Author: Sandra Kyle

Why vegans don’t wear leather and you shouldn’t either

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle | 1 Comment on Why vegans don’t wear leather and you shouldn’t either

End Animal Slaughter’s Sandra Kyle has been visiting India for more than twenty-five years, and has recently returned from her latest trip. In the second of a series of articles for this website on the state of animals in India, she looks at illegal trafficking of cattle, and the rise of leather production in Kerala and Bangladesh.

One of the most beautiful animals I have ever seen is the Indian cow.  Imposing in size, but with a sweet, docile and curious nature, the native breed is most commonly light in colour, although there are brown and pied cows as well.   A distinguishing feature of the true Brahman cow is the distinctive hump, evolved over time to help the animal survive in hot, arid conditions.   These animals are well-proportioned, with floppy ears, large upcurving horns, and enormous expressive eyes and long straight eyelashes.  

Revered by Hindus as ‘sacred’, the Indian cow is also called  “Mother” because she provides milk and, literally, the skin off her back.  Yet this beautiful, gentle animal who gives so much is egregiously treated by the very people who revere her. While it is mainly Christians and Muslims who carry out the trafficking, slaughter and leather processing, it is Hindus who sell their cattle to the traffickers. The whole sordid story is one of cruelty and corruption of the most egregious kind.

Nearly twenty years ago an expose by PETA first brought the problem to light. This created a scandal that saw celebrities such as Chrissie Hynd, Sir Paul McCartney, and the Dalai Llama calling for an end to the trafficking.

The problem with illegal trafficking began in the 1990s, when the Hindu nationalist party (BJP) came to power. When protection for the cow was enhanced,  including heavy restrictions around slaughter, an almost entirely clandestine trade in cows for beef and leather began.  This illegal trafficking was mainly to Christian Kerala in the far South (where cow slaughter is still legal) and neighbouring  Bangladesh, a Muslim nation.   While regulations exist, widespread bribery and corruption by government officials and veterinary surgeons means that they are not enforced.

Prominent Indian Animal Rights activist and veteran campaigner Mrs Meneka Gandhi, Minister for Women and Children in the Narendra Modi government, said at the time of the initial expose in 2000:   “There is a huge amount of trafficking of cattle to both West Bengal and Kerala.  The ones going to West Bengal go by truck and train and they go by the millions. The law says you cannot transport more than 4 per truck but they are putting in up to 70. When they go by train, each wagon is supposed to hold 80 to 100, but they cram in up to 900. I’ve seen 900 cows coming out of the wagon of a train, and 400 to 500 of them came out dead.”

‘The cattle are unloaded just before Calcutta, at Howrah, then beaten and taken across to Bangladesh by road. Bangladesh, which has no cows of its own, is the biggest beef exporter in the region. Between 10,000 and 15,000 cows go across that border every day. You can make out the route taken by the trucks by the trail of blood they leave behind.”

When their destination is Kerala,  the cows are taken on foot, tens of thousands per day, to slaughterhouses  on the border.  “Because they have walked and walked and walked the cattle have lost a lot of weight, so to increase the weight and the amount of money they will receive, the traffickers make them drink water laced with copper sulphate, which destroys their kidneys and makes it impossible for them to pass the water – so when they are weighed they have 15kg of water inside them and are in extreme agony,” Mrs Gandhi stated.

“It’s a hideous journey,” wrote PETA President, Ingred Newkirk, who followed a caravan of cows to Kerala.   “To keep them moving, drivers beat the animal across their hip bones, where there is no fat to cushion the blows. The cows are not allowed to rest or drink. Many cows sink to their knees. Drivers beat them and twist their battered tails to force them to rise. If that doesn’t work they torment the cows into moving by rubbing hot chilli peppers and tobacco into their eyes.”

When they finally make it to the slaughterhouses, the PETA investigation revealed,  they were  slaughtered with repeated hammer blows, which beat their skulls to a pulp. 

It is a devastating  story, and  the worst of it is that it is still happening today.  

I recently watched a video that took a look at tanneries on the India-Bangladeshi border.   Skins are acquired by the tanneries from neighbouring slaughterhouses, and processed by employees working under appalling conditions.     These places are swelteringly hot, and there is an ever-present pungent stench from toxic chemicals used to process the hides. The poorest of the poor work in this industry, including innocent children who also handle the chemicals. Eventually the waste spills out into the streets and then into the waterways, making them black and viscous. Humans, fish and other animals all become sick or die as a result of this industry.

Another shocking revelation in the video I watched were images of a buyer for an Italian shoe company walking around and inspecting the hides. In subsequent shots we saw shoes  being placed in boxes with an Italian brandname, to be packaged and exported to Europe.The illegal trafficking of cattle, their treatment, slaughter, and processing of their hides for leather is a story of unbelievable cruelty, but also poverty, greed and ignorance. It is also a story of unethical employers who exploit their labour, and wealthy international companies who perpetuate the misery in order to profit from their immoral gains.

There is so much misery  tied up with cattle meat and leather in India. Animals transported in punishing conditions who are whipped and beaten as they travel to their destination. Primitive and barbaric slaughter methods in unregulated slaughterhouses.   Unsanitary conditions and poor pay for workers, including children.  A toxic environment that makes people and animals alike sick.  

This is the chain of production of some Italian-brand shoes and no doubt many other High Street brands.     It is why vegans don’t wear leather, and why non-vegans shouldn’t either.

Worker in a toxic Bangladeshi tannery

The plight of the ‘Sacred Cow’ in India

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End Animal Slaughter’s Sandra Kyle recently visited India to receive  the Phillip Wollen Animal Welfare Award.  The Award was presented by the Haryana-based Teachers’ Association for Animal Rights, and was given to her by prominent Animal Rights activist Meneka Gandhi, Minister for Women and Children in the Narendra Modi government.

During her two weeks’ stay Sandra  was struck by the numbers of cows wandering the streets of towns and cities.  Read her take on the problem of ‘The Sacred Cow’ in India.   

The cow in India has long had a unique status.   Known by such names   as “Mother”, “Kamdhenu”, “Surabhi”, ‘The Sacred Cow Who Fulfils All Desires’, she is depicted in iconography as a white cow with a female head and breasts, the wings of a bird, and the tail of a peacock.   However while there are temples devoted to Hanuman (Monkey God) and Ganesha (Elephant God), cows are not generally worshipped independently as a goddess, but honoured by protecting and venerating the living animal.  While this may sound very cosy  for the cow, all is not as it seems.  In my opinion there is not one happy street cow in India.

Traditionally, spent cows who could no longer give milk have been sent to slaughter, which was carried out by minority non-Hindus.  Recent  legislation preventing slaughter means  that  owners who cannot afford to keep their animals  release them onto the streets to fend for themselves.  This is creating a dire situation for the cows, as well as posing traffic risks on India’s already chaotic roads.  It also highlights the pressing and persistent problem of waste disposal in this country.

Every year, tens of thousands of cows are killed in accidents in India. They are often seen walking across roads in the middle of the traffic, or standing on traffic islands.   Generally they gather near the ubiquitous rubbish piles, where they root around for enough food to keep them from starving.   While I saw many skinny cows and calves, I also some who looked quite bloated.    I didn’t understand the cause of their large  stomachs until I visited a cow hospital in Haryana, and witnessed an operation. 

The hospital I visited is the Gau Seva Dham (Holy Mother Cow Hospital). The spiritual leader is Devi Chitralekhaji a young woman in her early twenties. Her biography states that she was born in a nearby village and her life’s purpose took root at the age of seven, when she was initiated by a ‘great Saint’. The little girl began devoting her seva (service) to the Holy Mother Cow and, a few years ago, with donations from her followers, she opened the Gau Seva Dham.

The Manager of the Centre escorted our party around the facility. Like any hospital there are ‘wards’, sectioned off portions of a large open sided area, covered with soft sand to make the patients more comfortable. There is an Intensive Care ward, a Cancer ward, a Burns ward, an Orthopedic ward. We saw some remarkable and upsetting sights at this hospital.   A number of cows in the Intensive Care ward were dying, including one so emaciated and weak that she could not raise her head.  In this ward I also saw one of the most pitiful sights I have seen. A cow had unsuccessfully tried to birth a stillborn calf, visible in the birth sac, halfway out of his mother’s vagina. There was nothing the staff could do for this poor girl other than administer pain relief, and wait until she was released from her suffering.  In the Burns ward I saw two cows with pink wrinkly skin, who were recovering from having acid thrown on them.   Cows with visible tumours, some gigantic, were being treated in the cancer ward, while in the orthopaedic ward a small calf who had had his leg amputated as a result of a traffic accident was learning to move around on three legs.  Before long, I was told, he would be fitted with an artificial leg by the Prosthetics team.

Another memorable sight was a cow undergoing an operation carried out by a team of veterinarians and attendants.  Standing in a restraining device, this girl was fully conscious, having been given local anaesthetic prior to having the contents of her stomach emptied, a procedure that can last up to four hours.  Near the operating table was a large bucket where the surgeons were placing the rubbish they pulled from her stomach.  I watched in amazement as tangled string, bits of cardboard, and especially, plastic bags containing rotting food were pulled from her rumen and placed in the container.  Plastic is particularly deadly for cows, who cannot digest or expel it from their system, and as a result the toxic plastic accumulates inside their stomachs, eventually leading to a slow and painful death.  The cow I saw operated on was one of the lucky ones; but this is an expensive and lengthy procedure, and is not the answer to the problem.   The long term  answer is an outright ban on plastic bags, and more regulation regarding the disposal of rubbish in India.    Feeding and watering stations for cattle away from traffic is another option that could be explored.

The cow may be sacred in Hinduism, but the living, breathing animal is far from venerated.   Once they have fulfilled their purpose they are let loose to lead difficult, dangerous lives, largely ignored or tolerated  but sometimes abused by the population.   And there is another shocking aspect to the misery of the sacred cow in this country, and that is how they are abused in the  production of leather, which I will cover in a follow-up story.

Should CCTV cameras be mandatory in slaughterhouses?

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle | 1 Comment on Should CCTV cameras be mandatory in slaughterhouses?

 

There are a number of countries around the world, including Israel the UK and France, that have made the installation of CCTV cameras mandatory in slaughterhouses.     Here in New Zealand there have also been calls for CCTV cameras. not only in slaughterhouses but also in dairy sheds.  This was in response to undercover organisation FARMWATCH’s 2018 expose, showing a Northland farmer terrorising and abusing his cows.

It is difficult to know how much of a step forward it is to have cameras in slaughterhouses.

Commenting after the UK Law was passed, Animal Welfare Minister Lord Gardiner said:  “The Government shares the public’s high regard for animal welfare and we are proud to have some of the highest standards in the world. Today we welcome the new law which requires mandatory CCTV in all abattoirs in England”.

On the face of it, it seems obvious that CCTV cameras on the farm would diminish the many horrific instances of abuse that have been captured by undercover activists around the world.   Yet a moment’s reflection shows that it also represents a contradiction in terms, just as ‘humane slaughter’ does.   For example installing CCTV cameras in dairy sheds implies that it is fine to carry on dairy practices –including AI and the removal of calves immediately from their mothers.   Putting cameras inside slaughterhouses is even more contradictory; it is tantamount to saying ‘Don’t worry about it, we’ll see that the execution is done according to the rules, and that will make it alright.’

 

A Northland dairy farmer was caught on camera terrorising his cows,

and hitting them with a steel pipe 

Except it doesn’t make it alright.    Installing CCTV cameras in slaughterhouses could have the effect of reassuring people that it is fine to kill and eat animals, and encourage them to continue.  Where is there concern for the true interests of the animals here?  As George Bernard Shaw, a vegetarian, said:  ‘If animals could talk the first thing they would say is Please Don’t Eat Me!’   No animal walks willingly to his or her death.   Putting CCTV cameras in slaughterhouses could favour the animal agriculture industry, enabling them to improve their profit maximisation and efficiency as they go about their business of exploiting and killing animals.

Ultimately, there is only one rational answer if people believe that animals matter morally, and that is to go vegan.   While promoting the use of CCTV cameras in the animal exploitation industry may be acceptable as an interim welfare measure, the clear goal should be to work towards shutting down all slaughterhouses forever.

Sandra Kyle

The euthanasia of four male baboons highlights one of the problems with zoos

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle | 3 Comments on The euthanasia of four male baboons highlights one of the problems with zoos

The recent euthanasia of four male baboons at Wellington Zoo highlights some of the problems and difficult decisions that Zoo staff have to make.   While the baboon’s social structure breaking down was the reason for putting the animals to sleep,  it also shows that keeping animals in captivity in zoo-like situations cannot meet their behavioural and habitat needs.

End Animal Slaughter contributor Sonja Penafiel Bermudez’s organisation ‘Speak Up For Animals’ and Animal Rights organisation Save Animals From Exploitation staged a vigil outside the zoo.

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A few moments love and comfort before the end

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle | 1 Comment on A few moments love and comfort before the end

The Worldwide Save Movement has well over 600 groups around the world holding vigils for animals going to slaughter.   Read Gustavo Arelland’s Los Angeles Times account of how one of these groups bears witness  outside ‘Farmer John ‘s’.   Farmer John, owned by animal killing giant Smithfields, butchers up to 7,000 pigs every single day.

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‘We’re in a fight for our lives’

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle

In her article in ‘The Cap Times’, Patricia Randolph writes that ignoring climate change could lead to disaster in just a few years.  We must change our eating habits to save the planet and our lives.   In her article she also mentions End Animal Slaughter:

‘A new effort has emerged  to end the slaughterhouses of the Western world by 2025: The website states: “There is an enormous amount of evidence that killing animals for food is a root cause of not only of enormous animal suffering but also global warming, biodiversity loss, human disease, and poverty in the developing countries.”

When one opens the website, a kill counter starts the count of animals being killed since opening the page. An estimated 3 billion land animals and wild and farmed fish are killed daily. 

That count does not include hunting and trapping our natural predators and wildlife, the by-catch, and poaching of the last of our wild creatures to facilitate slaughter of the enslaved.’

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‘You Know Who You Are’

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle

End Animal Slaughter contributor Debbie Nelson spends a lot of time talking to people, including those in the animal industries.   She’s had enough of their rationalisations.

 

We have an animal holocaust going on worldwide.  Why do you deny it?  I’m so sick or hearing your excuses!

I’m getting to know you all too well. I talk to you every day, those of you who farm and process animals and their products, and also those of you who consume them. I’m so tired hearing about your animal welfare standards. They mean nothing to the suffering of the animals subjected to this ‘humane’ care.  From in-utero to death, from marketing to consumption, you are contributing to animal misery and anguish. We’re talking about billions of executions after a life of torture with no crime committed.  Where precisely is your link in this chain of animal cruelty?

You know who you are. You are the veterinarians who work at the farms; small, factory and in-between. Your job is to keep the animals alive and walking in step only so they can be killed at a fraction of their natural lifespan.  You keep compassionate, intelligent, emotional beings physically well enough until it is time to kill them to earn money for the farmers.  You are just facilitating the terrible crime that keeps them in their prisons.     Here’s one example:  you help farmers keep their sows in gestation and farrowing crates by tending to the sores where their soft bodies rub against iron bars.  How can you call yourself veteranians?  You took a oath to protect animals and relieve their suffering, not perpetuate it.

You know who you are. You are the consumer of animal products. I hear you say so often ‘I love animals.’  ‘I can’t bear animal cruelty’, and yet you pay someone to kill animals so you can eat or wear them.  Stop turning away from an inconvenient truth!  Research the facts!   Make no mistake, the blood is on your hands of those who give their lives for your cheese, milk, roast dinner, omelette.   Farm animal brutality would not even exist without your ignorant or heartless use of your dollars. Stop sticking your head in the humane washing machine! It’s time you informed yourself.    The power to do this resides with you and no-one else.

Jo Frederiks Art

You know who you are. You are the super-rich and powerful owners of companies that produce, process and sell animal products.  You make millions from farm animal exploitation. They have none of the instruments of power you possess, and can’t speak for themselves. Even humans can’t fight you, they are also under your money-thumb.  As long as your pockets are full what does it matter that billions of animals are killed every year? As long as your investors are happy, who cares about the rest?

What does it matter that dairy calves are taken away from their mothers just hours after birth?  Who cares if dairy cows go to slaughter completely spent at 5 years old when their natural lifespan is close to 20 years?  As long as you’re making money from them, what does it matter?

If a fetal calf is taken from his slaughtered mother and has all its blood drained out while still alive, then so be it. The huge Biotech community will reap the profits. If a piglet has its testicles cut out without pain relief so its meat tastes better, then so be it. The pork associations don’t care.  If bouncing little male chicks in egg-laying hatcheries are ground up or suffocated within moments of hatching, then so be it.  Who cares if they have never known the shelter of a maternal wing? If female chicks have their beak trimmed and some toes cut off to fit them for a life in a battery cage, then so be it.   Who cares if they have the cognition of a toddler human?  What does it matter to the Big Egg producers and the laying farms?  They only care about the mighty dollar.

Let’s pause a moment to consider the often forgotten in animal farming – fish.    In the ag-business of fish farming sentient, playful, social fish lead miserable lives, overcrowded in vats of filthy water laced with chemicals to keep them alive. They endure this horror only to be conscious while being killed. Their gills are cut and they are left to bleed to death in agony. Large fish are at times hit on the head with a bat and are often alive when cut open.  But what does it matter?  They are just fish.

They are just chickens.

They are just pigs.

They are just cows.

They are just animals.

Jo Frederiks Art

Shame on you if you own and run animal farms!    Please don’t tell me you care for your animals. What you care for is efficiency, with an eye on the most dollars you can get from your products, alive and dead.   You don’t sentence those you love to a life of misery and removal to a horrible death do you? Even those of you who allow your animals to live a comparatively decent life still send them away from their home and family, and some of you even put a bullet in their brain yourselves.  You become their friends and care takers, then betray their affection when they can no longer earn their keep. Research!  Think!   When you do you will discover that consumers are leaving off the baby cow milk and cadaver meat in droves, and the future of farming is plant-based.

The penultimate link in the chain of production in the lives of farmed animals is transportation and slaughter. Hundreds of millions are transported in the US every year for breeding, fattening and slaughter.  The industry calls it a “stage of production” referring to live beings as if they were tyres in an auto factory.  Before being transported they have to endure herding and catching. Chicken catching is particularly stressful.  Chicken catchers pursue and grab the birds, hold them upside down six to a fist, then slam them into transport crates. How would you like a electrical prod up the rectum and be moved into a totally unfamiliar place where you will have your throats slit?  That’s what six month old piglets endure.  They are supposed to live over 15 years. At a moment’s notice they must leave their homes and family to be placed in a crowded truck where they are transported in conditions that could be sweltering or freezing, deprived of food water and bedding for hours on end. Some animals experience such extreme stress that they die en route. Because of these horrible impacts on animals the issue of transportation has been addressed by federal, state and international bodies. The laws are clear but as is the case with so many rules in this industry, they are not enforced.

And now we come to the last link in the chain; slaughter, and the various euphemisms used to describe it.   Call it ‘harvesting’, ‘processing’, ‘culling’ all you like, the fact remains that it is taking away the life of a helpless being against its will.  Murder, execution, killing, homicide, slaying, massacre, butchery, carnage, bloodbath, annihilation, and destruction are all more truthful words to use.   Why don’t you admit it?   Call a spade a bloody spade, because that’s what it is.

Most people who read this will be at the consumer end of the production chain, and so my question is primarily for you.   Are you ready to let it go yet, and transition to a vegan diet?

If not now, then when?   If not you, then who?

 

Jo Frederiks Art

 

What other animals know

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle

In this long, fascinating article by Ross Andersen of ‘The Atlantic’, we are taken on two journies; one to India to witness Jainism in action, the other to consider the origin of consciousness in animals.  In his article Andersen writes about how fruit flies resort to alcohol in the form of fermented fruit when faced with dim mating prospects, crows use traffic on busy highways to open their walnuts, and fish speculate about the behaviour of other beings.  The Jains have accorded other animals consciousness for nearly 3,000 years: scientific studies are beginning to show they are right.

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