Author: Sandra Kyle

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

 

 

Fetal bovine serum – another ethical problem within the dairy and slaughter industries

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle

What could be more barbaric than taking an unborn fetus, draining its blood, and then throwing it on a pile to be discarded?   End Animal Slaughter’s Sandra Kyle writes about yet another horror at the slaughterhouse, a direct product of the dairy industry: the collection of fetal bovine serum.

 

In meatworks all over the world a small percentage of cows arriving for slaughter are pregnant.  Their foetuses can be at any stage of development, from first to third trimesters, and some are already full term.   In 2017 in New Zealand, the Ministry for Primary Industries recorded 22 births on slaughter trucks or on arrival at the slaughterhouse.

In the UK, the British Cattle Veterinary Association estimates that 150,000 pregnant cows are sent to slaughter each year, at least 40,000 of them in the last stages of their pregnancy. The calves they bear,  they speculate, could possibly be capable of independent life.

Gabriele Meurer MRCVS, a former official veterinary surgeon in UK abattoirs, left his job, and the country, in disgust at what happened to pregnant cows and their foetuses.  He wrote in 2017:

“What is happening right now in British slaughterhouses is quite simply a scandal. Sometimes when these creatures are hanging on the line bleeding to death, you can see the unborn calves kicking inside their mothers’ wombs. I, as a vet, am not supposed to do anything about this. Unborn calves do not exist according to the regulations. I just had to watch, do nothing and keep quiet. It broke my heart. I felt like a criminal”.

In many parts of the world, including in New Zealand, the unborn foetus has a use before it is discarded.  Its blood is collected to sell to pharmaceuticals and laboratories as a medium to grow cells in in vitro cultures, to be used in a variety of procedures such as fertilisation, and the formation of vaccines.

When human cells and tissue are grown in a culture form, a source of nutrients, namely hormones and growth factors, must be added. The usual supplement comes from cows’ aborted fetuses.  The fetal blood, called fetal bovine serum, is considered to be a rich source of nutrients.

The harvest of foetal bovine serum has been operating in New Zealand for at least 25 years. It is a lucrative industry.  Each calf produces on average about 300ml, and while farmers receive around $50.00 extra per harvest – more if the fetus has gone full term – it can fetch up to $2,500 a litre.  Worldwide, it is estimated that more than one million aborted bovine fetuses undergo this procedure every year.

After slaughter and bleeding out of the cow at the abattoir, the mother’s uterus containing the calf fetus is removed when she is being disembowelled, and her feet and head are being severed.   The fetus, still alive, is then transferred to the blood collection room.  A needle is inserted directly into its beating heart (the heart needs to be beating to collect sufficient serum) and the blood is vacuumed into a sterile collection bag in order to minimize the risk of contamination with micro-organisms from the slaughterhouse environment.

It is variable as to what level of awareness the calves have. However, no anesthesia is given to them, despite their possible ability to experience pain and discomfort.

The harvesting of aborted calf’s blood is beyond barbaric, and is another direct consequence of the cruel dairy industry.  There is no need to be using calf blood to add nutrients to in vitro cultures, as there are other substances that can be used as replacements.

Such atrocities exist because we choose to eat meat and dairy products.  We can make the decision today to eliminate cruelty from our plate by  beginning the transition to a vegan diet.

 

 

Isn’t It Time We Extended Our ‘Bubble’ To Include Sentient Pigs?

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle | 5 Comments on Isn’t It Time We Extended Our ‘Bubble’ To Include Sentient Pigs?

End Animal Slaughter contributor Sarah Oliver asks us to use our experience in lockdown to empathise with the plight of mother pigs.

I am so grateful to live in New Zealand. Strong and compassionate leadership that values science and puts people lives first feels likes a rare thing in this world, and has been a hallmark of this time. As a nation, New Zealanders have been willing to listen to the science, and we have stayed the course, even though the financial implications of the Covid-19 lockdown will be huge.   We have remained inside our flats, our houses, our boarding houses, our caravans. Sometimes with people who perhaps we would rather not share such close quarters with, in busy, stressed households, juggling children, study, work, tight budgets and difficult relationships.

Our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, told us to ‘stay in our bubbles’ to save lives, so we have.  The results are promising.  To date, the number of confirmed cases in New Zealand is 1,112, with  sixteen deaths.   The vast majority of those who contracted the virus have now recovered.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern has won respect all over the world for her wise, firm and compassionate leadership

Our experience in lockdown, as with people all over the world, has been a roller coaster of emotions.  For many, the first week in particular was filled with dread, fear of the unknown, and stress as we tried to figure out what was happening. We wondered how it would impact on us, and how long it would be for. But ultimately the decision was made for us. We had a virus to contend with, and so we stayed home to protect each other.   Can we not now use this unprecedented experience to extend our compassion and empathy circle a little wider?

Learning empathy is learning to see and experience the world through another’s eyes, learning to appreciate that another’s experience can be different from our own.  It is what we try to teach our children when we ask them to share, and not hurt one another.  The skill is valuable for humans as it allows us to function as a cohesive, caring society.

I would like to suggest we take a moment to strengthen our empathy muscle.  Let’s imagine the experience of a mother pig in a factory farm, something we can relate to a little more now we are experiencing confinement ourselves.

In New Zealand, as with a number of other countries, we have banned sow crates, tiny enclosures, barely larger than the sow’s body, used to confine the sow during most of her pregnancy.

However we do still allow the use of farrowing crates. A farrowing crate is a small cage a mother pig is placed in during the last week of her pregnancy, and four weeks post pregnancy. She can only stand up and sit down.  She cannot move around, and has little or no bedding. Here she is kept, feeding her piglets until they are removed for fattening to become the bacon and ham on our plates. Once she finally gets to leave, she will be impregnated again. She will do this repeatedly during her brutalised life, until it ends when her body is exhausted, and she is on the slaughterhouse floor.

If we can empathise with the life a mother pig lives in factory farms all over the world,  then we can understand the extent of the horror we subject her to.  She has a level of intelligence greater than our pooches we live with,  and  is very much aware of her suffering.  Sure, we have had to stay inside for a few weeks, and it hasn’t always been easy.      But it is nothing compared to the lifetime of suffering we inflict on mother pigs.

Is the taste of bacon really worth subjecting billions of pigs to suffer in factory farms?  

Please can we take a moment to reflect on this suffering, and also address the question:  ‘Isn’t it time to remove pork from our plate?’  Just as we listened to the science about how to control the spread of Covid-19, can we not also respect the science that tells us that pigs are sentient?   That, like us, pigs experiences fear, trauma and suffering?   Recognising this, how can we continue to force them into a life of unadulterated misery, merely because we like the taste of bacon.

One last word for the pig farmer. Many years ago I had a long conversation with a pig farmer when I was running an information stall protesting sow crates. He came to chat to me and was animated and upset. However, he ended the conversation admitting he did not like to do this to animals, but he needed to make a living. So, let’s lend our pig farmers a lifeline as they transition out of factory farming into something better suited to our modern world.  Is it finally time that our wise and compassionate leadership acknowledged that by forgiving debt, and providing transition finance into new food growing, we can create a better New Zealand, and in so doing inspire the rest of the world?

Is it finally time that our wise and compassionate leadership acknowledged that by forgiving debt, and providing transition finance into new food growing, we can create a better New Zealand, and inspire the rest of the world?   

Innovation and compassion are our hallmarks, and we are a fortunate people. So, how about we extend our compassion bubbles to include not only other humans, but also pigs and all other sentient beings.

 

Sarah writes, teaches and mentors in the development of veganic garden systems. She is a vegan and has a strong interest in the rights of non human animals. 

Coronavirus adds to the woes of already disadvantaged slaughterhouse workers

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle

Key Points:

–  Infections have spread in at least 48 US meatpacking plants, sickening more than 2,200 people and killing 17.
– Coronavirus has already closed some Smithfield and JBS meatpacking plants, but many more are at risk.
–  Rates of infection in the nation’s biggest beef, pork and poultry processing plants are higher than those of 75% of other U.S. counties. 
–  Meat and poultry employees have been notorious for decades for putting production ahead of worker health.  They have among the highest illness rates of all manufacturing employees and are less likely to report injuries and illness than any other type of worker. 
–  There is little risk of a dwindling meat supply during the pandemic, because, given the choice between worker safety and keeping meat on grocery shelves, slaughterhouses will choose to produce food.
Read the USA Today article

 

Let the Pangolin’s Scales Fall From Your Eyes

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle

End Animal Slaughter contributor Lynley Tulloch writes that our best defence against Covid-19 is to stop abusing animals.  

 

Distinguished American immunologist Dr Anthony Fauci has made a call to ban wildlife markets calling them an unusual human animal interface.

This call is echoed by the United Nations (UN) biodiversity chief who also says we need to ban wildlife markets in China and other countries in order to prevent future pandemics like the SARS Covid-19.

A Chinese Wet Market

These wildlife markets are ideal sites for the emergence of new microbial pathogens like the SARS-coronaviruses that rely on hosts to mutate and spread. The route of transmission of SARS-coronaviruses is from wildlife to humans.

The three zoonotic corona viruses capable of causing severe respiratory infections in humans are SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and COVID-19. SARS-CoV has what scientists call high host plasticity – this means it can be found in a high host range and can mutate to become capable of human to human transmission. This is what we have seen with COVID-19.

The ecology of SARS-coronaviruses is an interesting, convoluted and deadly field. Wading through it left me with two impressions – one was a headache and the other was that it all began with bats. There is a vast amount of academic literature saying that coronaviruses (of which Covid-19 is but one) have naturally evolved and been hosted by bats and birds.

But before you get all hung up on bats don’t blame them. And don’t get your feathers ruffled over birds. A recent research article has suggested that during the mutation of SARS Covid-19, pangolins provided a partial spike gene. The spike gene binds to a receptor on a human cell and thus gains entry – with often deadly consequences.

Pangolin meat is considered a delicacy in China, and its scales are used in traditional Chinese medicine

But don’t blame pangolins either. Let the scales fall from your eyes as to the real driver of virus spill over from animals to humans. A study conducted by the University of California and the University of Melbourne found that the drivers of transmission of zoonotic diseases are humans through the creation of animal-human interfaces.

These occur where animals and humans interact – in animal agriculture, human dwellings, hunting, laboratory research, zoos, and wildlife management and exploitation scenarios. We have used and abused animals to such an extent that we have fostered and enabled the transmission of zoonotic viruses.

       Wet markets are prime sites for the emergence and transmission of zoonotic viruses to humans

These kind of interactions between humans and animals are mostly based on the ideology of human supremacy. Many of us are brought up with the unshakeable belief that there is a hierarchy in nature and that humans sit God-like at the pinnacle. It sure is getting very spiky up there on that mountain top.

Time to climb down.

We need to reframe our thinking, attitude and behaviour toward animals and non-human nature. It is not that animals pose a risk to humans because they are the source of new viruses. It is humans who pose a risk to themselves through the misguided belief that humans are a superior species who can (and should) use animals for their own benefit. That came back to bite us.

And when you think about it, what a convenient narrative it is to blame the animals. We literally invade their world, destroy their habitat, put them in filthy cages, eat them, wear them, use their bodies as living research objects and otherwise exploit them. And somehow it is their fault. That is just batty.

And when you think about it, what a convenient narrative it is to blame the animals. We literally invade their world, destroy their habitat, put them in filthy cages, eat them, wear them, use their bodies as living research objects and otherwise exploit them. And somehow it is their fault. That is just batty.

I want to challenge that narrative and I think we all need to be singing from the same hymn sheet on this. It is not the animals who pose a danger to humans – it is humans themselves. If we left animals and their habitat alone none of this would be happening. It really is quite simple.

Wildlife markets are destructive not only in terms of their potential as places where viruses may jump species. They are also destroyers of biodiversity and places of great cruelty.

China is one of the largest consumers of wild animals for food and medicine in the world. A study by Alex Chow, Szeman Cheung and Peter Yip in the Human – Wildlife Interactions Journal in 2014 found some disturbing facts. This study of wildlife markets from 7 cities in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces found that 97 animal species were sold of which 51% were reptiles (turtles and lizards), 21% were birds and 10% were mammals. Alarmingly, 23% of the reported species were threatened, 12 species endangered and one species critically endangered.

This study also showed that many of the species originated not only in South China but also Indochina (such as the Indochinese box turtle) and Southeast Asia (such as the Burmese Python). Most of the animals were believed to be wild caught because tooth-like wounds (caused by traps) could be seen on their feet.

A significant number of these animals in China have been poached and there is evidence of extensive and expanding networks of illegal international wildlife trading.

Another academic study from 2004 linked the SARS corona virus to the wildlife trade and population growth. It clearly stated that “the underlying roots of newly emergent zoonotic diseases may lie in the parallel biodiversity crisis of massive species loss as a result of overexploitation of wild animal populations and the destruction of their natural habitats by increasing human populations”. They called for a less human-centred approach to our relationship with animals.  Apparently we did not listen and I am rapidly losing faith that we ever will.

We need a less human approach to our relationship with other species

Wherever humans settle they exploit non-human animals for their own gain. And it has now come back to haunt us in the shape of Covid-19. We need to critically look at our relationship with animals and re-imagine it if humans and animals are to have a future on this planet.

So please don’t blame the animals. It’s our fault and we need to do something about it.

Dr Lynley Tulloch is an animal advocate, and a Lecturer in Education