In this poignant article animal activist and Lead Agriculture Campaigner at Greenpeace Aotearoa, Christine Rose, shares memories of growing up on a pig farm.

The pig sheds of my childhood were like something out of a Dickens nightmare. The low light, the air thick with dust, the sounds and smells of hundreds of animals, eternally contained.

The floors were old wet and cracked concrete; the walls, fibrolight, with wooden flaps covering unglazed windows. In winter it froze, in summer it cooked. Every day, on Dad’s rounds, he would pull out dead piglets from the pens and put them in a barrow, headed for disposal. Ultimately their destinations were the same, young or older, pigs came and went by the hundreds through the years of my childhood. Legions without a life worth living, space, sunlight or love.

Ultimately their destinations were the same, young or older, pigs came and went by the hundreds through the years of my childhood. Legions without a life worth living, space, sunlight or love.

Some sheds held the weaners, as many fast-growing youngsters crammed into each pen as could fit. Bleaker and more boring than a penitentiary. No break from routine or boredom, no sunlight, mud or shade, no touch of the wild or natural world. In a departure from standard procedure, my dad, who was a low paid worker, sometimes hung some wood on a string for them to play with, some small element of enrichment. It was a wee act of kindness in a short life long on oppression and brutality.

Dad sometimes hung some wood on a string for them to play with, some small element of enrichment. It was a wee act of kindness in a short life long on oppression and brutality.

Other sheds housed the sows, each mother trapped in a crate where she couldn’t turn, couldn’t move, couldn’t nuzzle her young. Her piglets were in the wider pen, tiny, velvety and pink but without maternal contact or the chance to express their true ‘pigness’.  Their little upturned snouts all wrinkly and curious, at first they were oblivious to the cruelty of the system they were part of. But they were denied nests, soft bedding, smells and textures of the outside world in generations before they were born, and in generations to come.

Out the back of the main piggery were other pens, for single sows, each one just high bare walls and a spartan shelter, without bedding, grass, or the sight, support, and socialisation of a herd. Only the boars roamed free, in paddocks with sheds for shelter and wallows. Beyond the sheds were the oxidation ponds, the offal pit, the final horrors in a system of misery.

Sometimes we’d have a runt to take care of, that we would bring back from the edge of early death. Little Pink Pettitoes was one such weakling. She’d run through the house wagging her curly tail, following us like a puppy. She’d suckle our fingers and gumbooted toes, come when we called, lie on the floor in the lounge, an honorary child. Until she was well enough, recovered, and returned to the piggery, no longer a name but a number. Such was the life on a pig farm. Pigs were pets one day, sausages the next.

She’d run through the house wagging her curly tail, following us like a puppy. She’d suckle our fingers and gumbooted toes, come when we called, lie on the floor in the lounge, an honorary child. Until she was well enough, recovered, and returned to the piggery.

Despite being kids, we weren’t spared the brutal reality of pig ‘husbandry’. When the time for castration came, my dad would remove the piglets from the farrowing pen, take them in a shopping trundler down the back of the shed, and one by one, chain the young male piglets upside down in a rudimentary metal cradle. He’d cut around their genitals with a scalpel and pull out the scrotum and other stringy bloody bits, and pour some iodine on the wound. He’d trim their teeth and chop off their tails with what looked like wire cutters, and put the screaming piglets in the growing pen, where they’d spend the rest of their lives, getting fat for slaughter and human consumption.

For home use, three or four pigs were put in a cage on the back of the tractor. They were removed one at a time, and man with a gun would shoot them in the head before cutting their throats, while the others still trapped, watched and waited their turn. Their screams haunt me still. They’d bleed out on the dusty apron in front of the shed. They were hung upside down, gutted, reduced to innards and guts and blood. They were put in a hot bath of water where their hair was burnt off, and they were butchered into meat cuts, and ‘choice’ pieces were pickled for bacon and ham. Sometimes the heads were taken home and kept in the big deep freeze. Boiled up later for brawn, they’d stare out at us whenever we took out a loaf of bread or other frozen goods for dinner.

Boiled up later for brawn, they’d stare out at us whenever we took out a loaf of bread or other frozen goods for dinner.

These days they don’t castrate male pigs, they’re killed before they sexually mature, a marginal improvement. Sow crates are banned, but farrowing crates are legal. There’s not much difference between the two. They both deny mothers the chance to express innate and essential behaviour – like turning around, moving about, nest building, nurturing of young.

My dad no longer farms pigs. But there’s a pig farm near where I live, where familiar atrocities remain. My childhood love for pigs prevails, so does the haunting of my heart for the way they are treated. There are less than 100 pig farms in NZ now and not all of them are so archaic, though less than 2% are truly free range. Farrowing crates are still the norm, and even new piggeries deny sows the chance to turn around – in cages visibly too small. Farmers say separating the sow from her babies helps address piglet mortality, but they breed sows for so many piglets, that they’re small and vulnerable, so of course the death rate would be high. MPI’s online ‘pig space calculator’ shows how grotesque modern practices remain acceptable to authorities who should be more responsible for their welfare. You’re allowed 125 25kg pigs in a space that’s just 30m2, smaller than some peoples’ lounge. You’re allowed 252 50kg pigs in a space 100m2, smaller than an average house.  As bad as this confinement is, it’s legal and considered a high animal welfare standard, and with more than 60% of pork eaten in NZ imported from overseas (Spain, Canda, the US), where there are even worse rules – or none at all, pig farming – and eating, is immoral and indefensible. There can be no justification for taking a pig’s life for the passing pleasure on the palate.

The latest indignities we inflict on pigs is to use them in xenotransplants. Scientists breed pigs especially for their organs to be transplanted into people. We recognise they are enough like us that their organs and ours are interchangeable. But we deny that they’re enough like us to warrant rights to lives worth living, to flourish and express their natural behaviours. Those curious, smart, funny, friendly, witty and loyal animals are no less than dogs – or humans. We shouldn’t treat a human or a dog like this, and we shouldn’t do it to a pig.

AND NOW FOR A MUCH HAPPIER STORY:  End Animal Slaughter rescued these three pigs who were going to be killed, and safely rehomed them in a sanctuary where they will live out their lives happy and free.  Meet Happy, Lucky and Hope! (Tik Tok by Summer Aitken, Video by Chris Huriwai.)

This article is by Wayne Hsiung, American attorney and animal rights activist (co-founder of  co-founder of the animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere (DxE).   It has been reprinted from Wayne’s blog page https://simpleheart.substack.com/

We are having a funeral for Lisa today. And while I expect it to be healing, it won’t be easy. I’ve written about this loss on two occasions now. And about my broader perspective on the meaning of grief.

What I’ve not said, however, is why we are having a funeral at all. I’ve only been to one other funeral for an individual non-human animal, that of my other beloved dog Natalie. And, to some, the concept of a funeral for a dog might seem odd or even a little silly. But Lisa’s loss weighs so heavily on us; the rite of a funeral will hopefully give me and Priya peace. More importantly, funerals are not just about those who grieve. They are about the importance of those we have lost. And in that sense, having a funeral for Lisa is not just a personal but a political act. It’s meant to say that her life had value, and should be treated with the same dignity and respect as we give to members of our own species.

But to understand this, I thought it would be interesting to dive a little more deeply into the history of funeral ceremonies. And it turns out that history is a long one. The oldest intentional burial in the historical record occurred at Qafzeh, Israel, over 100,000 years ago. Fifteen modern humans were found in a burial site, with 71 pieces of red ocher and ocher-stained stone tools, suggesting there was some ritual associated with their burial. Perhaps even more interesting is the burial site of a human child 78,000 years ago in Africa. The child, whose body was analyzed extensively using forensic tools and microscopes, was apparently laid down in a fetal position, and perhaps covered with a shroud and given a pillow. Those who buried her wanted her to feel peace and love even in death. To me, this shows that remembering the dead is part of who we are.

This is partly because human beings were hardly human 100,000 years ago; the fact that we had funerals suggests their deep connection to our basic identity as a species. One hundred thousand years ago, language, if it existed at all, was brand new to the scene. (The renowned linguist Noam Chomsky says that a chance mutation gave us the ability to speak exactly 100,000 years ago.) Neanderthals were still at our side, and would not go extinct for another 60,000 years. And wooly mammoths would still be around for 95,000 years. It’s hard to even comprehend how long ago this was (even though it’s still just a blip in the history of life on earth, which goes back a remarkable 4,500,000,000 years). Yet even in these remarkably different times, perhaps before we even had language, we were honoring our dead. That deep history seems important.

But the funeral rite also seems tied to our basic humanity because of the conceptual importance of death in our species. The Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert has argued that imagining the future is what makes humans unique on the planet Earth. (He is probably wrong about this, as this angry-but-well-prepared rock-throwing chimp has shown.) When we developed that capability, we also conceived of death for the first time, that empty endless space of the unknown. We are not, as a species, particularly good at handling uncertain fears; uncertainty is an emotional amplifier that makes even small risks seem terrifying. And so it’s not surprising to me that funerals have existed for 100,000+ years. They are, it seems to me, our species’ attempt to reckon with death, and therefore also with the sanctity of life.

That brings me back to the central point. If funerals have been part of our species, for as long as we have been on this earth, then performing funerals for other animals is a way to show that they, too, are part of our history, both individually and as a species. It is also a way to show that our understanding of the importance of death extends to our animal friends. And by honoring the one individual before us, we problematize the brutal slaughter of billions of others.

Traditionally, we slaughter these unknown masses without even individually recognizing the being who is about to die. This is most notable in instances of mass slaughter, such as ventilation shutdown. To the industry, it is not even recognized as death; it’s just clearing out the unneeded inventory.

Extending the funeral rite to animals shows that we can evolve beyond this. It shows that our species has the ability to overcome self-interest, and express love and care for an individual of another species who no longer has anything to offer us in return. This is, in many ways, our real super power as a species: our ability to empathize with, and therefore form kinship with, even those who are very different from us. The funeral elevates this idea.

I don’t know what the human beings of ancient Africa, or Israel, thought exactly of the ones they buried. But the respect given to the dead shows they had love for those they lost. And I hope, when we remember the funeral that unfolds today in Berkeley, that is what people will say about Lisa and her family.

You may not have known her, at least the way we do, but you will see that she loved, and was loved. And by doing so, perhaps you will see a future where we love all animals.

In this article End Animal Slaughter’s Sandra Kyle, and animal activist Robert McNeil call out the New Zealand billionaire family behind the notorious Talley’s Group. 

Managing Director of the Talley’s Group, Sir Peter Talley.

New Zealand’s notorious agribusiness moguls, the Talley family, are in the news again.  This time it is because of allegations of unhygienic conditions and dangerous health and safety breaches in their Ashburton frozen foods operation. In May 2015 Te Atatu Hemi, 42, was working in the cold store at this same facility when several bins stacked on top of a forklift fell on top of her, leaving her a paraplegic.  Since the latest story broke this month more former employees have come forward.  This includes one cold store worker at the same plant who, six years after Hemi’s accident, quit in fear his life was in danger.

Demonstration by meatworkers and their families.  Workers striking for better conditions were locked out of AFFCO plants in 2012 

The rich-lister Talley’s group have long courted controversy over their approach to industrial relations, and workplace safety.  They are notorious for squashing union activity, seeking to dilute health and safety legislation, and blatantly flouting environmental rules.  Their Wikipedia entry includes 29 references to their litigious history with unions, disgruntled employees, and the environment.

In the past ten years Worksafe have had multiple reported cases over injuries incurred at their workplaces.  One such was Nelson fisherman Leighton Muir, 27, who was decapitated in August 2014 in an accident aboard a Talley’s seiner.   Talley’s were found negligent, and fined $73,520 and ordered to pay $21,000 reparations to the family of Mr Muir – chump change for this billionaire family.

They have come a long way since Dalmatian immigrant and local fisherman Ivan Talijancich (later known as Ivan Talley) established a small firm in Motueka in 1936.  From these humble beginnings, the company has cast a giant net over sea and land.  For the last couple of decades it has been one of New Zealand’s biggest businesses, with interests in fishing and seafood (Talley’s) meat (Affco), dairy (Open Country Dairy), frozen foods, and coal mining (in conjunction with Solid Energy).

There’s no getting around the fact that an animal died to provide the sausages and bacon sizzling on New Zealand BBQs. Tens of millions of cows, sheep and pigs are killed in New Zealand every year, many of them at the Talley’s owned AFFCO.

They own AFFCO, one of New Zealand’s largest slaughterhouse chains.  The business of killing animals is grisly, and full of potential hazards to workers because of animal size, machinery involved, and contamination from animal-origin viruses and bacteria.  In 2014, a cleaner at the Rangiuru (Bay of Plenty) meatworks spent more than an hour with a meat hook impaled in his head, resulting in a ruling that the company breached health and safety rules. The man involved in this terrible accident now lives in constant pain, and has tried to commit suicide, while the company was fined $30,000 and ordered to pay $25,000 to the victim.   In June 2015 a Whanganui Affco Imlay worker was cleaning up an offal spill when some raw material squirted into his eye. He became extremely ill with an animal bacterial infection and had to have life-saving surgery to replace his aortic and mitral valves.  Talley’s are aware of the hazards of their businesses, yet repeatedly fail to implement control measures to enforce workers’ safety.

Trading under the Amaltal brand, Talley’s have a modern fleet of fishing vessels, including bottom trawlers that damage the marine environment and exacerbates global warming.

All year round Talley’s fleet of eight fishing vessels operates in the EEZ (exclusive economic zone), the Antarctic and Western Pacific, to sell in global markets. One of the methods they use is bottom trawling, a highly destructive fishing technique that has both direct and indirect negative effects on marine ecosystems.  One of the ways is through overfishing, which can remove  essential predators, increase algal bloom, threaten local food sources, and lead to an ecosystem imbalance.

Another way is catching untargeted species, or ‘bycatch’, including mammals and even seabirds that are brought up injured or dead, and then ‘shovelled’ back into the sea.  A further consequence of bottom trawling is the way the weighted nets ruin reefs and coral populations that have been growing for centuries, and are the homes of countless fish species as well as anemones, sponges, urchins and other fragile-bodied animals. This fishing method also releases carbon stored in the seabed, impacting global warming as well.

On their website Talley’s promote their commitment to sustainable fishing practices and  the environment, yet their track record tells a different story.  In a recent example they have been found guilty of bottom trawling in a marine protected area off Kaikoura.  They also hunt the Patagonia tooth fish in Antarctic seas. A top predator in the Antarctic food chain, the tooth fish (sold as Chilean bass) doesn’t reach sexual maturity until age thirteen and can live for fifty years.  As large fishing vessels can only access its home waters a couple of months a year, it is impossible to monitor and report changes in fish stocks, a sustainability practice Talley’s claims to adhere to.

At the beginning of this year an investigation by Radio New Zealand revealed dozens of big business players were routinely discharging wastewater into our rivers and oceans.   AFFCO were among the companies found to be breaking the law. 

The animal agriculture industries that have made the Talley’s family billionaires (and have bestowed a knighthood on Peter Talley) are as secretive as the family itself.   Their animal operations kill cows, calves, sheep and pigs in the tens of millions every year; factor in their seafood operations and the number is in the billions. Those who profit from killing living beings for food want us to believe that something humane happens along the way, but nothing humane happens in slaughterhouses and commercial fishing fleets.  Animals, unlike people, cannot speak up for themselves, their rights are seldom protected, and there are few willing to stand up for them.

But even if we don’t care about animals, then we all should care about the future of our planet.   We need to act with a unified purpose to keep Earth and all its inhabitants healthy and resilient.  Companies such as Talley’s with such a destructive global footprint, and who repeatedly disregard their duty of care to people, animals and the environment, deserve to be deregistered.  In the meantime, we can boycott their products.

Sandra Kyle and Rob McNeil are part of the global Animal Save Movement that bears witness to animals at the gates of slaughterhouses, and seeks to expose animal exploitation industries. 

In this recent Guardian article author Sarah Marsh reports that more and more scientists and writers are acknowledging that changing to a vegan diet is necessary to mitigate carbon emissions. 

Read the article here

A bizarre (for some heartbreaking) photo and video of two separate incidents surfaced this week, delivering a grievous blow to the horseracing industry. The photo was of top Irish trainer Gordon Elliot sitting down on a newly dead horse while talking on the phone and giving the victory sign. The video showed Irish jockey Rob James climbing on the back of a dead horse and laughing as he pretended to ride it.   Both horses had been pushed until their hearts went into cardiac arrest, and would have experienced a painful and distressing death.  

Both trainer and jockey have been stood down from competing in Great Britain pending an enquiry, but whatever the outcome this has damaged the public perception of the industry.  Horseracing enjoys social licence largely because the public believes the horses are loved by their trainers, owners, riders and grooms, who treat them ‘better than their own children’, as is often said.   However the behaviour of this top trainer and jockey seems to tell another story. 

Read The Guardian article here