Here are some news items on plant based diets and animal welfare issues that have recently caught my attention.
Environmental concerns first prompted me to take up a vegan diet, but it has become apparent that the suffering of livestock in the production of food and the intrinsic rights of all sentient life are equally important reasons to reject meat and dairy. The case for plant-based diets and the case for a vegan lifestyle just gets stronger every day.
Shocking farm footage shows piglets with tails cut off and mothers crammed into tiny cages [1].
Photos and video expose myth of UK’s world-leading animal-welfare standards, activists say.
As this blog has previously reported, regulation is inadequate and these incidents are far too common. The only effective solution is to end livestock farming
A petition against exploitation of pregnant mares [2] put before the European Parliament on 28th September highlighted a procedure, so extreme, that I had to look it up to check that it was a standard animal farming practice. A UK government website confirmed that it was.
The Petition requested banning the import of pregnant mare’s serum gonadotropin (PMSG) from Iceland.
Equine Chorionic Gonadotropin (eCG), also called Pregnant Mare Serum Gonadotropin (PMSG), is a hormone extracted from the blood of pregnant mares (female horses). It is used to increase and manage fertility in farmed animals such as pigs, sheep, goats and cattle
In 2017 when the practice received a lot of media attention, The government acknowledged it was occurring [3], but that it had not commissioned or funded any research into the effect of the use of PMSG on either the health or welfare of horses, pigs, cows or sheep.
It has been reported that the unwanted foals are aborted in order to increase the production of the blood serum on some farms.
It is not sufficient merely to regulate this macabre industry. Compassion dictates it should not happen in the first place. Taking up meat and dairy free diets is one way for consumers to address this problem.
Scientists rush to create vaccine for world’s biggest animal disease outbreak [4]
Tackling African swine fever – which has led to death of more than 100m pigs since 2018 – has proved a tougher challenge than scientists first thought. The virus occurs without symptoms in wild boars, but is fatal to non-native domestic pigs. The global food chain, illegal exports, and factory farming (a potential breeding ground for animal viruses and antibiotic resistant microbes) may also be involved in the rapid spread of the disease.
Unfortunately, when a small farmer loses their entire stock, often without compensation, the economic consequences are devastating.
Rather than a continual cycle of culling and restocking, governments could provide incentives to move out of livestock farming altogether.
Activists aquitted in trial for taking piglets from Smithfield Foods [5].
“In a historic trial over the 2017 removal of two sick and dying piglets from Utah’s Smithfield Foods factory farm, two animal rights activists were acquitted by a jury Saturday night on burglary and theft charges, which could have sent them to prison for five-and-a-half years each”
“In the pork industry, throwing away sick and dead animals is a cost of doing business. As a witness for the prosecution, Utah state veterinarian Dean Taylor confirmed about 15 percent of piglets don’t survive past weaning by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s estimate”
References
[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pigs-chickens-factory-farm-video-footage-b2207030.html
[2] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PETI-CM-736746_EN.pdf
[3] https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2017-04-19/71235
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/20/scientists-rush-to-create-vaccine-for-worlds-biggest-animal-disease-outbreak
[5] https://theintercept.com/2022/10/08/smithfield-animal-rights-piglets-trial
