Author: Sandra Kyle

‘I WISH DEATH FOR THEM’

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle

Renowned photo-journalist Jo-Anne McArthur of We Animals Media has devoted nearly two decades to photographing animals in desperate circumstances – those  who live inside farms, labs and cages all over the world.  The photos that accompany this article were taken by McArthur inside industrialised pig agriculture in Europe.

 

Pigs are commonly placed around fifth or sixth in the list of most intelligent animals, higher than dogs.  They solve mazes, understand and display emotions, and understand symbolic language. Six-week-old piglets that see food in a mirror can work out where the food is located. In contrast, it takes human babies several months to understand reflection. Pigs also understand abstract representations and can play video games using a joystick.   In Nature, pigs have excellent object-location memory. If they find food anywhere, they’ll remember to look there again.  They also possess a sophisticated sense of direction, and can find their way home from huge distances away.    Like other mammals, pigs are sentient beings, who experience joy, loneliness, frustration, fear, and pain.  Despite this, most pigs alive today are kept in cruel factory farms where mothers are confined in barren metal cages so small they’re unable to turn around.  Piglets are castrated without painkillers, and sick piglets are routinely slammed headfirst into concrete floor.  These are all standard practices in industrialised pig farming.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

This pig, photographed in a Spanish farm, is a “breeder pig”.  Breeder sows are artificially inseminated and give birth to a litter twice or three times a year. She’s kept behind bars in a crate, where she cannot turn around and has trouble lying down.  When her babies are born they can suckle, but she is unable to interact with them.   

 

If there is a baby who has strayed behind her, she cannot even reach over and pick her up.  If there is a dead baby next to her, there’s nothing she can do but watch it lying there. 

 

It is common for their urine and feces to build up under captive pigs, causing them to develop respiratory problems due to the ammonia inside the farms.

 

In the extreme conditions of their confinement, pigs feel enormous pressures that can result in mental illnesses.  Some literally go insane, and frustration spilling over to violence is common.   This pig has lost an ear, most likely in a fight.  

 

A pig’s intelligence is partly demonstrated through their curiosity.  When she is inside factory farms, McArthur notices that pigs will make eye contact with her as she passes. “They’re asking questions,” she says. “They have no answers. They don’t know what happens next. They know we— humans— are the ones who hold the key. We’re the ones who move them from crate to crate. We’re the ones who take away their young.”

 

“I wish death for them, knowing that that will likely be the only release they have from pain.”

 

 

For more images see the article ‘Jo-Anne McArthur: the most important animal photographer of our time’

 

Sent Their Separate Ways – Tending Calves On A Dairy Farm

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle

In this moving article End Animal Slaughter contributor Jackie Norman recounts her years as a dairy worker looking after calves.

 

In almost two decades working on dairy farms, I heard the phrase ‘where there’s life, there’s death’ more times than I could count. It’s as though these few well-chosen words are supposed to explain away and excuse everything. In New Zealand, where around 1.8 million newborn calves are deliberately bred into existence and slaughtered each year, no truer words are spoken. As more people’s eyes are opened to the truth of dirty dairy, the heartbreaking plight of bobby calves is thankfully becoming more well known. But what about those calves who make it past four days old? What happens to them?

Having raised thousands of these innocent babies from birth to weaning, I can tell you. While not one of them was lucky enough to spend more than a few hours with their real mother, they had a lot to do with me, their surrogate. Traditionally you see a lot more women on the farm during calving season. We’re supposed to be ‘made for the job’ of rearing calves due to our maternal instinct. It appals me now that females of both bovine and human species are exploited in this manner for the purpose of gain and greed. At the time, however, I took enormous pride in this role, and the fact I was one of the few women who worked on the farm all year round.

 

Jackie in work gear

 

Those precious first hours

I still remember the feeling of relief that came over me whenever I spotted a calf being born after around 10am. The later in the day that a mother cow gave birth, the longer she would get to spend with her calf. One whole, precious night together before the boss would come around the next morning with his noisy motorbike and rickety trailer, to round up all the mothers and babies before sending them their separate ways, forever.

 

The later in the day that a mother cow gave birth, the longer she would get to spend with her calf. One whole, precious night together before the boss would come around the next morning with his noisy motorbike and rickety trailer, to round up all the mothers and babies before sending them their separate ways, forever.

 

The weather was almost as important a factor for cows and calves as timing. If the weather was fine and the ground was dry, it made sense for newborns to stay with their mums that little bit longer, to ensure they got plenty of their essential immune-building colostrum. It’s no skin off the farmer’s nose, after all, they’re not allowed to feed colostrum to humans. There’s no sweeter sight than a mother cow and her baby, sitting together contentedly in the sunshine. That’s just how it should be, how nature intended. More often than not though, because New Zealand dairy herds’ reproductive systems are manipulated so that they all give birth during the coldest, wettest time of year, the calves are quickly removed from the freezing, muddy ground and taken to the sheds. The male calves never see their mothers again.

As for the female calves – the ‘keepers’ – they are kept apart until they join their mothers in the milking herd in two years’ time when they are old enough to give birth themselves. I often wondered if the mothers recognised their babies when they were finally reunited. I used to like to imagine it was the case but in truth, I don’t think so. I never witnessed any evidence of it. How are a mother and daughter expected to know one another out of hundreds (or thousands) of fully grown animals, after so long apart and only a precious few hours together at birth?

 

‘Mum’ to the calves who didn’t have one

The next few weeks

On arrival at the rearing sheds, the calves’ navels would get sprayed with iodine to prevent them from becoming infected while they dried up and eventually fell off. This step wouldn’t be necessary were they living outside with their mums, but a small space housing hundreds of animals, all urinating and defecating constantly is the perfect environment in which to pick up all kinds of infections. The calves’ tender ears were then pierced using a staple gun of sorts, loaded with a large, plastic identification tag on a metal pin, before being plonked unceremoniously into pens filled with soft sawdust or wood shavings. From this moment on, they bore a number which identified them forever, until the end of their lives.

 

The calves’ navels would get sprayed with iodine to prevent them from becoming infected.. their tender ears  pierced using a staple gun loaded with a large, plastic identification tag on a metal pin.  From this moment on, they bore a number which identified them forever, until the end of their lives. 

 

Just like their mothers, these tiny babies were completely at our mercy. If they didn’t know it before, they did then. Most of the new arrivals sat quietly for a good while, with stinging ears and wide eyes, while I chattered on cheerfully about how I would feed them soon and they were in the ‘best place now’, there with me, out of the weather. Confused, fearful, in shock, trying to process what on earth was happening to them. Others showed their heartbreak at being separated from their mothers by bellowing loudly and continuously, sometimes for several days, until they were so hoarse they could no longer make a sound and defeated, at last, they gave up. Some displayed their terror by bolting from humans, crashing wildly into walls and gates and refusing to be calmed. Eventually, though, they were all worn down and came to understand one thing: humans – not their mothers – meant milk.

 

Others showed their heartbreak at being separated from their mothers by bellowing loudly and continuously, sometimes for several days, until they were so hoarse they could no longer make a sound and defeated, at last, they gave up. Some displayed their terror by bolting from humans, crashing wildly into walls and gates and refusing to be calmed.

 

As the calves settled into their new surroundings, it didn’t seem too bad on the surface – at least that’s how I used to see it when I was entrenched in the industry. What wasn’t to like? They were warm and dry, they were surrounded by their friends 24/7 and twice a day someone came to feed them as much milk as their bellies could handle. At least, that’s what was supposed to happen with the milk; more about that in a moment. Between feeds there wasn’t much they could do in a small space except snuggle up together and sleep. Feeding time when it arrived was chaotic, noisy, messy – you almost got knocked off your feet in the rush to get to the milk feeder, and there was nothing subtle about a persistent nose bunting you fiercely between your legs or up the backside! After every feed, they would get the ‘zoomies’ and fly around the confines of their pen as fast as they possibly could. Kicking, jumping, grunting and crashing into one another until completely exhausted, they plopped down into the sawdust for a rest.

 

The calves who are less bolshy and hardy don’t get enough, which results in digestive upsets, scouring and dehydration. Even the milk temperature can play a part in a calf’s wellbeing, which isn’t a problem when a calf is suckling from their mother but is pretty hard for a human to regulate, particularly when feeding hundreds of calves at a time… While digestive upsets are relatively easy to treat, bacterial scours are every calf rearer’s nightmare. Calves fall victim and die very quickly and once the virus has taken hold, it is extremely hard to eradicate.  

 

 

Suki, one of Jackie’s favourite calves

 

As anyone who has ever lived with pets such as dogs and cats will know, each one is different. The same goes for cows and calves, they all have different personality traits. Some are naturally more dominant than others when it comes to demanding both attention or food – and this is where problems inevitably start in the calves’ manmade environment. Just like human breastfeeding babies, a calf that is reared by their mother feeds on demand, taking in as much milk as they want, whenever they want. In comparison, when humans step in as the middle man, we dictate how much the calf is allowed to drink in a ‘one size fits all’ approach. If we follow the general recommendations, a 35kg calf is supposed to drink around six or seven litres of milk per day. This sounds fine in theory until you take into account that not all calves can drink at the same speed. Just as all animals, including humans, eat and drink at different rates, some calves can suck much faster and stronger than others. While they get to drink the recommended amount and then some, the calves who are less bolshy and hardy don’t get enough, which results in digestive upsets, scouring and dehydration. Even the milk temperature can play a part in a calf’s wellbeing, which isn’t a problem when a calf is suckling from their mother but is pretty hard for a human to regulate, particularly when feeding hundreds of calves at a time.

 

I remember fighting to save the lives each year of a few older, strong and healthy calves who would get stricken with colic shortly after gorging on too much milk. I remember the sunken eyes from calves with scours, the hot clammy feel and lethargy in others which signalled a navel infection. I remember how at a few weeks old, we would use a caustic dehorning paste called ‘Hornex’ on the just-developing buds where cows’ horns would normally grow, to burn them off and stop them from ever growing.

 

The first batch of calves of the season is always the healthiest. They get the cleanest, driest bedding, the most room in the barn, the best quality milk and the most monitoring and attention. As the season progresses the pens become overcrowded, the ground underneath becomes sodden with urine and faeces and it becomes a prime breeding ground for sickness. Despite a farmer’s best efforts to replace sawdust or shavings regularly, and coating every available surface with antiviral spray, at some stage there is always an outbreak of scours. While digestive upsets are relatively easy to treat, bacterial scours are every calf rearer’s nightmare. Calves fall victim and die very quickly and once the virus has taken hold, it is extremely hard to eradicate. Another heartbreaking scenario that could be completely avoided if calves were allowed to live outside with their mothers, as nature intended.

It’s ironic, isn’t it, that so much of a farmer’s attempt to control the system is still largely impossible to control? I remember as a lowly worker the all too common scenario of having 20 or more calves in a pen and only 12 teats on the milk feeder with which to try and feed them properly because too many cows had given birth at the same time. It was soul-destroying, watching them fight one another desperately to take their fill before the milk ran out. I remember fighting to save the lives each year of a few older, strong and healthy calves who would get stricken with colic shortly after gorging on too much milk. I remember the sunken eyes from calves with scours, the hot clammy feel and lethargy in others which signalled a navel infection. I remember how at a few weeks old, we would use a caustic dehorning paste called ‘Hornex’ on the just-developing buds where cows’ horns would normally grow, to burn them off and stop them from ever growing. One year when applying the paste, the farmer spilt some and got it on a beautiful white Friesian’s face, narrowly missing her eye. She was disfigured for life.

 

The closest thing to freedom

Eventually, at around six weeks old, one fine, dry day, the farmer would finally decide the calves were strong enough to go outside. It would be the first time they had touched or smelled grass since they were born and it was my favourite time of the whole year. After being confined in a small space for so long, at first they would look utterly confused as the door was opened and they found themselves suddenly staring into the sunlight. From there they would take a tentative step, which was usually followed by a jump back to where they had just come from. More shaky steps followed until they realised to their amazement that there were no longer heavy boundaries in their way and they would be off like rockets. In all my years I never knew a farmer who didn’t stop whatever he was doing and just watch and smile at the sight of their unrestrained joy. Around and around and around they would all fly, until panting, they would come to a halt for long enough to survey their new surroundings.

 

 

As the door was opened they found themselves suddenly staring into the sunlight. More shaky steps followed until they realised to their amazement that there were no longer heavy boundaries in their way and they would be off like rockets. In all my years I never knew a farmer who didn’t stop whatever he was doing and just watch and smile at the sight of their unrestrained joy.

 

 

From then on, my job was pretty much done for another year. They rarely needed me anymore and once they were fully weaned, they didn’t need me at all. There were always a few who remembered me but over time their fear of barking dogs, noisy motorbikes and men waving sticks proved too great. During their first six weeks of life, those beautiful beings had suffered incomprehensible emotional and physical trauma. None of it would ever have happened, however, were it not for the exploitation of their mothers’ bodies, driven by unnecessary human demand for the breastmilk of another species. At least for a while, they would know peace and joy. This time, from weaning to when they themselves gave birth to their first baby – not quite two years – would be the most freedom they would ever know.

 

During their first six weeks of life, those beautiful beings had suffered incomprehensible emotional and physical trauma. None of it would ever have happened, however, were it not for the exploitation of their mothers’ bodies, driven by unnecessary human demand for the breastmilk of another species.

 

 

Sukie all grown up

 

Jackie Norman is a freelance writer and author of several books, including the cookbook Easy & Delicious: Everyday Vegan, released in 2020. Jackie is a member of non-profit organisation Vegan FTA, where she works as a writer, researcher and co-host of the series Activist together with husband, Gareth Scurr (pictured)

 

‘SWALLOWED BY THE DARK’ by Monika Arya

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle | 2 Comments on ‘SWALLOWED BY THE DARK’ by Monika Arya

Poet and End Animal Slaughter contributor Monika Arya saw a photo of a ‘slinky’, a stillborn or sick calf who died – or was killed – within minutes or hours of birth.  She was inspired to write this moving tribute. 

 

SLINKY

 

New to the world, unaware of its grisly ways,

A child’s eyes quietly weep.

Deprived of their mother’s milk, they slipped away bit by bit.

 

 

The rope thrown around their necks was meant to be a maternal kiss,

Thunder rattled their tender hearts, roaring rain beat their baby skin.

 

They went to bed, 

No one tucked them in. 

On a blanket of dung and pee, the night slithered around gently 

Before they were swallowed by the impervious dark. 

 

Let this frail body be your morning tea,

Steaming with the woes of a childless mother

Whose fatigued flesh will soon be a meal

Laced with pain and longing.  

‘Lumps of flesh covered every surface’ – A slaughterhouse worker’s story

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle | 2 Comments on ‘Lumps of flesh covered every surface’ – A slaughterhouse worker’s story

In this moving article, End Animal Slaughter contributor Mike Shaw recalls his job as a slaughterhouse worker, his ‘epiphany’ as he was about to kill a young boar, and his view on slaughterhouses now.

 

I didn’t do well at school, in fact I didn’t do well at childhood.  Bullied, and brought up in social services, I didn’t attend school at all for most of my last year. I still managed to pass one O level, albeit in art, but it wasn’t going to feed me.    I stumbled into retail work as I stumbled into most things in the those days, and should have been a baker but it wasn’t for me. I did though become a butcher in a local supermarket and after a while I could call myself a ‘time-served butcher’ due to experience, something you don’t hear much of nowadays. I had a knack for it.  I could throw a carcass through a bandsaw better and faster than most, and was a dab hand at trusting up a silverside or topside joint.  Then I had to move.  For a while I was homeless while still managing to keep the job down, but it was becoming harder and harder to do.  After a while it proved impossible so I became jobless to go along with my homelessness. I moved a little further up north and managed to get a room with relatives, and they told me about the plant nearby that was looking for workers.   I went on the off chance, and met the manager.   He took me into his office and we had a chat.  He said he was impressed with my credentials, and offered to show me around.

‘There were people in white everywhere you looked, and lumps of bloody flesh covered just about every surface, hung from every available space.  The dead animals outweighed the humans by some 20 to 1’.

The place was vast.  I was used to a butchery department in a store, and wasn’t prepared for this. The noise is the first thing to hit you followed by the smell, something you will never understand until you have never experienced it. There were people in white everywhere you looked, and lumps of bloody flesh covered just about every surface, hung from every available space.  The dead animals outweighed the humans by some 20 to 1.  I got the job.   I started in the cutting bay next to the slaughter bank.  Fresh meat was sent through on hooks to be fashioned into whatever cut of meat was required. I was fast, and before you knew it I was a supervisor. You got used to the noise, machinery, chatter, and sometimes the smell too, but one noise you never got used to was the animals you heard going through the slaughter bank.

 

But it was just a job.

 

When they asked me to move through to the slaughter floor, saying they would get me my licence to slaughter, I thought it sounded very James Bond so took the job.  Little did I know.

‘First day in the killing bays they give you a lamb, a knife and a set of electrodes, the idea being if you can kill it you can kill anything. It was less than six months old. They leave you to it, no matter how long it takes. It took me three hours, three hours of trying to not look at it, trying to not make eye contact, three hours before I could dispatch it’.

First day in the killing bays they gave you a lamb, a knife and a set of electrodes, the idea being if you can kill it you can kill anything. It was less than six months old. They leave you to it, no matter how long it takes. It took me three hours, three hours of trying to not look at it, trying to not make eye contact, three hours before I could dispatch it.

It had been several years and I had seen most things come through for slaughter; sheep, goats, bulls, horses, but the one thing I hated seeing coming through more than anything was the pigs.  They knew, they understood what was going on, they screamed, they fought you tooth and nail to stay out, they screamed and they screamed loud.

‘It had been several years and I had seen most things come through for slaughter; sheep, goats, bulls, horses, but the one thing I hated seeing coming through more than anything was the pigs.  They knew, they understood what was going on, they screamed, they fought you tooth and nail to stay out, they screamed and they screamed loud’.

I dreaded the pigs because I knew they knew.

Once an incident occurred that changed everything.  I had had a rough weekend, split up with my girlfriend at the time, and got so drunk it should have killed me.   It was a Monday morning and I was not in the best state of mind, made worse when I saw the paddocks full of pigs delivered in over the weekend.  Not just a couple, but hundreds.  It was going to be a busy day – and the pigs knew.

I put my whites on, grabbed my knife roll and went into the bank.   Outside the door I could hear them coming, high pitched screams and workers trying to muster them through.   They just didn’t want to go, but in they came, covered in old and new scars from journeys and loading and unloading, covered in each other’s shit from not being able to move around in the backs of lorries.  Suddenly there he was standing in front of me,  a young boar, teeth clipped so as to not damage the other ‘goods’, castrated, and screaming at me.

I didn’t realise how long I just stood there, I didn’t realise I had been crying for so long, I didn’t realise they were calling my name.

I just stood there looking at him and he sat looking back at me, no longer screaming. In my mind the same mantra was repeating again and again, “What the fuck are you doing?”

‘Standing knife in one hand electrodes in the other I cried, crying for what I had become, crying for what I was doing, crying for the man now buried deep inside the monster wielding a knife in front of its victim’.

Standing knife in one hand electrodes in the other I cried, crying for what I had become, crying for what I was doing, crying for the man now buried deep inside the monster wielding a knife in front of its victim.

I heard them shout my name.   I turned and who knows how I must have looked, tears on my cheeks and the same look on my face as the pigs, as they try not to go through the doors.  They looked at me wondering what was going on, and I didn’t know either.  Was I having a breakdown? 

No, it wasn’t a breakdown.  It was an epiphany.

I looked back at the young boar,  told him I was sorry, sorry for all I had done.  I dropped the knife and electrodes, took off my whites and dropped them to the floor. I turned and walked out, never to return.

It was just a job, but it wasn’t my job any more.

I moved away from the meat industry, lived my life as normal as others. I learnt to disassociate the same way as the rest of society does. I even carried on eating meat because it comes in styrofoam trays wrapped in clingfilm.

It’s now many years later and I’m now a vegan, an ethical vegan.    I’m here to tell you there is nothing humane within the walls of a slaughterhouse, it’s a place were all humanity is lost.  The existence of slaughterhouses is a terrible blight on our societies, and they need to be closed down forever.

Photo of Mike with his companions Piglet the English Bull Terrier, and Grumble the British Bulldog

 

Peter Singer To Donate $1,000,000 prize to charities

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle

End Animal Slaughter’s congratulations go to Professor  Peter Singer who is the sixth recipient  of the Berggruen Institute’s annual $1 million Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture.

 

Established by French-born billionaire philanthropist Nicolas Berggruen in 2016, the award goes each year to thinkers whose ideas have profoundly shaped our world.

 

The Berggruen Prize jury chose Singer because he has been extremely influential in shaping the animal rights and effective altruism movements, and has for decades worked for the eradication of global poverty.

 

I have some of Professor Singer’s books, and admire him as a rigorous and fearless ethical philosopher.  Some of his views have been controversial, but as he wrote when he launched the Journal of Controversial Ideas in 2020, suppressing a view that may offend some people ‘would drastically narrow the freedom of expression on a wide range of ethical, political and religious questions.’  Freedom of thought, rightly, receives absolute protection under international human rights law.  Rather than suppressing views, it is informed, rational and compassionate public debate that is called for.  

 

I still remember as a young woman reading Animal Liberation, the book Singer wrote in the 1970s to argue that the suffering we inflicted on our fellow animals in food production and research was morally indefensible.   Even today I recall how my hand shook as I turned the pages, wondering what other horrors of our inhumanity to our fellow beings would be revealed.  This book helped chart the course of my life, and I will always be grateful to Professor Singer for that.   I also know of many other activists who read that book, and acknowledge the seminal it played in their life’s work.

 

 Nearly fifty years later, Singer remains a powerful force for change.  He will donate half the prize to The Life You Can Save, a charity he founded to help the world’s poorest people, and the remainder will go to animal charities, especially those working to free animals from factory farms. You can help decide how some of the money he is donating will be allocated by going to his charity’s website.

 

As Nicolas Berggruen says, Singer’s ideas ‘have inspired conscientious individual action, better organised and more effective philanthropy and entire social movements, with the lives of millions improved as a result.’

 

Thankyou Professor Singer for everything you have done and will continue to do.  This prize is very well deserved.

 

Sandra Kyle, Founder, End Animal Slaughter

Animal Exploitation Through The Ages

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle

While our current civilisation is the most enlightened we continue to wreak extreme suffering and death on sentient non-human animals.  Future generations will regard this as the greatest moral failure of our time.

 

Yet while modern exploitation of animals for food, for research, for their skin and fur, for entertainment, and as ‘beasts of burden’ causes incalculable suffering to countless trillions of beings, we have always profited from other animals at their expense.

 

In this article from Crate Free USA we see how, from antiquity to the 21st century, we have caused our fellow beings incalculable suffering.  Because of the sheer numbers involved, animal abuse is now on a scale never before seen. 

One of the most effective ways we can help to redress these grievous wrongs is by stopping animal agriculture by adopting a vegan diet.

 

Read the article here:

‘The Adult Must Steer The Car’ – Reflections on the Ancient and Modern Brain

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle | 2 Comments on ‘The Adult Must Steer The Car’ – Reflections on the Ancient and Modern Brain

In this blog End Animal Slaughter contributor Paul Stevenson writes that the most recently evolved part of our brain is the seat of reason, compassion and kindness.  It should be developed if we are to create an enlightened world, and find inner contentment ourselves.

 

The adult within us dreams of Utopia but we can only manifest Utopia by being fully adult human beings, and not being controlled by our primeval infant ancestors. To put it slightly differently, the adult must steer the car, not the child if we wish to arrive at our destination.

We think we are one person, but are actually several people inhabiting the same body. That is because our brain is made of many different parts which have evolved over immense spans of time. We can think of the annual growth rings in a tree. The earliest rings formed when the tree was a tiny sapling are still there at the heart of the noble forest giant, hundreds if not thousands of years later. The more ancient parts of our brain control basic activities such as breathing, moving, resting, feeding, emotions, and memory, while at the other extreme is the most recently-evolved part of our brain that provides us with the ability to carry out rational thought processes and reflect on what we do.

 

‘We can think of the annual growth rings in a tree. The earliest rings formed when the tree was a tiny sapling are still there at the heart of the noble forest giant, hundreds if not thousands of years later’.

 

In reality we see with our mind.  That is because everything we do in life is controlled by the mind, and our senses are only its servants.   When we hear anyone’s screams, irrelevant of species, we know that they are in trouble. We feel for them and we would not be human if we didn’t. This is why we have words such as inhuman, cruel, inhumane, humane, kindly, caring, compassionate, charitable, unfeeling, hard-hearted, warm-hearted, sympathetic, empathetic, callous, magnanimous, and countless others.

Many people do not think about what they are eating, but increasing numbers are doing just that, hence the vegan revolution. The vegan revolution has important implications for our state of mind. A consequence of behaving kindly is that we are kind to ourselves at the same time, When we help others, when we show them kindness we feel far better inside ourselves. Our heart glows with warmth and we walk tall with pride. However, when we treat others unkindly and callously we shrink inside and become small, mean, hard-hearted. We cannot feel proud of ourselves and we cannot have peace in our heart.  At the end of the day ultimate happiness is all about having peace in our heart.

Such is the folly of the unkind life. The thief, the brutal person, the cheat, ends up doing the same to themselves as they do to others. This is basically all about the Golden Rule – do unto others as you would have them do unto you. When we kind to others we are kindest of all to ourselves (notwithstanding cases where would-be rescuers end up dying themselves). And when we are unkind to others we are unkindest of all to ourselves.

 

‘Such is the folly of the unkind life. The thief, the brutal person, the cheat, ends up doing the same to themselves as they do to others. This is basically all about the Golden Rule – do unto others as you would have them do unto you’.

 

In either case we carry the memory of our behaviour to the grave, whether for good or ill. We may forget or brush aside good deeds we have done, but bad deeds are like an immovable thorn in our foot, a pillow of thistles that accompanies us for the remainder of our days. We can try and make amends for our wrongdoing, but we can never undo what has been done, and it can torment us savagely. To sum up, my belief is that we must reconcile our behaviour to conform to what we know to be right. The human dream is the product of the human brain, the product of the advanced brain that is uniquely human. We yearn for the land of our dreams, but we prevent ourselves from reaching there by our primitive behaviour, behaviour of another time, an ancient time. Thus all our behaviour must be compatible with what we know to be right if we are ever to discover happiness and fulfilment in our lives.

Recently-evolved parts of the mind allow us to examine more rudimentary behaviours and preferences in the light of more evidence. Perhaps this process is akin to that of gaining expert advice when buying a house or car, or seeking specialist medical advice for example. In these cases our poorly-informed minds are not up to the job of making expert decisions, so we consult someone who does have the experience and knowledge. The question is then “what shall we do for the best?” We are now all armed with that inner specialist – the advanced human brain. We have built-in a mind that can make expert decisions of the kind required. We are fools indeed not to heed its advice. If we wish to enjoy the blessings that the human mind craves we must see, hear and behave with our fully human mind, not the mind of our primeval ancestors.  Thus the vegan life is not at all about being better than others, but by treating others decently, and  being best of all to ourselves. 

 

‘Thus the vegan life is not at all about being better than others, but by treating others decently, and  being best of all to ourselves’. 

Voices For Animals Over The Years: Jonathan Balcombe

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle | 4 Comments on Voices For Animals Over The Years: Jonathan Balcombe

Vegan Ethologist and Author Jonathan Balcombe’s books have changed the way we look at other creatures such as fishes and flies.  In this article Jonathan answers End Animal Slaughter‘s questions about his love for all animals, and his groundbreaking work on their outer and inner lives.

 

 

Q1 Tell us about your early years.  I see you lived in New Zealand.  What did you do here?

 

My family moved to Auckland, for the sheer adventure of it, when I was three and we sailed to Canada five years later. We travelled by ocean liner (six weeks), and I remember petting a kangaroo under a tree during a stop in Australia en route. New Zealand, with its mild climate and proximity to the ocean, was a lovely place to spend my early formative years.

 

Q2 Have you always loved animals? Was this what led you to become a biologist?

 

From my earliest memory I’ve loved all animals. To me it is entirely natural and normal to perceive other animals as other beings, equally involved in their precious lives as I am in mine. It follows that to do another animal harm is completely alien and repugnant to me, and I remember feeling far more estranged from any child who squashed bugs under their shoes than from the poor creature they were killing. My decision much later to study biology was a direct outgrowth of my strong feelings for animals.

 

‘I remember feeling far more estranged from any child who squashed bugs under their shoes than from the poor creature they were killing.’

Q3 What is your position on the sentience of animals?   Is all animal life sentient?

 

There is a pattern in scientific discovery that the more we come to know about an animal, the more complex and sophisticated we find it to be. It is hard to imagine that not long ago we thought we were the only tool-users, the only species with emotions, the only one to communicate with symbols, the only one with a personality and self-awareness, and so on. And so while I’m open to the possibility that some “simple” animals—sponges, or jellyfishes, perhaps?—might lack sentience (the capacity to feel), the idea seems increasingly doubtful. Regardless, I believe it is good policy to follow a version of the “precautionary principal,” which in this case assumes that all animals are sentient unless science compellingly indicates otherwise.

Image of Jellyfish: National Geographic

 

‘It is good policy to follow a version of the “precautionary principal,” which in this case assumes that all animals are sentient unless science compellingly indicates otherwise’.

 

Q4 Can you share with our readers some stories that show animal sentience and emotions?

 

In my last two books I have synthesized discoveries for two often demeaned and maligned groups of animals: fishes and insects. Examples include: referential signaling (fishes), observational learning (both fishes and insects), mental mapping (fishes), face recognition (both), mirror self-recognition (both), inferential reasoning (both), problem solving (both), and tool-use (both). Fishes are clearly emotional, and while there is less evidence for insects (maybe because we haven’t been looking for it), insects share with us biochemical pathways such as a dopamine system implicated in pleasurable feelings, and they respond in ways that suggest fear, arousal, and anger, for instance.

Blackspot tuskfish on The Great Barrier Reef.  The fish repeatedly bash the shellfish against rocks to get to the edibles inside.  

Q5 Is there any inherent distinction between wild animals, and animals that have been our companions for thousands of years, for example dogs?

 

There is no inherent distinction. Animals we have domesticated retain the same relevant anatomy and physiology as their wild ancestors. Behaviorally, however, there have been changes depending on the species and the context in which we keep them. Dogs have been shown to communicate with humans in ways that their wolf ancestors cannot. This makes evolutionary sense because dogs, unlike wolves, benefit from being acutely attuned to their human providers. For example, experiments at the Clever Dog Lab, in Vienna, show that, like us, dogs glance first (for just a few milliseconds) at the side of our faces that conveys more emotions. This unconscious behavior allows dogs (and us) to get a quick read of whether the person is, say, hostile or friendly. But since dogs’ faces don’t convey emotions in this asymmetrical manner, they don’t glance first at one side of another dog’s face. Nor do we.

 

         Image of Waimaraner puppy: American Kennel Club

Q6 Are we much more like other animals than most of us care to admit?  How?

 

Biologically, we are animals. And that’s much more significant than mere semantics. We literally share the same genetic, anatomical, and biochemical roots. And let’s be clear that humans are not some pinnacle of evolution—a high-point. We are another species of ape, one whose evolutionary trajectory happened to result in a big brain that in turn spawned fairly (though not entirely) unique emergent cultural phenomena such as art, technology, birthday cakes, and cigarettes.   

Evolutionary Biologist Desmond Morris’s ‘The Naked Ape’ struck a chord with the public when it was first published in 1967

 

 

Q7 You have written so many scholarly articles, and penned several books. One of your books that I would really like to read is ‘What A Fish Knows’. Are fish intelligent and sentient? What does a fish know, that we should know they know….

 

I mentioned some examples above, but here’s one that I find especially appealing and revealing. Fishes of several species have been shown to “fall” for the same optical illusions as we do. For example, if you teach a fish to select the larger of two circles (by touching it with her mouth or squirting water at it, for a food reward), then present the Ebbinghaus Illusion—in which one of two identical circles seems larger because of the arrangement of (smaller) dots surrounding it—and the trained fish will choose the circle that appears larger. To me this is a quite telling result. It illustrates that a fish can have beliefs, and that those beliefs are fallible. If the fish’s mind worked like an unthinking, unfeeling robot, it would perceive the two circles as equal. Another example illustrating the sharpness of a fish’s mind is the remarkable bird-hunting behavior shown by certain fishes. In freshwater lakes of southern Africa, predatory tigerfishes have learned to catch swallows by leaping from behind and snagging the birds in mid-air. If you know swallows then you’ll know that they are fast, erratic fliers (they need to be to catch their flying insect prey). Not only does the tigerfish behavior require impressive athleticism and coordination, it also requires planning. Catfishes in French rivers also show clever planning when they carefully stalk and ambush pigeons bathing and drinking in the shallows. 

 

‘An example illustrating the sharpness of a fish’s mind is the remarkable bird-hunting behavior shown by certain fishes.’

 

Catfish waiting for pigeons to get close enough to catch them.

 

Q8 Your latest book: ‘Super Fly. The unexpected Lives Of The World’s Most Successful Insects’ sounds fascinating. Why are Diptera so awesome?

 

Here are just a few of many reasons. Flies belong to the most successful group of animals on the planet, the insects, which make up 80 percent of all animal species living today. At 160,000 described species, and probably around five times that many still undiscovered, flies are probably the most diverse order of animals ever. Flies are also very fecund: in one year, a single pair of fruit flies could produce a dense ball of flies whose diameter stretches from here to the sun! (This calculation illustrates the importance of nature’s checks and balances.) Flies have an attention span, and they show rational decision-making, and deductive reasoning (A>B, B>C, thus A>C). Flies have taught us more about genetics than any other animal. Their maggots are the stars of the growing field of forensic entomology, helping to solve murders and exonerate the wrongly accused. Fly maggots are also effective in healing stubborn wounds such as burns, severe bedsores, non-healing surgical wounds, diabetic foot ulcers, and bone infections. Flies’ colorful sex lives include serenades, dancing, foreplay, gift-giving, cannibalism, bizarre interlocking genitalia, and giant sperm. Flies also self-medicate, using alcohol (in fermenting fruit) as a toxic defence against parasitic wasps.

 

‘Flies’ colorful sex lives include serenades, dancing, foreplay, gift-giving, cannibalism, bizarre interlocking genitalia, and giant sperm. Flies also self-medicate, using alcohol (in fermenting fruit) as a toxic defence against parasitic wasps’.

 

Flies have taught us more about genetics than any other animal.

 

Q9 Why do you think the majority of people continue to eat animals and their products, even when they are fully aware of what you and I would consider the cruelty and injustice of raising animals for food?

 

I think the main reasons are ignorance and economics. While many people may have a vague idea that meat production is not very nice for the animals, relatively few know, and fewer still wish to know, the ugly details of industrialized meat, dairy and egg production. And because most people enjoy the taste of these products, they don’t wish to be confronted with information that might conflict with their lifestyle. Unfortunately, there is a persistent and deep-seated misconception that plant-based foods are less palatable and rewarding than animal-based foods. This is why the rise of plant-based and lab-cultured meats and dairy products has the potential to be a game-changer in human dietary choices. But as long as these products cost more than the heavily-subsidized products of animal agriculture, large-scale change will be slow in coming.

 

Image of lab grown dairy products from Phys.Org

 

Q10 Is a vegan diet necessary for the future of our planet?

 

For most of the world, I believe a transition to plant-based eating is a critical component of the change that needs to happen. Animal agriculture uses about 83% of arable land to produce just 18% of the calories we consume as a species. Livestock today comprise a grotesque 60% of the vertebrate animal biomass on Earth, with humans making up 36% and wildlife a mere 4%. Anyone who thinks our meat habit isn’t a major if not the leading cause of the climate emergency, and current and future pandemics, is kidding themselves.

 

‘Anyone who thinks our meat habit isn’t a major if not the leading cause of the climate emergency, and current and future pandemics, is kidding themselves’.

 

Q 11 As well as your academic work and writing, do you do other forms of animal advocacy?

 

In addition to being a vegan, and an author, I share issues on social media, occasionally write a letter to the editor, donate to charities, sign petitions, and maintain an animal-friendly investment portfolio. I give around 15-20 presentations in a typical year, and I do lots of media and podcast interviews, especially in years when a book comes out.  

Q12 How can we follow and support your work, and read your books?

 

My website is jonathan-balcombe.com, I have an author page on facebook, and I tweet occasionally. My books are widely available online, and most bookstores (and libraries) will acquire copies upon request.

 

‘Let’s Transform!’. Inaugural speech of Emma Hurst, MP, Animal Justice Party

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle

One of the most powerful animal right speeches we have heard was delivered by Emma Hurst MP of the Animal Justice Party (AJP) in 2019.  In her inaugural speech in the Australian Parliament, she tells the story of the ‘dirty mouse’, or ‘pest’ she saw as a child.  Cowering in a corner terrified, its little heart beating against its chest, she immediately understood that the tiny being’s life was as important to them as our lives are to us…

She also tells the story of Dudley, the Australian steer live-exported to Indonesia,  filmed trying to resist being dragged to slaughter. He put up a brave fight, but finally stumbled and fell.  Numerous men jumped on his back, stabbed him with sticks, poked him in the eye, and broke his tail as he bellowed in pain…     

There are other true stories told with simplicity, clarity and compassion by the young MP.  She finishes her speech with a call to action to to her fellow MPs and fellow Australians:

 

‘This is the moment. This is the time for change. Let’s transform.

 

Let’s dare to hope.

Let’s dissolve the cages and shackles that have enslaved animals and caused them great harm’.

 

 

You can watch the video here: 

Follow Emma Hurst on Facebook (Emma Hurst)

Instagram (@emma.hurst)

Twitter  (@MicHurst)

We Need A Discussion On Animal Sacrifice

Posted on | by Sandra Kyle

In this article from India Today a brave Indian Muslim fasts to protest animal sacrifice.

 

We need a discussion on animal sacrifice. Many animal sacrifice rituals are based on “substitution”, using animals as proxy-humans to discharge sins. We must ask why an act of publicly killing an animal (often with brutal, painful methods, entailing great suffering to the animal) is needed in 2021.  We have progressed in knowledge and understanding from thousands of years ago, when such practices were first carried out.

 

Animal sacrifice should be substituted entirely with other non-violent rituals that express the essence of the religious act, but without causing pain, emotional suffering and bloodshed to sentient beings.

 

Read the article here: