tagged w/ farm animal sanctuaries
-
Global Animal...
.
Cow Proves Animals Love, Think, And Act
April 13, 2012 Megan Cross
.
(TOUCHING TALE)
A dairy cow made the tough choice to hide one of her calves after giving birth to twins. As her fifth birth, the cow remembered her previous agony and knew that both of her babies would be taken away, unless she tried to save one. The intelligence and care displayed by this mothering cow is both heartbreaking and breathtaking. Read this touching tale, told by a veterinarian, about an amazing display of motherly love that proves animals love and feel. — Global Animal
.
Photo Credit: APEX
By Holly Cheever, DVM, reprinted from Action for Animals
.
.
I would like to tell you a story that is as true as it is heartbreaking. When I first graduated from Cornell’s School of Veterinary Medicine, I went into a busy dairy practice in Cortland County. I became a very popular practitioner due to my gentle handling of the dairy cows. One of my clients called me one day with a puzzling mystery: his Brown Swiss cow, having delivered her fifth calf naturally on pasture the night before, brought the new baby to the barn and was put into the milking line, while her calf was once again removed from her. Her udder, though, was completely empty, and remained so for several days.
As a new mother, she would normally be producing close to one hundred pounds (12.5 gallons) of milk daily; yet, despite the fact that she was glowing with health, her udder remained empty. She went out to pasture every morning after the first milking, returned for milking in the evening, and again was let out to pasture for the night — this was back in the days when cattle were permitted a modicum of pleasure and natural behaviors in their lives — but never was her udder swollen with the large quantities of milk that are the hallmark of a recently-calved cow.
I was called to check this mystery cow two times during the first week after her delivery and could find no solution to this puzzle. Finally, on the eleventh day post calving, the farmer called me with the solution: he had followed the cow out to her pasture after her morning milking, and discovered the cause: she had delivered twins, and in a bovine’s “Sophie’s Choice,” she had brought one to the farmer and kept one hidden in the woods at the edge of her pasture, so that every day and every night, she stayed with her baby — the first she had been able to nurture FINALLY—and her calf nursed her dry with gusto. Though I pleaded for the farmer to keep her and her bull calf together, she lost this baby, too—off to the hell of the veal crate.
Think for a moment of the complex reasoning this mama exhibited: first, she had memory — memory of her four previous losses, in which bringing her new calf to the barn resulted in her never seeing him/her again (heartbreaking for any mammalian mother). Second, she could formulate and then execute a plan: if bringing a calf to the farmer meant that she would inevitably lose him/her, then she would keep her calf hidden, as deer do, by keeping her baby in the woods lying still till she returned. Third — and I do not know what to make of this myself — instead of hiding both, which would have aroused the farmer’s suspicion (pregnant cow leaves the barn in the evening, unpregnant cow comes back the next morning without offspring), she gave him one and kept one herself. I cannot tell you how she knew to do this—it would seem more likely that a desperate mother would hide both.
All I know is this: there is a lot more going on behind those beautiful eyes than we humans have ever given them credit for, and as a mother who was able to nurse all four of my babies and did not have to suffer the agonies of losing my beloved offspring, I feel her pain.
.
Holly Cheever, DVM
Vice President, New York State Humane Association Member
Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association’s Leadership Council
.
.Global Animal...
.
Cow Proves Animals Love, Think, And Act
April 13, 2012... more
-
-
Animal Equality...
International Organization for the Abolition of Animal Slavery
.
31 December 2011
Make it your New Year's resolution to Help Animals!
.
Each year Animal Equality carries out many vegan outreach activities and investigations in defence of animals. With this work we aim to touch peoples’ hearts, in the hope that they will discover a lost empathy towards non-human animals. We aim to show them that it is easy to create a world without animal exploitation.
Much impassioned work was carried out during 2011, and it would not have been possible without the dedication of new volunteers and supporters just like you.
Read ahead to see how we carried out activism for animal rights in the UK and elsewhere in Europe throughout the year.
.
2011: a year growing up!
We believe that human education is the first step to equality, and a truly kind world. During 2011, we carried out dozens of events and info-stalls in the UK.
Here are some examples of our work:
• In the UK alone, during our Demonstrations promoting veganism and free vegan food giveaways, we handed out 12,000 vegan leaflets.
• We launched a brand new website called ChooseVeganism.org, Thanks to the website’s new video, 'A message of respect', we received more than 11,000 visitors in a few days.
• Hundreds of vegan outreach events were carried out in Spain, Poland, UK and Venezuela, more four undercover investigations.
.
Our dedication did not stop in these countries; in India we started to work to convince the Indian Government to prevent elephant deaths on railway tracks.
Another important event during 2011, was the creation of a new branch of Animal Equality in Italy, based in Rome!
.
International Animal Rights Day 2011:
A fantastic celebration of the International Animal Rights Day 2011, marked this year as being such a success in terms of recruiting new activists and achieving excellent worldwide media coverage on our activities. A brief summary of our events to mark this important day are as follows:
• LONDON (UK): Crime scenes featuring the outlines of the victims of the speciesism calling on passers-by to adopt a vegan lifestyle.
Photo gallery: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjxhi5Na
• MADRID (Spain): 400 activists gathered to show 400 corpses of dead animals, and demand justice for the billions of animals who continue to die each year as victims of speciesism.
Photo gallery: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjxgLviM
• ROME (Italy): For six hours, the Pincio's square was covered with 100 crosses, each one accompanied by a photo of an animal who had been exploited and/or killed for human consumption.
Photo gallery: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjxhWfTD
.
Investigations:
Behind the closed doors of the animal exploitation centers, Animal Equality's Investigation Team with hidden cameras exposed the reality and misery of animals' lives. With our investigation work, we aim to change society into one that respects animals by promoting a vegan lifestyle.
Some examples of our investigation work are as follows:
• We recording of the brutal killing of minks on one of the biggest fur farms in Spain.
• We carried out a unique and intensive undercover investigation into the most important zoos in Spain.
- Visit the website: Spanishzoos.org
• We infiltrated Tordesillas, one of the biggest bullfighting traditions in Spain.
• We documented the gruesome ritual slaughter of 6.000 lambs for the ‘Feast of Sacrifice’ in Melilla, Spain.
.
.Animal Equality...
International Organization for the Abolition of Animal Slavery... more
-
-
.
The Atlantic
.
Dead Cow Walking: The Case Against Born-Again Carnivorism
By Marc Bekoff
Dec 27 2011, 8:53 AM ET 614
Pigs, chickens, and other animals raised for food are sentient beings with rich emotional lives. They feel everything from joy to grief.
.
"Eating Animals," by Nicolette Hahn Niman, a livestock rancher, with help from deer hunter Tovar Cerulli and butcher Joshua Applestone, caught my eye because, at first, I thought this essay was authored by Jonathan Safran Foer, who wrote a best-selling book with the same title. While Niman and her friends do rightly argue against consuming factory-farmed animals -- who live utterly horrible lives from the time that they're born to the time that they're transported to slaughterhouses and barbarically killed -- these three born-again carnivores, all former vegetarians or vegans, now proudly eat animals and think that it's just fine to do so. They gloss over the fact that even if the animals they eat are "humanely" raised and slaughtered, an arguable claim, they're still taking a life. These animals are merely a means to an end: a tasty meal.
The defensive and apologetic tone of this essay also caught my eye, as did the conveniently utilitarian framework of the argument. The animals they eat were raised simply to become meals because Niman and others choose to eat meat. I like to say that whom we choose to eat is a moral question, and just because these three now choose to eat animals doesn't mean that other people should make the same choice. Note that I wrote "whom" we eat, not "what." Cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals raised for food are sentient beings who have rich emotional lives. They can feel everything from sheer joy to deep grief. They can also suffer enduring pain and misery, and they don't deserve to have the good and happy lives provided by Niman and others ended early just so that their flesh can wind up on what really is a platter of death.
Wolves, lions, and cougars are not moral agents and can't be held accountable for their actions. But most humans know what they're doing and are responsible for their choices.
Cows, for example, are very intelligent. They worry over what they don't understand and have been shown to experience "eureka" moments when they solve a puzzle, such as when they figure out how to open a particularly difficult gate. Cows communicate by staring, and it's likely that we don't fully understand their very subtle forms of communication. They also form close and enduring relationships with family members and friends and don't like to have their families and social networks disrupted. Chickens are also emotional beings, and detailed scientific research has shown that they empathize with the pain of other chickens.
Raising happy animals just so that they can be killed is really an egregious double cross. The "raise them, love them, and then kill them" line of reasoning doesn't have a meaningful ring of compassion. And this isn't mercy killing (euthanasia) performed because these animals need to be put out of their pain. No, these healthy and happy animals are slaughtered, and if you dare to look into their eyes, you know that they're suffering. If you wouldn't treat a dog like this, then you shouldn't treat a cow, a pig, or any other animal in this way.
As a field biologist who studies animal behavior, I feel that the authors' appeal to what happens in the natural world -- "life feeds on life" -- is an illogical justification for their food choices. I've seen thousands of predatory encounters. I cringe when I see them, but I would never interfere. Wild predators, unlike us, have no choice about whom or what they eat. They couldn't survive if they didn't eat other animals. And indeed, many animals are vegetarians, including non-human primates, who eat other animals only on very rare occasions.
Jessica Pierce and I wrote about how appeals to nature are misleading and illogical in our book Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals. We argued that wolves, lions, and cougars, for example, are not moral agents and can't be held accountable for their actions. They don't know right from wrong. On the other hand, most humans do know what they're doing and are responsible for their choices. When it comes down to whose flesh winds up in our mouths, we can make choices, and in my view, eating animals is wrong and unnecessary, even when they are "humanely" raised and slaughtered. Let me add a caveat here because, as a world traveler, I do know that many people do not have the luxury of making a choice about their meals and must eat whatever is available to them. However, those who do have that luxury can easily eat an animal-free diet. And we can work to show others that a vegetarian or vegan diet can be very economical and healthy.
Niman and her friends also note that vegetarian and vegan diets have "never really taken hold." So what? This hardly means that we shouldn't try to do the right thing. They write, "The vast majority of Americans who do try vegetarianism or veganism -- about three-quarters of them -- return to eating meat. Rather than urging people to consume only plants, doesn't it make more sense to encourage them to eat an omnivorous diet that is healthy, ethical, and ecologically sound?" No, it doesn't. What it means is that these people should try harder and not give up just because it might seem difficult to change their meal plans. Perhaps they just need more time and encouragement from other vegetarians who can show them how easy it is to stop eating animals.
It's easy to add more compassion to the world and to expand our compassion footprint. Excuses such as "Oh, I know they suffer, but don't tell me because I love my burger" add cruelty to the world, even if the animals people are eating weren't raised on factory farms and killed in slaughterhouses. You're eating a dead animal who really did care about what happened to him or her. When I ask people how they can dismiss the fact that an animal was killed for their pleasure, they usually fumble here and there and offer no meaningful answer. When I ask them if they'd eat a dog, they look at me with incredulity and emphatically say, "No!" When I ask them why they wouldn't eat a dog, they can't really tell me, offering statements laden with dismissive phrases, such as "Oh, you know...." Because I often travel to China to help in the rehabilitation of Asiatic moon bears who have been rescued from the bear-bile industry, people sometimes ask me, "How can you go there? Isn't that where they eat dogs and cats?" I simply say, "Yes, it is, and I'm from America, where they eat cows and pigs, who are no less sentient and emotional beings." Animals really are very much like us.
No matter how humanely raised they are, the lives of animals raised for food can be cashed out simply as "dead cow/pig/chicken walking." Whom we choose to eat is a matter of life and death. I think of the animals' manifesto as "Leave us alone. Don't bring us into the world if you're just going to kill us to satisfy your tastes."
.
Image: Kurt De Bruyn
..
The Atlantic
.
Dead Cow Walking: The Case Against Born-Again Carnivorism... more
-
-
Lets take a moment to think about this wonderful creatures. Learn to love them and respect them.
Pictures used with permission from
FARM SANCTUARY
http://www.farmsanctuary.orgLets take a moment to think about this wonderful creatures. Learn to love them and... more
-
-
June 23rd, 2011
11:00 AM ET
Does 4-H desensitize kids to killing?
4-H stands for "Head, heart, hands, health" and apparently a fifth - for "haters."
To many, 4-H Clubs are all about nurturing sweet little calves, adorable children winning ribbons, urban garden patches and proud future farmers grooming prized pigs for show. To others, it's a calculated system for turning the youth of America into cold, unfeeling animal killers.
When Eatocracy ran a 5@5 feature with chef Kelly Liken on the topic of Five Reasons to Buy from Your Local 4-H earlier this week, we quickly identified within the comments two distinct perceptions of the organization - which was originally set up by the United States Department of Agriculture to train the rural youth of America in hands-on skills like agriculture and raising animals. One was that 4-H promotes responsible animal husbandry and the cultivation of food resources in a responsible, ethical way and the other was that it serves to desensitize children to the suffering of animals.
Here's what our commenters had to say:
In cold blood
I don't and would never support the 4-H. This group helps desensitize youngsters into having no emotional attachment to animals raised for food. For those who say no one should have attachment to animals raised for food, I say "of course". This is how the meat industry stays in business. If children are raised to love all animals and not try to see them as products, they would not be interested in seeing them killed. "Listening to the auctioneer and seeing how excited the children get when their animal is purchased is an incredibly fulfilling experience."
Really? Incredibly fulfilling experience. You mean knowing the animal that trusted you from birth is off to be mistreated before being slaughtered! That's fulfilling? Maybe that's because the 4-H has successfully desensitized these children who may have once be appalled by this. It's simply horrific. Shame on you 4-H for what you do to animals and to children. - Heather King
Education, not desensitization
What 4-H does do is promote responsible animal husbandry and the cultivation of food resources in a responsible, ethical way. I accept your position that any killing of animals for food is, in your position, not ethical or moral, however most of us are omnivores and I for one would rather that those producing the meat I choose to eat do so in a humane and ethical way. I respect your position, but I would also hope that you would rather see people brought up to understand, and therefore demand, that there an ethical way to treat an animal even if that animal's eventual purpose is the nourishment of a human being.
Desensitization is the wrong word–education is the right word. These kids (I was one) are not at all desensitized to the process–rather, they are educated about proper raising and care of these animals. Not only was I a member, but growing up we also purchased meat and produce from 4H and FFA members–talk about locally sourced! We could be confident in the quality, origin, and raising of these products in a way we can rarely be in a supermarket. - Value rather than desensitization
A lasting impact
Have you ever been at a 4-H auction? Most of the younger kids end up crying after their animal gets bought and not donated back. As they grow older, they wrap their head around the idea, but when they're first starting out they have a hard time accepting it. It doesn't mean they're "desensitized" to it, it's the fact they they've matured and understand that animal's purpose more as time goes on. - Brianna
The circle of life
Someone asked earlier in the thread how many 4-H kids had actually seen an animal slaughtered. In my club back home (rural Sierra Nevadas), the answer was ALL OF US. We toured the packing houses where our animals would later be slaughtered (note packing HOUSES, as these buildings housed perhaps thirty head at an outside estimate, nowhere near large enough to call a "processing plant"), examined carcasses, viewed the taking of animals lives and the bloodletting afterwards, and were given briefings on the saws and tools used. This while spending hours a day bathing, training, feeding and cleaning up after our own still very alive animals. - 4-H fo'sho'
The value of life
It is really so unevolved. Why are people proud that the kids are crying as they lead their animals onto the trailer to be killed for food? You are teaching them that relationships are disposable. That animals are disposable. NOT A GOOD LESSON, and these poor animals raised as pets are off to the slaughterhouse where they will be tortured before they die. - Kathy
It keeps them off the streets
Small scale food-animal raisers aren't cold blooded killers, they're making money doing what they enjoy doing. If anyone is desensitized to animal life, go to Youngstown [ed: where the commenter grew up] and talk to all the thugs on the street that grew up around murders happening weekly. THEN you'll find someone who doesn't value human or animal life.
If I have kids, you bet they'll be in 4-H. I'd rather see them doing that than doing what most of the people I grew up with did. Kids deserve more of a chance than what drugs, crime and partying can offer them. - Brianna
It should be noted that animal husbandry and sales are only a portion of what 4-H Clubs do. Other former members spoke of "arts and crafts like pottery, painting; outdoor activities like camping, canoeing, kayaking, rock climbing, and...skills like woodworking and leather-working" as well as horse showing and "cooking, photography, jewelery making" and others.June 23rd, 2011
11:00 AM ET
Does 4-H desensitize kids to killing?
4-H stands... more
-
-
-
-
Since our beginning in 1976 and official formation in 1981, FARM has launched a variety of grassroots campaigns in pursuit of our mission: World Farm Animals Day (1983), Great American Meatout (1985), Gentle Thanksgiving, CHOICE School Lunch (1991), Letters from FARM (1994), Sabina Fund (1997), Vegan Earth Day, Well-Fed World (Global Hunger Solutions), Bite Global Warming and Equal Justice Alliance.
These reflect FARM's strategy of pursuing dietary and agricultural reforms on the local, national and international levels simultaneously.
In addition, FARM conducts movement-wide programs, like the Animal Rights National Conference. Every summer between 1981 and 1987, then in 1997, and every year since 2000, FARM has been organizing national conferences that turn concerned individuals into effective animal advocates. Currently, the conferences alternate between the East Coast (Washington, DC) on the even years and the West Coast (California) on the odd years.Since our beginning in 1976 and official formation in 1981, FARM has launched a... more
-
-
Encouraging Truth, Transparency and Integrity in Animal Advocacy
HUMANE MYTH DEFINED
Humane myth. An idea being propagated by the animal-using industry and some animal protection organizations that it is possible to use and kill animals in a manner that can be fairly described as respectful or compassionate or humane.Encouraging Truth, Transparency and Integrity in Animal Advocacy
HUMANE MYTH... more
-
