Some recent news items from the national press that have caught my attention …
Animals to be formally recognised as sentient beings in UK law [1] (12th May)
This is the law catching up with science [2] and common sense.
Any new legislation will have to take into account the fact that animals can experience feelings such as pain or joy.
And with recent work to de-code animal languages [3] perhaps the animals will have more to share with us than we can imagine.
A vegan butcher [4]! Whatever next? (28th April)
New Zealand to stop exporting livestock by sea [5]. (13th April)
Surely inevitable after 6000 Cattle and 40 crew drowned in a typhoon [6] while on a 17 day voyage to China last September.
Pigs hammered to death at ‘high-welfare’ farm [7] (2nd May).
This appalling incident was uncovered by an animal-rights organisation. Where were the inspectors?
It occurred at a farm owned by a pig welfare committee chairman.
The pigs normally go to a slaughterhouse supplying Lidl and Tesco among others.
It seems little has changed since similar events in 2018 at Rosebury Pig Farm [8] near Dunstable which had passed five Red Tractor inspections that year including one in the previous month.
The farm had been given advance notice of all of the inspections.
This is an ongoing problem.
The Amazon Prime film Hogwood : A Modern Horror Story [9] documents what was found at Hogwood farm in a series of visits between 2017 and 2019.
After much hesitation, Red Tractor and Tesco finally dropped Hogwood.
An effective system of inspections will help to improve animal welfare, but it is not happening as it should.
The only way to be sure that we, as consumers, are not benefitting from the mistreatment of animals is to eliminate meat from our diet altogether.
References
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/12/animals-to-be-formally-recognised-as-sentient-beings-in-uk-law
[2] https://www.livescience.com/39481-time-to-declare-animal-sentience.html
[3] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/scientists-plan-to-use-ai-to-try-to-decode-the-language-of-whales
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/apr/11/fakin-the-bacon-shoppers-flock-to-try-new-vegan-butchers
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/14/new-zealand-to-stop-exporting-livestock-by-sea
[6] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54008087
[7] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pigs-farm-animal-cruelty-scotland-b1840471.html
[8] https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/pig-animal-cruelty-red-tractor-rosebury-farm-dunstable-inspectors-ban-a8470011.html
[9] https://viva.org.uk/animals/campaigns/hogwood-a-modern-horror-story
