share the planet?

Why as a society would we encourage any activity that serves to dull our compassion and pity?

Are we not aware that violence breeds violence? Is the parallel between killing animals and hurting human beings not clear?

Why can’t our Prime Minister see that?

Duck shooting is the unnecessary taking of life. The only conclusion we can draw for its popularity is that shooters enjoy killing.

Now there’s a thought.

We really are wading into murky waters now.

Sandra Kyle is a full-time animal activist.   She started End Animal Slaughter in 2018, with the goal of closing all slaughterhouses in the western world by 2025.  

Unholy Abuse Of Animals To The Holy Land: Live Export To Israel

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle

KEY POINTS:

  • Israel’s State Comptroller this week issued a report confirming the cruelty of live shipments.
  • Ships are often in poor condition, suffering from insufficient ventilation, high temperatures and humidity.
  • Animals are forced to live in their own excrement; stand in wet bedding; food and water is often lacking; and ammonia from urine causes the animals breathing difficulties and sore eyes.   
  • Some animals suffer direct animal abuse such as electric shocking.
  • Complaints over the years about regulations not being adhered to have not been followed up.
  • A record-breaking 691,327 live lambs and calves were transported to Israel for fattening and slaughter last year.
  • In light of the dangers posed by imported livestock who may carry diseases not common in the region, the Report recommends Israel’s veterinary service carry out a risk assessment.
  • Imported fodder, which may contain metals, pesticides, molds and toxins should also be investigated.
  • The Report says that steps should be taken immediately to allow appropriate, ongoing oversight of the issue and to prevent repeated violation of instructions.

READ THE ISRAEL TIMES ARTICLE HERE

 

Millions Of Farm Animals Culled In Response To The Covid-19 Pandemic

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle

KEY POINTS

  • Worker illness because of Covid-19 in US meatpacking plants has shut down meat-processing plants and forced remaining facilities to slow production. 
  • American farmers are still raising chickens, beef cattle and hogs (pigs) but fewer places are available to slaughter the animals.
  • Gail Eisnitz, author of “Slaughterhouse” and Chief Investigator for the Humane Farming Association, said that with individual plants down that normally kill up to 1,106 hogs per hour, there’s nowhere for those hogs to go.
  • Eisnitz estimates that there is a backlog of 687,500 hogs weekly or 100,000 hogs per day that cannot be slaughtered because of processing facility closures.
  • Many millions of animals – chickens, hogs and cattle – will be ‘depopulated’ (killed; chickens and hogs by suffocation or gassing) because of the closure of these facilities.   The Delmarva Poultry Industry has suffocated or gassed 2 million chickens in the past month.
  • Bruce Friedrich, founder of the Good Food Institute, said a cattle bottleneck at the processing plants has led to sales of plant-based meats up 265 percent in two months.
  • Friedrich said that before the pandemic, plant-based meat companies were already facing increased demand, and are quicker to respond to world events than conventional animal agriculture.

Read the Washington Post article here

Voices for Animals: Lyn White, Animals Australia

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle

Lyn White is known for many things, including her extraordinary personal courage,  her commitment to animals, and her desire to make the world a better place for both animals and people.   In this article, End Animal Slaughter’s Sandra Kyle pays tribute to her work. 

I have met Lyn White twice, at two separate Animal Rights Conferences.   After her keynote address at the ‘Why Animals Matter’ Conference in Auckland in 2011 I worked up my courage and asked permission to hug her, because I admired her so much.     Lyn politely obliged, but I could tell she was embarrassed.  I learned two things that day.  The first was that I shouldn’t go around asking strangers to hug me; the second is that Lyn White is essentially a shy introvert, forced into public life because of her passion to seek justice for abused animals.

Lyn grew up in Adelaide, South Australia, in the 1960s and 70s, the third in a family of four children.   Her father was a manager at Shell and an avid bush walker and nature lover, her mother a musician.  Both parents instilled a strong sense of right and wrong in their children and even as a child Lyn said that she “strongly wanted to take the side of right in my life.”

To her mother’s disappointment, Lyn didn’t show much interest in music.  Instead, she enjoyed playing sport, and from an early age she felt an affinity with animals.    As a student she got reasonable grades ‘without paying much attention’, but remembers being shy, and filled with self-doubt.

At the age of 17 Lyn embarked on a career as a police officer in the South Australia Police Force (SAPOL), jokingly suggesting that she was inspired by Farah Fawcett’s character in the Charlie’s Angels TV show. Putting on a uniform gave the young cadet confidence, and over the next twenty years as a police officer,  her investigation skills and attention to detail were honed. She also learned another valuable lesson in the police force that was to stand her in good stead later, when she entered the hell holes known as slaughterhouses. This was to focus completely on the task at hand, and put her emotions to one side.

Lyn had the respect of her colleagues and she enjoyed her job, but by the late 90s she was wondering what else she could do with her life.    She had come to the realisation that marriage and children were not for her, but felt she wanted a change.  One day while casually looking through a magazine, she came across a photo of a caged bear in China. The cage was barely larger than his body, and the animal had a catheter crudely inserted into his gall bladder to extract bile for traditional Chinese medicine.   This article would change her life forever.

Reading about the cruelty of bear bile farming changed Lyn’s life forever

Shocked to learn of the plight of Moon Bears in the bear bile industry, Lyn realised that as animals can’t speak for themselves, they need us to be their voice.   Her new direction began to crystallise in her mind.  She contacted the author of the article, who worked for Animals Asia,  and starting in 1998, Lyn spent her yearly vacation volunteering with them in Hong Kong.   At the end of 2001 she resigned her job as Senior Constable with SAPOL to become the Australian Director of Animals Asia Foundation.  Following a fund-raising walk from Sydney to Canberra, in which she exceeded her target of $20,000, Lyn attracted the attention of Animals Australia, a charity had been started originally by philosopher,  Professor Peter Singer and animal rights activist, Christine Townend.

In 2003 she joined Animal Australia as Communications Director, and one of her first assignments was to investigate what happened to live sheep being sent to the Middle East.

Australia had been exporting live animals for decades, and there had been enquiries into complaints about the practice since 1985, but nothing much had changed.   Each time an issue was identified the industry would say it was an isolated incident, or that improvements had already been made, and would continue to be made in the future.

The industry also came out with their own reports from time to time, whitewashing the situation, but there had never been an independent assessment of the treatment of animals in live export destinations.  All that changed in November 2003, when Lyn flew to Kuwait where she and a colleague spent eight days investigating the unloading of sheep from the livestock vessel MV Al Kuwait and tracking their movements. They took footage of sheep who were dead on arrival, and one sheep who had become blind during the sea voyage from Freemantle.  But it was the handling and slaughtering activities that followed that was the most disturbing.

Prior to this, Animals Australia had lobbied the government directly, but it had never worked.   This time, instead of going to the politicians, the animal charity went to the media, and, prefaced with a ‘Disturbing content’ warning to viewers, the video footage was aired on 60-Minutes on 28 March 2004.

The response to the vision of extreme animal suffering was unprecedented in 60-Minutes history, and as a result Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) announced that they were instituting an animal handling workshop for livestock operators and dockside workers in Kuwait.

In December 2005 and January 2006 Lyn and her British counterpart visited five Middle East countries, where she observed slaughter practices at the Shuwaikh abattoir in Kuwait, and the Bassateen abattoir in Cairo, Egypt.  In Kuwait she documented mishandling involving sheep and cattle, many instances of butchers hacking at the animals’ throats, sheep being slaughtered privately in communal toilets of boarding houses, and sheep being trussed and transported in car boots, as many as three crammed in at a time.   Her most telling words were for the Bassertine abattoir:

“Bassertine abattoir is a very disturbing place to enter.  It is like walking into the underworld”. 

Accompanied by an Egyptian translator who introduced them as leather merchants, the visitors documented butchers with huge knives and blood-drenched clothing walking around in a large open area, doing terrible things to the helpless animals who were crying out in agony and distress.

On 26 February 2006 60-Minutes aired another program, showing the  appalling mistreatment of Australian cattle in the Bassateen abattoir, creating another furore, and leading to a ban on exports to Egypt (that was lifted two years later).

Howard Sacre, producer at 60-Minutes, is in awe of White’s accomplishments in these dangerous Middle East missions over many years:

‘It blows me away how gutsy she is because she’s taking huge risks. She gets into these places with a hidden camera with men with big knives and axes who don’t know her. I mean, she could disappear in an instant’.

In 2010, an “independent” study tour sponsored by MLA and its live export body LiveCorp, visited 11 Indonesian abattoirs as part of an assessment of the welfare of Australian live cattle exports. The team of assessors witnessed the slaughtering of 29 cattle in the 11 abattoirs and observed that “These abattoirs were typically free of offensive smell and animal noise suggesting a good standard of animal welfare”.  The conclusion to the extensive report was that, “Overall the tour found that animal welfare in Indonesia was generally good.”

Scrutinising the findings, Lyn and Animals Australia CEO Glenys Oogjes saw that something didn’t add up.  Comments were made to the effect that non-lethal stunning was frequent, and the Mark 1 cattle restraining boxes supplied by the MLA were not being used satisfactorily.

Lyn and a colleague decided to follow this up, and flew to Jakarta.  Such was the sense that the slaughterhouse was a normal place of business, they were given permission to film.   It was a harrowing experience, and the cumulative toll of her work was beginning to take a huge toll on Lyn.  Glenys Oogjes, CEO of Animals Australia described how she had changed on her return:

“I had never seen her so thin and gaunt, and her eyes looked haunted.  It affected her so very badly.”    

After Lyn returned to Australia at the end of March 2011, ABC Four Corners was approached with the evidence Animals Australia had obtained.   As well as the actual slaughter they documented cattle having their eyes gouged, tails broken, and tendons slashed, a cruel method employed in some slaughterhouses, that forces the animal to collapse.

The next day, the RSPCA, Animals Australia and GetUp! websites crashed under the load, and in just three days over 200,000 Australians had signed a petition to the Government to stop live exports.   Not everyone hailed Lyn as a hero, however.  Many callers to talkback stations criticised her for not intervening and stopping the abuse and slaughter.  She was also called out by cattle producers in northern Australia, who supply most of the cattle for export to the Middle East.  They accused her of ‘Unaustralian behaviour’ for exposing the issues.  Western Australia Senator Chris Back even suggested that the team bribed the slaughtermen to enact the level of cruelty purely for sensationalist purposes.

In the following two weeks Lyn was in great demand from the media, and gave over 100 interviews, and as a result of the furore Federal Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig suspended live exports to the 11 Indonesian abattoirs in question.  The ban was lifted however, subject to conditions, just a few months later.

In 2018, more undercover footage, taken by a courageous crew member, was given to the media.  It documented the heartbreaking suffering of sheep of sea.  The videos showed how thousands of sheep were suffering from heat stress in the hot Middle Eastern climate.   Sheep were ‘baking in their own skin’, gasping for oxygen, caked in feces that had melted with the heat.  They documented decomposing bodies, injured and sick animals left to die lingering deaths, pregnant ewes giving birth, and watching their lambs die.  This incident saw Lyn once again in the public eye, commenting on the tragedy:

“The scale of neglect and the acceptance of suffering on these shipments is staggering. Sheep producers were no doubt mortified to discover that animals born into their care have ended up literally being cooked alive on live export vessels.”

Because of her investigations into live export over the last sixteen years, Lyn has become a well-known name, both in Australia and internationally.  As Director of Strategy at Animals Australia she has spearheaded many other campaigns, including the treatment of animals raised for foods in factory farms, dogs abused in the puppy trade, and the greyhound racing industry.   In her role as Director of Animals International, the global arm of Animals Australia, she collaborates with international groups on universal animal cruelty issues, and her efforts have led to welfare advancements in a number of countries.  This includes in Jordan, where HRH Princess Alia al Hussein was inspired by Lyn’s work to set up the Princess Alia Foundation.  She has said:

“Lyn’s ethos embodies the line from The Impossible Dream, ‘to be willing to march into hell for a Heavenly cause.’ She has done this time and again, and thank God has been rewarded with truly beneficial and far-reaching results for animals and humanity. I am simply in awe of her.” 

Lyn has been the recipient of many awards.  She was a state finalist for the 2012 Australian of the Year, and was named 2nd in a list of 100 most influential people of 2011 by The Age Melbourne Magazine. She was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2014 Queen’s Birthday Honours for “significant service to the community as an animal rights and welfare advocate”.   Author of Animal Liberation and distinguished philosopher, Professor Peter Singer has said this of her:

“In my 40 years working with various organisations to reduce the needless suffering of both humans and animals, I have never known someone as brave and resolute – or as effective as Lyn. Lyn’s work has already prevented a vast amount of cruelty, and I am sure that in the future it will prevent much more. Lyn seems to me to have exactly the qualities that Australians look for in their heroes: a quiet no nonsense get-the-job done approach, combined with compassion for the weak and an abhorrence of cruelty.” 

These days Lyn is much in demand as an inspirational speaker, and can speak without notes or teleprompter from the depth of her own experience to touch people’s hearts.   The Animals Australia website states:

She presents a compelling argument that the causes of human and animal suffering are the same — and that we cannot address one without addressing the essence of both. Moreover she deeply challenges the essence of our humanity by advocating that we are not simply here to be human beings, but to become humane beings — and to leave this world a kinder and more compassionate place for those who follow us.

I’d like to finish my tribute to the work of Lyn White with her own words, that reveal her deeply spiritual nature.

“I believe in a higher power, a force for good in this Universe and I believe that when you work with pure motives to create change, something kicks in to help you.  There is a reason behind everything, and I’m working where I’m needed, and where I’m meant to be.”

 

Sandra Kyle started End Animal Slaughter website in 2018, with the goal of closing all slaughterhouses in the western world by 2025.  

We Need To Stop Factory Farming, Say Celebrity Couple

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle

Closing wet markets will not be enough to prevent pandemics, say Joachin Phoenix and Rooney Mara in a recent opinion editorial. We need to stop factory farming. 

The vegan/animal rights community is lucky to have the high-profile celebs who use their influence to be a voice for animals.

In their Washington Post editorial Phoenix and Mara state that while animal markets such as the one in Wuhan that gave rise to Covid-19 are common in China, they are also found throughout the US, including 80 of them within New York City alone.  The couple state that more commonplace threats to public health are the more than 15,000 CAFOS ‘concentrated animal feeding operations’ (factory farms) scattered throughout the US.  As well as posing environmental threats and risks to human health in the disposal of effluent in their communities, they are hot houses for the proliferation of disease.

A US Pig CAFO

“These factory farms warehouse thousands of animals that wallow in their own waste with limited or no airspace. [This] routinely [creates] conditions for the proliferation of superbugs and zoonotic pathogens…”

 “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) have warned us against the risks of factory farms for years…”

“The unsanitary living conditions inside CAFOs weaken animals’ immune systems and increase their susceptibility to infection and disease. The factory farms’ response has been to pump the animals full of antibiotics that make their way into our food supply and onto our dinner plates, systematically fostering in humans a lethal resistance to the medicines that once quelled everyday infections. Such practices have brought humanity to the point that the WHO now estimates that more than half of all human diseases emanate from animals.”

Phoenix and Mara state that we must probe our role in the emergence of a growing number of diseases that have come about as a result of our impositions on the animal kingdom and the environment:

”This probe cannot end with bats, monkeys, pangolins and other exotic wildlife supposedly to blame for recent contagions. It should encompass all of the supporting industries that contribute to the debilitation of communities, our susceptibility to illnesses and our complete defenselessness in their wake. A real public-health reckoning would have us reshape our patterns of consumption, curbing our dependence on animal products. A bacteria-infested (and inhumane) food supply makes people sick.”

Covid 19 has brought about awareness of zoonoses, and the significant health risks they pose for humans, animals, and the planet.  We need to listen to Phoenix and Mara, who urge us to apply the same energy we have put into overcoming the virus to help dismantle the industries that are both so cruel to animals, and a hothouse for future disease outbreaks.

 

 

 

Sandra Kyle is an animal activist, and the owner of the website End Animal Slaughter