‘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.  

THE END OF MEAT

In this blog End Animal Slaughter’s Sandra Kyle puts a date on the end of animal agriculture.

 

In 2018 I self published a slim book calling for the New Zealand government to close all slaughterhouses before 2025.   Most ‘sensible’ people, including many vegans, thought at the time that it was a wishful-thinking fantasy, and could never happen in such a short timeframe.

Fast forward three years and such predictions are beginning to become commonplace  Not only from outsiders like myself, but also from within the animal agriculture Industry. Here in New Zealand, Danielle Appleton, MBA and Masters in Dairy Science and Technology, spent a decade with dairy giant Fonterra before launching her own alternative-dairy startup. In this TED talk from a couple of years ago she warns that two technologies – plant protein and synthetic dairy – means that dairy will no longer be this country’s ‘cash cow’.  Just as wool was the social and economic backbone of New Zealand up until the 1950s,when synthetic fibres caused the bottom to fall out of the wool industry, alternative technologies are now heralding the end of animal agriculture.  In fact, many futurists are predicting a much larger revolution that, as soon as the tipping point is reached, will grow exponentially to spell the end of raising and eating other animals for food worldwide.  The new foods will be more nutritious and convenient, healthier, and produced at a lower cost than the animal-derived products they replace. A world having moved away from animal agriculture may also usher in a world without hunger.  

Tony Seba, and Catherine Tubb from RethinkX, a US-based think tank that identifies social disruptions from new technology, have likened this agricultural revolution to the first domestication of plants and animals ten thousand years ago.

As the title of my book indicates, I believe this will happen in many places before 2025.   And in  2018 I couldn’t foresee a pandemic or the increase in flooding and wildfires worldwide, two principle reasons why we are on the cusp of the end of animal agriculture.

We are on our way to a vegan world.   To try a vegan diet, take the Vegan 22 challenge.

 

 

 

Death By A Thousand Cuts – How we Make Farmed Animals Suffer In The Slaughter Process

In this article End Animal Slaughter contributor Lynley Tulloch claims that the suffering of animals sent to slaughter is far from instantaneous.  (All photos taken at slaughterhouses in Whanganui, New Zealand, by Sandra Kyle)

 

A recent article in Stuff claimed that “meatworks are ‘gory and messy and nasty’, but the slaughtering’s humane”. While the article acknowledges the stressful process of transportation of animals, it makes the assertion that the killing itself is painless. It claims that the stunning process that immediately precedes the actual slaughter is instantaneous, and renders the animal insensible while s/he is killed.

This may well be true, provided the stunning process is effective every time. And yet, I remain unconvinced that we can narrow the slaughter down to that one instant. I think it is important that we don’t separate the transportation and holding of animals in slaughterhouse pens from the actual slaughter, and consider how the whole process makes the animals suffer.

 

Cows waiting overnight at Land Meats slaughterhouse Whanganui, New Zealand, for slaughter the next day.  

 

The Codes of Welfare governing animal slaughter and transport in New Zealand are woefully inadequate to prevent suffering on a mass scale.  Animals sent to slaughter often travel long distances.  It is a very uncomfortable journey.  They travel in filthy, hot and noisy carriages, putting up with exhaust fumes and slippery floors covered in urine and excrement.    It’s not exactly the Orient Express.

Animals going to slaughter travel in open trucks in all weathers, and stand on slippery floors covered with their own excrement.  

 

New Zealand has a Code of Welfare for Transport .   I think that most people accept this as evidence that animals have their welfare needs met during transport. Yet even when adhering to this Code animals suffer horrendously.  The Code sets a minimum standard for the time between which animals must go without water. For ruminants such as cows this is 24 hours. If the ruminants are pregnant or lactating, then it is 12 hours. This is timed from the period within which water is first removed to within 2 hours of arrival at the slaughterhouse. Mature animals also do not need to be unloaded for rest for 24 hours.

The implications of the above minimum standard are enormous in terms of animal suffering. Adult animals can legally be on a truck for 24 hours, and during this time may not be offered water or rest. They also can legally go without food for 36 hours.

 

Animals are often already hungry when they arrive at the slaughterhouse, and are legally permitted to go without food for 36 hours before their slaughter. 

 

In short, it is legal to transport mature animals for 24 hours without rest, water, or food in a hot and smelly truck. For young 4- 10-day old calves they can legally go 12 hours on a truck and 24 hours without milk.  ‘Milk lambs’ (those still being fed by mother) can legally go 28 hours without a feed before being slaughtered.  This is the high animal welfare standards New Zealand boasts of.

 

Bobby calves (surplus to requirements and killed at a few days old) can legally go 24 hours without milk and spend up to 12 hours travelling to their slaughter. 

 

Once at their destination the animals are loaded into pens where they wait for their turn to die. This video (non graphic) shows animals at a slaughterhouse in Whanganui, New Zealand, taken by animal rights activist Sandra Kyle on February 22, 2021.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI7uXunetac

The temperature was in the 20 degree plus range, yet for most of the animals there is absolutely no shelter from the sun, and they are all packed in tightly.   Yet the New Zealand Commercial Slaughter Code of Welfare states that:

 “The lairage must provide adequate shelter from adverse weather conditions and ventilation to protect the welfare of the animals being held for slaughter.”

Animals waiting in slaughter pens often have no shelter, and often have to wait for many hours packed in tightly.  

 

We can see that the New Zealand Animal Welfare codes are at most a  ‘best practice’ guide,  and are interpreted to benefit those in the Industry and not the animals themselves. In response to a recent query about animal transport, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) replied:

‘Farmers send cattle for sale or slaughter for numerous reasons, including to reduce the stocking rate if feed is limited and to remove unproductive animals from the herd. The reason why an animal is sent for slaughter is not recorded.

All livestock transported to slaughter should have a comfortable and safe journey, arriving in a fit and healthy state. It’s the responsibility of farmers to make sure cows are adequately prepared for transport, able to withstand the stress of travel, and are handled in a manner that minimises stress and injury’.

Although it is an offence to transport cattle late in pregnancy unless they are travelling with veterinary certification, every year in New Zealand there are cases of animals giving birth either during transport or at the slaughterhouse itself.   In 2020, 50 infringement notices of $500.00 were issued to farmers who sent their cattle in late stages of pregnancy to be slaughtered. While some births are on the truck, the majority are in the holding pens.  The  Commercial Slaughter Code of Welfare states:

“When animals give birth in the holding pens, the welfare of both dam and offspring must be protected.”

Exactly how they should be protected is not specified, again leaving it open to interpretation. It is highly disturbing that any animal would begin their life in a slaughterhouse,  even more disturbing that the newborn calf is immediately then killed.  And of course, after giving birth the mother will then be slaughtered herself.

If the calf has not birthed, then the regulations during the slaughter of pregnant cows is for the calf to remain in utero “for at least 15-20 minutes after the maternal neck cut or thoracic stick.” If the calf shows any sign of life after being removed from the womb it must be immediately stunned and killed.

This ‘best practice’ presents unique ethical issues. Does the unborn calf feel pain? The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) reports that calves in utero are insentient and unconscious due to neuro–inhibitors in the brain. However, the ability of calves to feel pain in utero, especially in the third trimester, cannot be ruled out entirely.

Cows may also be lactating when sent to slaughter. The regulation for lactating cows in New Zealand are as follows:

“Lactating dairy cattle with distended udders must be slaughtered within 24 hours of arrival unless milked.”

It is, in my opinion, unethical that lactating cows stand in a holding pen for any length of time, let alone 24 hours, dripping milk from their distended and painful udders.

 

One last look at freedom

 

The above instances of transport, waiting in holding pens, and giving birth at the slaughterhouse are examples of how inadequate our codes are to protect helpless animals sent to slaughter.  It is time to squarely face how we regulate the lives of animals to profit ourselves at the same time causing them great pain and distress.   What we are doing is not in any way ‘humane’ and does not come under the umbrella of ‘welfare’. Similarly, we cannot narrow ‘slaughter’ down to the one instant in which the animals heart is stopped.  It is just one small part of a long  journey to death for farmed animals.  Death by a thousand cuts.

You have a choice not to be a part of this horror story.   Please choose compassion over suffering,  and eat a plant-based diet. 

Dr Lynley Tulloch is an animal rights activist and writer, and has a PhD in sustainability education and ecocentric philosophy.

 

 

Jillian Sullivan is an acclaimed New Zealand writer and essayist.   Her latest book is ‘Map For The Heart.   In an article published on the first day of the new year, she states her desire for New Zealand to go plant-based.

 

Excerpt, (referring to Rachel Carlson’s ‘The Silent Spring’):- 

 

‘She was talking about the chemical highway of toxic pesticides, fungicides and herbicides, and the lesser-known road of alternative, biological systems. But she could have been talking about us today, with our highway of intensive industrialised agriculture, our heating, chaotic planet, and the hope that is offered by visionary practitioners and scientists. My wish for New Zealand? That we have the courage to take that other road to transform our industrial agricultural systems into plant-based and organic’.

 

Read The Spinoff article here:

 

 

Factory Farms a ‘Petri Dish’ For Pandemics – Report Says ‘Phase Them Out’

Humane Society International’s white paper concludes that we must urgently phase out factory farming to prevent future pandemics.

 

Main points:

  • Confining vast numbers of stressed animals indoors creates novel viral strains because their immune systems are weakened so they succumb to viruses easily

  • Expanding farms into previously wild areas brings wild and domestic species together, allowing diseases to jump

  • Concentrating animal farms in an area increases the risk of pathogens spreading

  • The global live animal trade, in which huge numbers of live animals are transported globally, allows viruses to travel

  • Agricultural fairs and auctions and live animal markets where the public get close to species from different places, let viruses proliferate.

Read The Independent article here

#EndFactoryFarming

Photo Credit We Animals Media

Why Do We Only Cry When Puppies Die?

New Zealand is a veritable picnic of animal abuse – so why do we only cry when puppies die?    End Animal Slaughter contributor Lynley Tulloch asks the question. 

 

A recent case in the Waikato region of New Zealand resulted in a public outcry when three puppies were drowned in a weighted-down bag.   The black and white puppies had their mouths taped shut and their feet also bound together. They are reported to be male Pitbull Staffordshire crosses.

 

The young family who found the puppies called the SPCA. The find has generated a cash reward for anyone who can identify the culprit. The deaths of these innocents is hard to stomach.

 

It raises important issues around our treatment of animals and the public’s tolerance of such acts of cruelty.

 

It is notable that drowning of unwanted litters of puppies and kittens used to happen frequently in New Zealand, particularly in rural areas. A quick trip to the pond with a sack full of puppies or kittens and a brick to weigh them down took care of unwanted population explosions.

 

The SPCA says that drowning is a painful death, made even worse in young mammals who have a dive reflex, prolonging the agony. We now know (even if we didn’t in the past) that drowning is not a nice way to go.

 

Yet it seems some people have not got the memo. The SPCA is still busy dealing with animal welfare concerns. So what is going on? Why is animal cruelty such a problem in New Zealand, when we are said to be a country of animal lovers?

 

If we regarded (animals) as sentient beings with rights to life and to agency over their life, it would help to ensure that they are treated with respect.

 

In my view, the problem lies in the way we see animals as ‘lesser beings’, categorizing them according to their use for humans.  If we regarded them as sentient beings with rights to life and to agency over their life, it would help to ensure that they are treated with respect.

 

Any violence toward animals could then be consistent across the species. Their capacity to suffer, is what we need to be focusing on. It should be a crime to maim or kill them for our own perceived needs, or to enslave them for our own ends. They are an end in themselves – not a means to an end. They have intrinsic worth.

 

In addition, we need to regard violence as a continuum instead of an isolated act. Violence against animals is committed day in and day out in  animal farming. Yet few people bat an eye – let alone offer a reward to bring the perpetrators to justice as happened with the puppies.  

 

Animal farmers have a broadly utilitarian view of animals, valuing them mainly for the money that can be made from them. This is not to say that farmers do not care for their animals, or even grow fond of them. But frankly, if animal farmers thought of cows in the same way as many city people think of dogs then they would never get sent to slaughter

 

For rural people it is often regarded as admirable to be able to accept the fate of the animals in your care, even to take pride in it.

But farm animals do suffer – it is an inevitable outcome of being raised for death. Think about the hens crammed into cages their entire short lives before being killed when they go off the lay temporarily.  Chickens bred for meat often go lame and have heart attacks because they grow faster than their legs and hearts can support.

 

And their death is often not humane either. In fact, layer hens and meat chickens in New Zealand get killed by electrical stunning before having their throats slit by an automated knife and then plunged into scalding water to have their feathers removed. Some hens don’t get stunned first and endure the whole process while conscious. So really, if you eat eggs and chicken and support those industries you are saying that you are happy with that.

 

If we are ok with that, why are we not ok with drowning puppies? It seems a bit hypocritical. Is it because hens are seen to have a use value that trumps any consideration of their sentience?  We all like to believe in the mythology of humane slaughter. We think that animals bred for their meat or milk or eggs have a purpose. But it is not so – all animals are sentient and feel negative emotions like pain and fear, as well as positive ones like joy. Any farmer will tell you that.

 

We think that animals bred for their meat or milk or eggs have a purpose. But it is not so – all animals are sentient and feel negative emotions like pain and fear, as well as positive ones like joy. Any farmer will tell you that.

 

Many dogs on farms are considered ‘working dogs’ in the same way that hens are considered to have a job to do – laying eggs. If a dog has become old and unproductive on the farm they are often disposed of with a bullet to the head. Just like the hens at the end of their working life.

 

What is the lesser evil? Drowning unwanted litters, electrifying and slitting the throats of chickens or shooting a dog in the head? They are all violent acts, and yet we accept some and not others.

 

As a teenager I had the horrifying experience of being shown through a hatchery for laying chickens. Right in the middle of the room was a giant blender with blades glinting in the bright lights. One day old male chicks are macerated in this contraption while fully conscious.

 

Could you put the puppies in the blender?

 

What about bobby calves? They get taken from their mothers, transported for up to 12 hours in a truck (legally) and go for up to 24 hours without milk before having a bolt driven through their brains and their throats slit. Sounds pretty violent to me. Yet, may people in New Zealand who speak out against the drowning of puppies will also use dairy products with wild abandon. I see it all the time – a slice of Camembert here, a white coffee there, lashings of chocolate and smoothies. It’s a veritable picnic of animal cruelty.

 

I am not in any way justifying the horrendous drowning of the puppies. It is a disgusting and despicable act. But before we make any real inroads into addressing animal cruelty we have to take a more complete look at the picture. We need to be consistent in our attitude and treatment of all animals.

 

Violence begets violence, and in terms of suffering, a puppy is a chick is a calf.

 

 

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

 

A Tale Of Two Sheep

In this true story End Animal Slaughter contributor Maya Cohen-Ronen recounts the heart of a mother…. and the altruism that can exist between sentient beings.  

 

 

A couple of days ago as I was scrolling through my Facebook feed somewhat absentmindedly, one story managed to capture my attention. It was a beautiful story with a substantial ‘feel-good’ element to it. A story of two sheep.

Somewhere in the United States of America there is a sheep farm. There is nothing particularly interesting about this farm. It is owned by a couple I know nothing about, and their children participate in the American 4-H programme, in which farming children are encouraged to raise ‘their own’ animals, invest in them emotionally, then once ready – sell them off to slaughter. I’ll get to that bit a little later.

In this said farm, there live two sheep. Of course, there were more sheep, but only these two are of interest to this story. To refrain from referring to them as ‘Sheep One’ and ‘Sheep Two’ I shall hereby name them Agnetha and Anni-Frid.

Like all sheep in farms around the world, Agnetha and Anni-Frid were bred to serve a purpose. This purpose is monetary. Their female reproductive systems are exploited for man’s financial benefit. Like their sisters, Agnetha and Anni-Frid are routinely forcefully impregnated, so that a new generation of lambs can then be ‘harvested’ to feed people who enjoy feasting on decomposing young flesh.

Agnetha and Anni-Frid were pregnant together. In silence they carried their babies to full term. I don’t know about you the reader, but as a mother who experienced this miraculous phenomenon first hand, I know the magical feeling of having a baby inside your uterus. Sensing it grow, the first tingling bubbles, the movements and the kicks, the hormonal storm, the growing heaviness of the breasts as their feeding role nears. As fellow mammals, I have no reason to doubt that Agnetha and Anni-Frid experienced such emotions as well, to some degree.

It was Agnetha who felt the pain of child birth first. It was early, her lamb was not yet due. In sadness she gave birth to her son. He was dead. In the morning, the farmer took away the lifeless little body.

I have another secret to share with you. I have experienced a silent birth. My son Gilead was born and died at twenty-week gestation. I know the emotional blow this tragic event causes. The deep sense of loss, the sorrow, the longing. One might think only human mothers can be riddled with the severe pain of a baby’s loss, but that is a very selfish and cynical human-centric view. All mammalian mothers are similar. Sheep are no different.

I have another secret to share with you. I have experienced a silent birth. My son Gilead was born and died at twenty-week gestation. I know the emotional blow this tragic event causes. The deep sense of loss, the sorrow, the longing. One might think only human mothers can be riddled with the severe pain of a baby’s loss, but that is a very selfish and cynical human-centric view. All mammalian mothers are similar. Sheep are no different.

Agnetha was devastated. Her grief was palpable. She didn’t stop crying. For days she kept calling for her baby, but he never came back.

A couple of weeks later, it was Anni-Frid’s turn to give birth. In pain she delivered two healthy lambs. Twins.  Indeed, a happy occasion for the farmer; the birth went smoothly, without any losses to bear. Mazel Tov.

It was a few days later that an astounding discovery was made. On the sun-kissed field there stood Agnetha and Anni-Frid. But low and behold – BOTH were gently licking and tending to a precious little lamb! It was not down to a miracle, but rather a very poignant display of deep care and selfless love. Moved by the immense grief of her distraught friend, Anni-Frid has gifted one of her new-born lambs to Agnetha!

Agnetha (l) with the newborn lamb given to her by Anni-Frid (r) after her own was still-born. They are Suffolk sheep, one of the most popular of English breeds.  

From the update I have read, the little lamb and Agnetha have deeply bonded. She mothers him gently, and he in turn follows here everywhere. She is his mother, and he is her baby. Forever.

Hold on a minute. Forever?

Well, no. In an ideal world the ending should have been “and they lived happily ever after…” but this is the real world, and this is a sheep farm, and there are no happy endings to these sheep.

One day soon-ish, as the lambs grow and fatten enough, they will be taken away from Anni-Frid and Agnetha. Imagine the horror and the desperation Agnetha will experience all over again. How many nights will she call him? I don’t know. A broken heart of a sheep must feel the same as that of a human. It was her miracle child. The epitome of the most beautiful friendship. But there is no mercy in the industry of flesh harvesting. How many more lambs will Agnetha be forced to deliver before her time is up and she and Anni-Frid are loaded on the truck that takes them to their horrific death? I couldn’t tell you. But the ending is a given. They will not escape it.

Now, I could have finished the story here, and allow you the reader to make the connections yourself, to draw the conclusion about the cruelty of flesh eating. To realise the insanity in sentencing such incredible beings to death simply because that’s what we’re used to. But there is another point I still wish to make.

As mentioned, the particular farm where Agnetha and Anni-Frid’s tale took place, promotes the 4-H programme. This programme, like the AAF and probably others, encourages children to raise animal friends all the way to slaughter. Children are assigned a young animal, be it a calf, a lamb, a kid etc., and they raise it with the devotion only a child can show when they want to prove themselves to adults. As can be expected, with time a bond is formed between the two children, the human and the non-human. The animal child learns to trust their human friend, and the human child cannot help but deeply connect with ‘their’ animal. But the time comes when the animal is ready to be sold for slaughter and it is the child’s duty to prove maturity as they are forced to say goodbye to their animal friend and leave them behind. Social media is full of soul-destroying images of distraught children crying, while their disconnected parents are full of praise for their children who managed to handle the devastating situation so well.

Saying goodbye to a beloved animal is the hardest thing for children.   As part of the 4-H pledge, (4H stands for ‘head, hart, hands and health’) members vow to use these four things for the betterment of “my club, my community, my country and my world.”   But what does it tell them about values such as compassion? Empathy? Loyalty? Trust?   

 

When I first came across this travesty, I couldn’t believe it at first, but I’ve been on social media for long enough to have come across this insanity time and time again. What does it really teach children, this practice of allowing them to connect with animals, knowing that this bond is doomed, and their trusting friend is scheduled to die sooner or later? What does it tell them about values such as compassion? Empathy? Loyalty? Trust?

What it does is desensitise these children to violence in the most abhorrent way possible. It makes them betray their friends whom they love in such an unforgivable manner, while the adults around them cheer on. These children’s natural sense of compassion is being actively lobotomised out of them, replaced with cold apathy and detachment from the cruelty they are directly responsible for. It is hard to comprehend how it’s not legally considered as parental child abuse.

And so, while Agnetha and Anni-Frid have shown us the kindest, deepest form of selfless love between two beings, what farming clearly shows us is that it’s time for it to end.

 

 

Maya Cohen-Ronen is an animal rights activist, and author of two dystopian suspense novels.

Related links

‘The Shed’

‘Liberation’

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

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

OLD MACDONALD HAD A MACHETE,  EE AYE EE AYE OH!

The disconnect between what goes on in animal agriculture and the image that is projected to the young could not be more evident than in our featured video from PETA.

 

  • Animals on farms undergo painful procedures such as de-horning, ear and tail docking, debeaking and branding.  They are slaughtered at just a fraction of their natural lifespan.
  • In dairying, baby calves are separated from their parents and males and unwanted females are sent to the slaughterhouse at just a few days old.    Others are raised for veal, where they are kept in darkness and tied up so they do not develop muscles in order to produce pale, tender meat.
  • Animals in factory farms are denied their natural instincts, and live in cramped, filthy, disease-ridden, artificial conditions where they often lose the will to live.
  • Sows are kept for extended periods in crates where they cannot turn around, and cannot properly suckle their babies.
  • Meat chickens are bred to grow so quickly that they develop deformities and systemic problems. Spending their lives on a concrete floor in their own waste,  many die before slaughter,  at 5-6  weeks of age.
  • In the egg industry, baby roosters are considered wastage and are either suffocated or ground up alive, to the tune of 6 billion every year. 
  • Animals are transported to slaughter over long distances in all weathers.  In freezing temperatures they can arrive at their destination frozen to the floor or to the sides of the trucks.   In hot temperatures they can become severely heat stressed.
  • Live exported cattle are shipped to countries where slaughter methods are often extremely primitive and cruel.  spending weeks at a time packed together in the hull of death ships.  Many are dead on arrival.
  • Animals sense what is going to happen to them at the slaughterhouse, can smell the blood, and can often see and hear their family and friends being slaughtered in front of them.

There is only one way to stop these atrocities from happening, and that is to go vegan.

Take the Challenge 22 here

Watch the Video here

DEATH, MUTILATION AND DISEASE – THE REALITY OF GOAT MILK FARMING

Key Points:

  • Many people switch from cow’s milk to goat’s milk because they think it’s more humane, but all the problems that exist to produce cow’s milk exist in goat farming too.

  • In many parts of the world Saanen goats are the breed of choice in intensive goat farming due to their high milk yield and relatively placid nature.

  • Mother goats are often artificially inseminated and after giving birth, they are immediately separated from their babies so their milk can be taken for human consumption.

  • While female kids are used to replenish the milking herd, male kids can’t produce milk so are either killed at birth or reared for the meat trade. Methods of killing include shooting and blunt force trauma to the head.

  • All kids suffer painful mutilations such as disbudding, often without anesthetic.

  • In many commercial farms worldwide goats are zero-grazed, and their independent, inquisitive and spirited nature is crushed inside small stalls with little to no access outdoors.

  • Intensively farmed goats suffer from the parasitic disease Coccidiosis due to the concentration of faeces in confined spaces. They also suffer from clostridial diseases, foot rot, worms, and external parasites.

  • In the wild goats would generally live between 15 and 18 years but for those exploited for commercial interests culling is normally carried out around six years of age. Generally this is when their milk yield drops and they’re no longer considered a profitable commodity.

  • There is only one way to prevent the suffering of cows and goats in the dairy industry, and that is to go dairy-free.

Read the articles:

Facts About Goat Farming

The reality of goat milk and cheese

The fate of unwanted newborns in the goat milk industry (Warning: includes graphic video)

FARMING IS ‘A NUMBERS GAME’

In remote stations in the Australian outback, sick animals are left to starve or be shot, sometimes with cheap bullets that don’t kill the animals outright causing them acute suffering.  Workers routinely abuse the animals, kicking and punching cows in the face, jumping on their backs and beating them with a stick. 

Such behaviours were uncovered when ‘Sentient’, an Israeli non-profit, sent ‘backpackers’ to outback farms.  The footage they shot shows cows crying out in pain as they are dehorned without anaesthetic – dispensed with because it’s ‘too much hassle’ and in order to save money.   To economise vets are often not called when animals are sick, and they are left to die a lingering death or are shot.   

Sentient beings are just a number in these places: counted on their dollar worth and that alone.  What’s more, after a lifetime of such abuse,  many endure the horror of live-export to places like Asia where they end up in cruel, unregulated slaughterhouses.  From birth to death they have known nothing but abuse, suffering and terror.  

There is a way to stop such abominations from happening, and that is to eat a vegan diet. 

Read the ‘Mercy for Animals’ article and watch the video here.   (Warning:  Graphic footage)

 

It is time to abolish fishing and fish farming…

Fish are smart enough to use tools, can communicate and have distinct personalities. It has been established beyond doubt that they feel pain.

So how is it that we can justify torturing them in their trillions, every single year, for our palates?

Photo essay with words by Joy Ann Satchell and Sandra Kyle

 

Fish are the original vertebrates, our direct evolutionary ancestors. Scaly pioneers with small limbs, they crawled from the sea and colonized the land, and gave rise to our species.

 

But we have forgotten our evolutionary debt to them.  They are our silent victims.  We don’t hear them scream when they’re impaled on hooks,  or when the hooks are ripped from their delicate mouths.  Yet they have nervous systems that comprehend and respond to pain. 

We invade their territory and trap them in vast nets.  They are wrenched from their ocean home into open air, and go through the agony of suffocation.  Such are their numbers that the fishing industry can only measure their loss in tonnes.   

We haul  them in, and leave them to die in agony, wounded, ‘drowning’ in the air.

 

Human greed is not even satisfied with this holocaust.  We farm them as well.

 

Salmon farms, where they live in cramped and polluted cages, unable to escape, fighting for space, fighting for freedom.   Many die of disease and despair even before slaughter weight.

 

A glint of scales, a swatch of luminescence… fish are beautiful and complex creatures.  These graceful denizens of the ocean have as much right to live as you and I.  Let them live in their home, undisturbed, free and fulfilling their own destiny. 

 

Let’s remember the silent, forgotten victims of our world. 

All living creatures have their own purpose in life’s circle….

Let’s abolish cruel fishing and fish farming forever. 

Watch the Video of ‘drowning’Joaquin Phoenix  calling for kindness to fish