Author: Sandra Kyle

SLAUGHTERHOUSE VIGIL, 17 February 2019

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Sandra Kyle and Kirsty Thompson do regular weekly vigils outside two slaughterhouses in Whanganui, New Zealand as part of the International Save Movement.   To look for a vigil near you, or to start your own Save Movement group, go to thesavemovement.org

 

WE SAW an enormous black steer making a panicked attempt to climb over the top of a slaughtertruck today. He was probably standing on another steer, perhaps a downed one, but he couldn’t get over and fell back. Straddling the animals on the top tier was the truck driver. I had watched him for some moments beforehand electrically shocking the animals to try and get them off the truck. He was roughly jabbing them in short sharp movements, and it looked as if he was shocking the same animal several times. I was nearly choking with anger, and screamed out at him to stop electrocuting them. He didn’t react. He was also yelling at them and making movements with his arms: ‘Go! Get!’ or something similar. It took nearly ten minutes before the animals started to unload and during a lot of that time he was using his electric prod.

SEEING THAT STEER suddenly rise up out of the half-hidden, anonymous cargo, seeing his large ears, his open mouth and wild eyes, seeing his legs hanging over the side, has haunted me in the hours since. He could have hurt or bruised himself in the attempt also, and to suffer electric shocks and be yelled at, on top of that, set my heart beating faster with disbelief and anger. When I moved up closer to the truck. the groundsman told me to get off the pedestrian strip. I pointed out the symbol painted on the ground. He said ‘I don’t give a rat’s a*se, get the hell back.’ When I told Kirsty what he said she was furious and marched up to where I had been standing. He told her to move too, and then with a huge voice that boomed out of her small body she told him where to go. ‘We are ALLOWED to stand here….. This is not about YOU.’ He was quite taken aback, as usually Kirsty doesn’t say much.  On the way home I congratulated her on her megaphone voice and she said she was so angry that he was throwing his weight around as usual.

THERE WERE MORE toots today, mostly positive but some negative too, probably as a result of the publicity this week. When we had just arrived someone passing us in a car veered towards me as if to run me down (he was just making a point). A car stopped over the other side of the road and I went across to talk to the two young women. ‘We want to become vegans too’ they said. Another two women on a motor scooter stopped and one said she only ate chicken, was that alright? Kirsty and I spoke to them for a while, then the pillion passenger started to get a bit aggro. ‘That’s just your opinion’, she said as they moved off.

EVERY TIME I APPROACH THESE HELL HOLES my heart sinks and then starts beating faster with anxiety and sorrow. It felt worse today, maybe because of the steer and the driver hurting the animals, but also because I am reading a book by Gail A Eisnitz called ‘Slaughterhouse’. Gail sent it to me to read ahead of my interviewing her on my Animal Rights radio and podcast show, ‘Safe and Sound’. I have copied an excerpt below that shows how cows are killed and processed in most western slaughterhouses. Gail’s investigations and sources proved that it often doesn’t happen according to plan and this could be for a number of reasons. Some of these reasons include a foreman pushing cows through at speed to increase profits, or because of dilapidated equipment, or poorly trained operators. Sometimes the animals are skinned while still alive. Don’t read on if you haven’t the stomach for it.

‘Cattle in a slaughterhouse are prodded along a chute to a ‘knocking box’.. The stun operator or ‘knocker’ shoots each animal in the forehead (they see it coming… my note) with a compressed air gun that drives a steel bolt into the cow’s skull and then retracts it. If the knocking gun is sufficiently powered, well maintained and properly used it knocks the cow unconscious or kills the animal on the spot.

The next man on the line ‘the shackler’ wraps a chain around one of the stunned cow’s hind legs. Once shackled the animal is automatically lifted onto a moving overhead rail. The cow, now hanging upside down by a leg, is sent to the ‘sticker’ – the worker who cuts the throat….. Next the cow travels along the ‘bleed rail’ and is given several minutes to bleed out. The carcass then proceeds to the ‘head skinners’, the ‘leggers’ (who chop off the legs, my note) and on down the line where it is completely skinned, eviscerated and split in half’.

IN MANY PLANTS it takes only minutes to turn a warm, breathing animal into a ‘split in half’ carcass. This is why Kirsty and I, and the SAVE groups in Wellington and Auckland and all over the world do vigils outside slaughterhouses. To say goodbye to the animals, to bear witness to their suffering, and to dig deep to find that power within us to continue working until we’ve put a stop to the carnage once and for all.

Sandra Kyle

Sanctuaries – the way of the future

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End Animal Slaughter Contributor Maya Cohen-Ronen and her family recently paid a visit to Maui, where she was reminded that sanctuaries, not slaughter, are the way of the future.

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If you raise your head to the sky you might still be able to catch a glimpse of me, floating amongst the white clouds. I’m finding it very hard to land back down after spending almost two weeks in Hawaii, mainly on Maui.

Holidays can be relaxing just as much as stressful, but this holiday was simply perfect in every way. Perfect timing, perfect location, perfect mind-set. It all clicked.

There is only one word to describe Maui: Magical. In many ways it reminded me of New Zealand, but still, it differs. So much smaller than New Zealand, on Maui amazing scenery is always at your doorstep, and encounters with breath-taking nature are an easy reach. Amidst towering coconut trees and sandy beaches, beautiful wild roosters roam free everywhere you go, large and small sea turtles sunbathe fearlessly, and humpback whales with their steaming blow holes dot the water as far as the eye can see. It’s hard not to gasp with excitement at the site of a fully-grown humpback jumping out of the water for a spectacular breach, or spinner dolphins entertaining you with their playful turns. Snorkelling the pristine waters of Lanaii, schools of Humuhumunukunukuapua’a fish greet you, as well as other spectacular fish and sea turtles. I saw the most incredible sunsets on Maui, the sun tinted shades of orange, drawing bright stripes of gold on the darkening blue canvas and leaving a long sparkly veil on the gushing surface of the sea. Only Maui’s sunrise can rival its sunset, and nowhere is the sunrise more breathtakingly beautiful than the one observed from the top of Haleakala, Maui’s dormant volcano, which peaks at over 10,000 meters.

The vegan revolution has certainly reached Maui, and finding delicious vegan food is easy almost everywhere on the island. The chain ‘Down To Earth’ blew our minds. It is everything ‘Commonsense Organics’ should have been, and more. It is organic and completely vegan-vegetarian, and includes everything from toiletries and personal care to supplements, cooking products, and cleaning detergents. A large variety of fresh fruits and veggies of all kinds welcomes you inside, followed by wall upon wall packed with an astonishing selection of vegan cheeses and dressings, pizzas, fake meats, vegan ice creams and snacks. I had the most delicious vegan “Buffalo Wings” there, complete with a fake sugar-cane wishbone. Yum! ‘Down to Earth’ also has a huge salad bar, offering a wide selection of fresh salads, hot meals and soups that you can buy on scale, and there is a bakery with an incredible selection of vegan doughnuts, muffins, cookies and more. This place is a vegan magnet, and we found ourselves drifting towards it even when it was not included in our daily plan, going back like addicts to get our vegan fix, again and again and again.

And yet, with all its beauty and visible magic, behind the scenes and away from tourists’ and residents’ gaze, animals are brutally killed on Maui too. Wild pigs, deer and goats are hunted, and farmed animals are slaughtered, just like everywhere else. The taste for cooked dead flesh seems to be ripe, and barbequed marinated corpses draw the crowds, even when their well-identifiable bodies are cooked openly on the side of the road, like the baby piglets browning on a huge barbeque I saw on the way to Kihei. People who gasp, ooh and ahhh at the site of fish on the reef have no apparent issue with consuming said fish when offered up dead with a slice of lemon on a fancy plate. Tourist audio guides see no ethical problem pointing out herds of beef cows grazing peacefully on the lower slopes of Haleakala, advising that you can eat these innocent animals, fashioned into hamburgers, if you visit such and such a restaurant.  Even in such an idyllic setting, there are still many compassionate education opportunities to be held.

 

 

I didn’t encounter any Animal Rights activism while on Maui, which doesn’t mean activism doesn’t exist there, only that I missed it. What I did see, though, was a magical place called Leilani Farm Sanctuary,  a refuge for rescued farmed animals and a real beacon of light and hope. Leilani is not only a heart-warming place of compassion, it is also aesthetic and well kept. Its gardens are meticulous and rich, carefully manicured and inviting. The founder’s little house on top of the hill, complete with over 40 snuggly cats, looks like it came out of a fairy tale. The lush green pasture is dotted with animals that are visibly relaxed and happy: donkeys, goats, sheep, deer, pigs and a cow, and even a couple of tortoises. The founder, Laurelee Blanchard, is a lovely lady with a big smile, who has turned this place into a slice of heaven.  The message “go vegan” is displayed here and there on beautifully decorated signs and brightly coloured pebbles. When she guided us through the sanctuary we had the opportunity to hold some of the residents, and interact with others by feeding them, brushing them, and walking alongside them to pasture. It was the first time for me to hold a rooster and a goose close to my heart. I discovered that roosters and hens are naturally very clean. Cuddly Charlie the rooster smelled so good, and loved being held. Patrick the goose was very soft and gentle, and had a charming personality.

Laurelee encouraged this sort of interaction, making our visit with the animals so much more personal and memorable. Each animal’s story was shared with us as we met them, each a lucky survivor of a dire fate. Some animals were brought in by farmers who couldn’t bear the thought of the animal they grew attached to being slaughtered. Some were brought as babies by remorseful hunters. Some were live-rescued from animal hellholes. And there is also Berney the gentle wild pig, who was fortunate enough to just stroll in one day! We laid in the grass with Jenny, the beautiful donkey, deeply appreciating what this place offers its gentle residents.  A visit to Leilani Farm Sanctuary of Maui is truly a boost to one’s morale. It suggests that even here – where animal exploitation still happens out of sight – there are enclaves of happy animals, spreading hope for a better tomorrow.

 

Paul Stevenson: ‘Requiring others to suffer for our pleasure is despicable.’

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This short essay by End Animal Slaughter contributor Paul Stevenson first appeared in the book ‘Why I Will Always Be Vegan: 125 essays from Around the World’ compiled by “Butterflies” Marcia Katz (Amazon, 2015)

 

I am vegan because it is the kind thing to do. I like the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. I include members of other species as “others” because they have feelings just like us, experience the world like us and suffer as we do.

Kindness is central to the Golden Rule. Kindness is an essential part of justice, and justice of progress. Without kindness there is no justice, no happiness and no progress. The Golden Rule therefore obligates us to be vegan because there is no alternative.

‘We cannot live by the Golden Rule if we support this industry’

The entire animal industry, including food animals, and animals used for fabrics, research and entertainment, is monstrously brutal. Suffering is integral to it; it requires suffering. Anyone supporting the animal industry is therefore directly responsible for causing immense suffering. It is despicable that we should require others to suffer to satisfy our pleasure when there are alternatives that cause no suffering. We cannot live by the Golden Rule if we support this industry. This is why I will always be vegan.

There is more to kindness than at first meets the eye. It has consequences for both parties, perpetrator and recipient. Treating others unkindly is a lose-lose situation. The victims of our unkindness are harmed by it, but so are we. To be unkind is to act beneath ourselves. As a result we lose hugely. Unkindness degrades us and destroys our dignity. When we casually cause and ignore the suffering of others we become pathetic people indeed; we become small, hard and mean – ignoble. In the end we lose our umanity itself, the very essence of what it is to be human.

By contrast, being kind to others is a win-win situation. The recipients of kindness benefit from it, but the person who performs the kindness gains immensely. We feel elevated; we become bigger, happier people. Paradoxically, we gain even when we apparently lose, when donating blood for example. Kindness elevates and ennobles us. Kindness bestows undreamt of joy upon us. Our hearts glow. Only by being kind to others can we know true happiness. There can be no justice, no joy without kindness. In rejecting cruelty and adopting a life based on kindness we regain and expand our humanity. That makes the world a better place for all.

 

 

 

Slaughterhouse Vigil, Land Meats Whanganui, New Zealand, 3 Feb 2019

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Sandra Kyle does weekly slaughterhouse vigils to ‘bear witness’ to animals going to slaughter, as part of the Worldwide Save Movement.   For more information about how to start a Save group in your area, go to thesavemovement.org

If we truly had seeing eyes and an empathetic heart then we would know that animals too possess souls. We would know this because we would ‘feel’ their souls within them, in the same way that we feel the souls of other people.

Another stock truck arrives at the slaughterhouse

A couple of years ago I spent Xmas Day driving around the King Country, looking at farm animals. If I spied horses, cows or sheep near to the fenceline, I stopped my car to say hi. What I most remember about that day was leaning over a paddock fence and chatting to a couple of large, brown horses. Initially cautious about me, after a while they let me pat them and lean my head on their neck. I could see them communicate between each other as well, although I understand little about horse behaviour. I could certainly feel the ‘being’ in them, just as I can feel the being in my companion animals and if you think about it, you probably can too. This is what I term their ‘soul’ – the ‘being’ within. If you have felt the being in your companion animals, then why do you think that farmed animals don’t possess it also? If you make such a distinction between your pets and farmed animals then you are guilty of idiotic speciesism.

It is because I can feel the souls of animals that my slaughterhouse vigils never get any easier. When I look through the sides of the truck at the frightened beings inside, or see them descending the ramp into the slaughterhouse holding pens, my throat always tightens. I can feel their fear, their confusion. I have been at slaughterhouse vigils when a farmer arrived with days-old shaky-legged calves behind him in a trailer. I have seen lambs transported in this way too. In the name of Heaven they are just babies! They have a will to live and a unique personality, yet they will soon have the light taken from their eyes because you want to eat their flesh or organs, or in the case of bobby calves, because you want to drink their mothers’ milk.

Today at my vigil a cow stopped at the top of the ramp and looked straight over at where I was standing, around fifteen metres from the truck. What was he thinking? A mixture of fear, curiosity perhaps, maybe even hope. He had travelled some distance in the hot slaughter truck, and maybe he was dehydrated and confused. I am sure that he and his companions will provide some comfort to each other as they huddle together, but tomorrow morning their slayers will stumble in to the first shift of the day, and their trembling hearts will be stopped forever.

We destroy ourselves and all that is most precious in us when we hurt others – Paul Stevenson

When I read or force myself to watch videos about what goes on in our treatment of other animals, I am beside myself. I am always in mourning. I mourn not only for the animals but for us too, for having the callousness to go on with our lives as if nothing evil is happening. I weep for our indifference, and also for our ignorance. As my poet friend Paul Stevenson puts it: ‘We destroy ourselves and all that is most precious in us when we hurt others’.

‘Just Like You’ – Dr Joanne Kong

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This short excerpt was transcribed from Dr Joanne Kong’s TED talk in 2016. It describes the terrible suffering and desperation of sows in factory farms.

I am going to tell you the story of an animal in a factory farm. I want you to imagine and visualise in your minds what I have to say:

This is the story of a sow.

My entire life I am kept in a metal gestation crate in half darkness on a graded concrete floor. I can’t even turn around. Confined and unable to engage in any of my natural behaviours, I suffer depression, frustration and neurotic behaviour sometimes screaming and biting at the bars that surround me. My limbs are swollen, I have open wounds, and I am lying in my own excrement. After giving birth from being forcibly impregnated, my babies are taken away from me and I am slaughtered at the age of only 3-5 years old. We pigs, like the other animals in factory farms, are supposed to be stunned into unconsciousness before being killed, but many of us are still alive as we are hoisted upside down, our throats slit, and we are lowered into boiling water to remove our hair.

But did you know I have a sense of self just like you. I am more intelligent than a dog or a cat and even a three-year old child. I am a highly social creature, intuitive and emotional, just like you. I have memories, and I can recognise myself in a mirror, just like you. I love to play even computer games, just like you. I care for my young with a bond that is as strong as any human mother, even singing to my babies during nursing.

I am not something, I am someone.

I am not pork. I am not bacon.

I am a living, feeling being, just like you.

calf newborn

Debbie Nelson: ‘Life and Death on a Dairy Farm’

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Debbie Nelson saw all the events described here from the road, without trespassing.    She speaks in the voices of the cows and calves.

Life

I was born at midday. Birthing was hard work for both my mother and I. I had the wet stickiness all over me. Before I knew it my mother was lovingly giving me a bath. First she licked me lying down. Then, when I started to learn to stand securely she continued to bathe me, I was squeaky clean by the time she was done. I was in a barn with my mother and lots of pregnant cows waiting to give birth and calves who were already born. When my legs were steady she nuzzled me affectionately to her udder to drink. The farmers let us stay together for a few such feedings so I could get colostrum for a healthy immune system. I saw other calves being born. I don’t know how to understand gender, but farmers do. Gender means life or death to us youngsters.

In what seemed like a short time with my mother a large man came into the enclosure. He picked me up and carried me away from my mother.

Mother stop him!

I can’t! 

Save me!

I can’t!

What’s going to happen to me? Life or death? Must I go?

Do what they say or they will hurt you more!

Goodbye forever? 

I don’t know. 

My mother had been through this so many times before. I must have been a female because I was put in a small stall. There was a row of these stalls, each one with a calf.  We were mooing so loudly you could hear us on the road. Some other female calves were put in plastic hutches outside, all alone. There were several rows of these hutches with about 7 per row, and all the calves were tethered to their small hutch.

Death

I am a dead male jersey dairy calf. My lifeless body is lying on a cement slab about 4 feet above the ground My head is hanging over the slab, my tongue protrubing from my lifeless mouth. I will never moo for my absent mother again. I will never drink of her milk. I had committed no crime except to be born male. In my company are three other dead calves. One can see the four of us outside the slaughter facility from the road. The small slaughterhouse is close to the big dairy farm. Our bodies are useless because we didn’t even make it alive to be killed. This is a USDA inspected killing place, and our dead bodies cannot be used unless freshly murdered.

We are newborn calves who did make it to the slaughter facility alive. You can hear us crying piteously from the road. We are crying because we were taken from our mothers, put in a truck and transported to this place. They keep taking members of our group away never to be seen alive again. We are frightened.  There is the smell of death everywhere in this place.  Who is there to comfort us?   Who is there to help us?

 

Read more about the lives of dairy cows and calves

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/milk-life-is-no-life-at-all-for-dairy-cows/

https://www.animalbliss.com/18-images-big-dairy-do-not-want-you-to-see/

New Zealand perspective:  http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK1804/S00047/the-alter-of-sacrifice-the-tragedy-of-bobby-calves.htm

http://www.vegans.co.nz/vegan-blog/the-horrific-life-of-new-zealand-bobby-calves/

Laurie Turunen: ‘What kind of loving person would choose to eat a tortured animal’?

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End Animal Slaughter contributor Laurie Turunen describes some unpalatable facts that take place in places of ‘agony, horror and extreme violence.’

Recently someone posted a graphic video of a spent dairy cow on Facebook. She hung upside-down, her throat slashed open, head almost severed, while her legs were being cut off, one by one. Her whole body was still twitching. I’ve seen many slaughterhouse videos over the years that have absolutely horrified me. I have witnessed fully aware and alert cattle having their throats violently slashed as they bellowed in agony. Some animals will try to stand once their throat is slashed. They will slip and slide in their own pooling blood. I’ve seen screaming pigs, with neck gashes, immersed in scalding water, frantically trying to find their way out. There are far too many horrors I care to repeat.

Slaughterhouses are places of agony, horror and extreme violence. What in God’s name are we to do, as a species, about such behaviour? Continue to condone it!? Humans who support or condone the brutal killing of sentient beings have a long way to go in learning what true empathy and compassion are. What kind of loving person would choose to eat a tortured animal, when they could eat a heaped mound of tasty, healing plant foods? There are so many advantages to being vegan. For example, vegans on average live longer healthier lives than non vegans and that is a fact.

Most spiritual seekers are non vegan. They speak about kindness, compassion, love and light, yet to me so much of it is self righteous BS. How much delusion can a person have to say they love and respect others when they support the torture of animals and then salivate at the dismembered body parts that cover their plates? True, they act kind some of the time, but when it comes to other animals they put up a mental curtain and act just the opposite, willingly supporting the sadistic torture of other beings! Even if you are somehow unaware of the horrors that take place in a slaughterhouse, if you buy these “foods” you are still responsible for their continued existence. You may not like to hear that, but it’s the truth.  It’s also the truth that most animals you choose to ingest live a nightmarish life before they meet their end on their way to your plate.

Are we still savages? It is no wonder there are so many flesh-eating zombie movies and vampire movies. So many humans love to eat dead bodies, soaked in blood, salivating when they think about it.   This is how incredibly programmed humans are! You will only begin to understand just how insane this all is when you adopt a cruelty-free diet. Those who say ‘But plants have feelings too’ are blatantly disingenuous. An animal should never be compared to an apple or a potato. To compare cutting up a potato with cutting up a screaming, terrified pig is nonsensical. Animals are amazing sentient beings, deserving to live their lives without us savagely harming them. They are more similar to us than we realize. It’s a good thing most humans have not been programmed to eat other humans because that would likely be the norm today, too. It’s all so insane, when you really think about it. When I see a person eating a chicken, cow, pig…the feelings that well up in me could be compared to a meat eater witnessing someone roasting a friendly and faithful golden retriever. We have an enormous amount of healing, delicious plants to eat and there is no longer any need to feel that eating plant-based is somehow a sacrifice. Eating a proper plant-based diet is what has helped me the most with improving serious health issues. This is what everyone’s body is designed to eat, yours included. To believe otherwise is a lie.

We thrive on plants, which are carbohydrate rich, generally lower in fat, nutrient rich and fibre rich. There are more vitamins, minerals and antioxidants in plants than in flesh, and a plant-based diet furnishes more than adequate protein to sustain us. Where do the strongest animals – the elephants, the rhinos, the gorillas – get their protein from? All protein originates from plants. All B12 originates from a bacteria in the soil. All DHA originates from algae. There is nothing that the body needs that cannot be gotten from the plant kingdom. You are not a lion, you are not a bear, you are not a cat. You are human, and humans are supposed to eat plants. Any other belief is simply more programmed misinformation.