I quite liked this article. It doesn't resolve anything, but it does try to pinpoint why killing and eating baby animals can be more confronting for omnis than eating adults. Speaking about the discomfort is identifying it, which is small as it is, is a step towards questioning.
My favourite new form of omni-spam is this kind of comment: "All you sooks who cry about eating baby animals, you are such hypocrites in your leather shoes and belts!". Yes you would be. But I'm not. Argument not over yet, buster.
**TRIGGER WARNING**: The article discussed here contains some graphic and heartbreaking descriptions of animal abuse. I found it hard to read. If you think this will trigger you, I advise you not to link to it. The extracts below do not contain these descriptions.
In March the NY Times reported that an increasing number of US States were passing legislation to bar convicted animal abusers from owning or coming into contact with pets, and to mandate child or spousal abuse officers and animal control officers to share information and report to each other when they find something wrong.
Today the NY Times has published an extended piece titled 'The Animal Cruelty Syndrome', which discusses the growing recognition that animal cruelty is part of a constellation of behaviours endemic to abusive households, gang activity and the psychologically disturbed.
The article is byCharles Siebert, a contributing writer, who is the author of “The Wauchula Woods Accord: Toward a New Understanding of Animals.” The article is well-written, empathetic and unflinching - I think I'd like to read this book.
I'll try to do a more in-depth discussion when I'm not, say, at work, but for now here are some extracts.
Back in the early 1980s, Lockwood was asked to work on behalf of New Jersey’s Division of Youth and Family Services with a team of investigators looking into the treatment of animals in middle-class American households that had been identified as having issues of child abuse. They interviewed all the members of each family as well as the social workers who were assigned to them. The researchers’ expectation going in was that such families would have relatively few pets given their unstable and volatile environments. They found, however, not only that these families owned far more pets than other households in the same community but also that few of the animals were older than 2.
“There was a very high turnover of pets in these families,” Lockwood told me. “Pets dying or being discarded or running away. We discovered that in homes where there was domestic violence or physical abuse of children, the incidence of animal cruelty was close to 90 percent. The most common pattern was that the abusive parent had used animal cruelty as a way of controlling the behaviors of others in the home. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at what links things like animal cruelty and child abuse and domestic violence. And one of the things is the need for power and control. Animal abuse is basically a power-and-control crime.”
...
In a separate study, a quarter of battered women reported that they had delayed leaving abusive relationships for the shelter out of fear for the well-being of the family pet. In response, a number of shelters across the country have developed “safe haven” programs that offer refuges for abused pets as well as people, in order that both can be freed from the cycle of intimidation and violence.
...
What cannot be so easily monitored or ameliorated, however, is the corrosive effect that witnessing such acts has on children and their development. More than 70 percent of U.S. households with young children have pets. In a study from the 1980s, 7-to-10-year-old children named on average two pets when listing the 10 most important individuals in their lives. When asked to “whom do you turn to when you are feeling sad, angry, happy or wanting to share a secret,” nearly half of 5-year-old children in another study mentioned their pets. One way to think of what animal abuse does to a child might simply be to consider all the positive associations and life lessons that come from a child’s closeness to a pet — right down to eventually receiving their first and perhaps most gentle experiences of death as a natural part of life — and then flipping them so that all those lessons and associations turn negative.
...
To date, one of the most promising methods for healing those whose empathic pathways have been stunted by things like repeated exposure to animal cruelty is, poetically enough, having such victims work with animals. Kids who tend to be completely unresponsive to human counselors and who generally shun physical and emotional closeness with people often find themselves talking openly to, often crying in front of, a horse — a creature that can often be just as strong-willed and unpredictable as they are and yet in no way judgmental, except, of course, for a natural aversion to loud, aggressive human behaviors.
Well that's good news! I'd like to think it was my letter, but I assume it was a critical mass ...
Dear Rachel,
Today marks an extraordinary day for pigs. It’s days like these that we are reminded that with hard work and persistence, comes results. In this case — the first state-based commitment to phase out one of the cruellest practices in Australia...
This historic development would never have been possible without the support of Animals Australia’s members. Thank You. Animals Australia relies entirely on public donations. Please give generously to support our ongoing efforts to free animals from needless cruelty.
ABOVE: Animals Australia in conjunction with Brightside Farm Sanctuary recently placed a series of high impact print advertisements in three state-wide newspapers, bringing Minister Green face to face with the animals he had the opportunity to help.
Following a state-wide newspaper advertising blitz by Animals Australia and Brightside Farm Sanctuary, Tasmania's Primary Industries Minister Bryan Green announced in parliament today (June 10th 2010) that he will ban cruel sow stalls in the state!
Lyn White Animals Australia Communication Director P.S. If you have friends who love animals please tell them about Animals Australia. Our small team of campaigners ensure that animals in need get maximum value out of every precious dollar donated to us. With greater support, more important outcomes like this will become possible.
Under this article from today's Guardian, is this comment, which just makes my heart break.
6 Jun 2010, 2:17AM
The cruelty does not begin or end with bullfights in Spain. At 'ferias' I have been to you can pay a Euro to throw stones at a rabbit nailed to a plank; I have seen donkeys stabbed to death in the town square in Mijas on Easter parades (there is of course the infamous traddition of throwing a donkey or a horse from the bell tower as well), and in Malaga they regularily have bullfights for children where the 'matador', dressed a bit like Ronald McDonald, invites the children to join him in hacking a bull calf to death in the ring, to much merriment of the assembled parents. And if you are too lazy to participate in the stabbing, taunting and torturing yourself, you can always watch the children's bullfighting programme on Saturday morning: 'Toros para todos.'
What a lovely country. Let's all go there and pay our respects their ancient and noble traditions, shall we?
It's not right. It will never be right. Culture and tradition be damned.
I received the following email from Animals Australia. My response is below, and I urge you to do the same. This is an ooprtunity for one state to forge ahead in making positive changes to the welfare of pigs - someone must be first.
Dear Rachel,
I'm writing to you today to share with you some wonderfully hopeful news, and also to ask for a small favour on behalf of thousands of needy animals.
Your critical support of our campaign to end factory farming has helped create the groundswell that has made it possible for the first Australian state government to consider a legislative ban on the use of sow stalls.
As you may know, the 'sow stall' represents one of the cruellest practices ever inflicted on pigs in Australia. Already banned in the U.K. and in parts of Europe, these cruel concrete and metal crates imprison mother pigs so severely that they cannot even turn around. Here in Australia, laws currently permit pregnant sows to be left in this debilitating state for months at a time.
In an incredibly positive move, Tasmania’s Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (AWAC) recently recommended that Tasmania become the first state to ban the use of sow stalls on the basis of unacceptable cruelty. The decision to accept the recommendation now rests with one man: Primary Industries Minister Bryan Green.
The pig industry is hard at work lobbying Minister Green to ignore science that clearly reveals how pigs suffer physically and emotionally inside stalls. They would rather continue the practice of confining pigs in stalls indefinitely. So who will speak up for the pigs?
Animals Australia in collaboration with Tasmanian-based member society Brightside Farm Sanctuary have responded in force by placing a series of 18 high-impact ads across three state-wide newspapers that will bring the Tasmanian Primary Industries Minister face to face with the very animals he has the opportunity to help. You can view the ads here.
Right now it is critical that Minister Green be reminded that all caring Australians are appalled by animal cruelty and will enthusiastically support a ban on cruel sow stalls — which brings me to that favour I wanted to ask you...
You can help us bring about this important outcome by sending a personal e-mail to Minister Green to urge him to accept AWAC's recommendation to ban sow stalls in Tasmania. Your message need only be a few short lines. His address is: bryan.green@parliament.tas.gov.au
Thank you dearly for your ongoing support. A few minutes of your time today could help end a lifetime of suffering for animals.
For the pigs,
Lyn White
Dear Minister,
I write to urge you to accept the recommendation of Tasmania's Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (AWAC) that Tasmania ban the use of sow stalls on the basis of unacceptable cruelty.
The United Kingdom and Europe have also recognised that the confinement of pregnant sows in a conrete and metal crate for months at a time without room to turn around constitutes severe cruelty.
It is scientifically well established that pigs are animals with significant levels of intelligence and emotion, much the same as that of a dog. Their technical classification as farm animals is insufficient justification to allow treatment of them that we would not accept if applied to domestic animals and our pets.
The pig industry will attempt to reduce the severity of suffering experienced by sows, and present economic arguments to continue current practices. I strongly urge you to consider instead the moral imperative that each of us bears to uphold acceptable standards of welfare for animals under our care.
I hope very much that Tasmania will lead the nation in banning this unecessary, cruel and inhumane practice.
Fur is not back. Unless you like hearing rabbits scream as they are anally electrocuted. Do you?
Farmers do not shoot foxes and rabbits and sell their pelts. Most fur comes from China where animals are raised in cages for their skins and then killed. It's simple. It's not environmental.
Leather, suede, wool, angora and cashmere aren't better, but as one sensible girl pointed out to me, whereas most shoes are leather and coats are wool (as anyone who has tried to find good quality synthetics knows), there is no reason at all to wear fur and that's why it should be abhorrent even to skin-wearers.
A fur vest by Harmony & Lawson. Photo: Luke Thompson
Fur is back in fashion. The number of luxury labels across the world using faux and real fur to create their autumn/winter collections is huge and now a Perth fashion label’s real fur creations are flying off the racks. Chanel sent models wearing full fur body suits down the catwalk, evoking images of woolly mammoths in ancient times, during their recent fall/winter show. Though the luxe label chose to use fake fur rather than the real thing.
Roberto Cavalli’s line of pelts, vests, scarves and dresses featuring fur have sent animal rights activisits aflutter, Gucci, Fendi and plenty more have favoured fur as both embellishment and the foundation of a range of pieces. Now a Perth label Harmony & Lawson is creating garments made only of real fur, and finding the furry designs are much more popular than ever expected. Designer Harmony Douglas said her rabbit and raccoon fur creations have proved extremely popular since she launched the label in December.
A creation by Chanel, part of the fall/winter 2011 collection.
“The market is crying out for it,” she said. “We are just being inundated with sales.” No longer are Anna Wintour and J.Lo amongst a tiny minority of fashion followers who wear the real thing. Singer Kelly Rowland purchased a fur vest from the label during her recent visit to Perth, and models including Skye Stracke had purchased the product too. Douglas said she had customers from all over the world. But the controversy surrounding the use of fur continues. Even those designers that do use fur, refuse to comment on their use of it. Lisa Ho’s latest winter collection features what has been said to be rabbit fur. But ask her PR team for a comment on her use of the material and you get a quick “Lisa Ho doesn’t comment on fur” response. But Douglas says very few people voiced concerns to her about the possibility of cruelty, though she realised that for some people fur would always remain taboo. She sourced her furs overseas, and said government regulations meant the product was farmed like other meat products. All parts of the animals were used. The fur was certified cruelty free. It was the luxury feel of garments made from fur that was making them popular once again, Douglas said. “It’s the luxury of it, it's so soft, and my garments are light weight,” she said. But not everyone in the fashion industry believes the use of real fur can be justified. While people presume Australian luxe label Aurelio Costarella uses the material to create some of the couture looks they send down the catwalk, the designer has signed the PETA agreement against the use of fur and will never use the real thing. “We believe you don’t need to use fur as there are so many other great materials and fabrications to utilise," Costarella brand manager Paul O’Connor said. At the end of the day it’s about using your creativity to make a luxury product and one that is desirable to all.”
Some choice words from Phil Lally and Michele Prince, sheep farmers in Clare SA about how they are handrearing 50 'orphan' lambs:
"We're keeping all the lambs we can because the market is so strong we can't justify leaving them in the paddock to get picked out by crows and foxes.We want to make sure nothing is left out to die as was done in the past - we have to make sure every single unit counts".
Please note the following:
We can't justify leaving newborn, weak lambs out to die because the market is strong. But it's not wrong to abandon defenceless babies to slowly starve to death or be mutilated by crows and foxes.
Units. Not lambs or sheep but units.
Here they are, happily hand feeding small and happy lambs. Lambs can learn their own names and love to play.
It's beyond me how anyone can look at those lambs and think they are nothing more than units who deserve to die.
I'm pleased that more and more US States are passing legislation that bar convicted animal abusers from owning or coming into contact with pets. I think it's great that further attention is being paid by authorities to animal hoarders, even though I think that the level of abuse usually perpetrated by hoarders - chronic neglect, lack of health care, inadequate care and shelter, leaving dead animals' bodies where they fall - would seem to stem from a place of more benign intentions than animal torture does. Nonetheless, animal hoarders do need to be identified and helped (or prosecuted) and the animals they hoard need to be removed. An abuser is an abuser.
I am especially pleased that eight states now require child or spousal abuse officers and animal control officers to share information and report to each other when they find something wrong. This acknowledges the chilling statistic (reported in the article) that in 88% of homes where children were abused, animals were abused too, and that women who have been abused by their intimate partner were 10 times more likely to report that their partner had also hurt or killed a pet. It helps place animal abuse in the same sphere as child or intimate partner violence and it reflects the seriousness of any abuse of the defenceless. An abuser is an abuser.
Although I see that these changes place animal abuse firmly in the real of abuse-response services, which is appropriate, and that it is widely acknowledged that the abuse of animals is a leading indicator of the abuse of humans, I still feel a little sad that the article implies that some of these laws are only here to identify and prosecute animal abusers as a means to identify and prosecute human abusers. It's an important link and one which has been instrumental in raising the profile of animal abuse as something to be acted upon, but we must also recognise that abusing animals is wrong because it is ... abusing animals. An abuser is an abuser.
This bit doesn't please me either: "Some states are bucking the trend. In Idaho, which is one of the states without a felony cruelty penalty, farmers and ranchers are pushing a bill that would more clearly distinguish livestock from pets and would exempt livestock from the protections afforded pets". Because the standard treatment of livestock amounts to abuse? Or because no one cares about a nameless faceless cow as long as Fluffy the Cat and Rex the Dog are safe at home? An abuser is an abuser.
Many people will see animal abuse as sitting much much lower on the scale of wrongness than the abuse of humans. I'm not going to address that; it's a huge issue. But to me it is clear - people who like to hurt defenceless beings will do it to anyone they can. Abusers are abusers.
I am quite capable of distinguishing author from book; but I don't like confusing inaccuracy.
I didn't take issue with the Christian extremists because it's not my bag. I am taking issue with the inaccurate and unimaginatively stereotypical portrayal of my own community. Also I reckon I could find far more extremists Christians who fit the bill than vegans who eat Brie muffins and tzatziki.
I don't intend to debate, but I will just note that while extremist websites may well tell young girls that eating meat will give women breast cancer, the link between eating red meat and increased risk of bowel cancer is not an extremist viewpoint at all but well accepted by medical professionals. So it's hardly a ridiculous example to use to illustrate the terribleness of extremist vegans; it's mean and rude but really not so far from the truth as to be completely laughable.
I don't really want to stop reading the books because I enjoy them, but its a bit of a trite answer to tell me to look away if I don't like what I see. Seeing as Kerry says she is denouncing things she thinks needs denouncing, I am really just doing the same about things that I don't like too.
So here, in all it's sighing glory, is Kerry's response:
Dear Rachel (sigh) here we go again. I do not have it in for Vegans or vegetarians. My best friend really is a veggie. I ate one of the best meals of my life in a veggie restaurant in Bristol. I never met a vegetable I didn't like (except okra. One must draw the line somewhere). You are confusing the author's opinions with the book itself. However, the animal liberation/extreme vegans do have a lunatic fringe - as do the Christians, to the depiction of which I notice you haven't made any objection. The websites of those extreme people do, in fact, tell young girls that if they eat meat they will get breast cancer. No scientific proof, no qualifications. I read them myself, with increasing horror. Just like I read the Chiristian fundamentalist sites, which told me that unless I sent them a lot of money now I would be going to hell. I dont like fundamentalists of any sort. I denounce them when they need denouncing. And if you do not like my work, you can always stop reading it. Thank you for your invitation to dinner. Most civil. cordially
I write as a long time fan of both the Phryne Fisher and Corinna Chapman books. One thing that I have always admired about both series, particularly Earthly Delights, is the sensible and inclusive way that you handle people and groups who are often misunderstood by society - Wiccans, S&M, recovering addicts, goths and the homeless for example.
I was surprised to read the portrayal of vegans and animals rights groups in Forbidden Fruit. While I understand that artistic licence can be invoked for literary means, I found the portrayal of the motivations, philosophies and people confusing and disappointing.
I am vegan and focus very heavily on making sure that my decisions and ethical positions are reasonable, rational and accessible to others. Even the most 'extreme' liberationists I know, of which there are very few compared to the mainstream midground, fall well short of the characters in the book. I am concerned that these characters, untempered by some exposition on what most vegans are really like, perpetuate the myth that we are all foaming-at-the-mouth fanatics about to launch ourselves over the dinner table to wrestle the steak from your fork. We really do cop a lot of criticism from the uninformed and the belligerent, and we work very hard to engage and explain to the interested.
I was surprised that there was no point at which any reasons for veganism were put forward even in explanation, even though these reasons range from animal liberation to welfare to environmentalism to health. There are as many reasons to be vegan as there are vegans, but I didn't read anything that might imply that these reasons might be valid and rational. Vegans do not eat, wear or consume animal products not because we are slightly unhinged and extremists, but because we care deeply about animals, the environment and our health, and because we have thought deeply and carefully about our decision. I would have loved to have seen some acknowledgement of this in the book, even in a small way to counteract the perception that we are all Sarahs and hopeful cannibals, or Janeens who secretly crave and sneak dairy.
And we love food! I am yet to meet a vegan who is not obsessed with food and, particularly, baking. We have regular potlucks and most of us blog about food too. I would love to suggest a few blogs that you might consider reading, if you might be interested in reading a little of what we do (and cook)? I attach a list below, as well as some sites which try to explain why we feel that eggs and dairy are just as objectionable as meat, which seemed to be a sticking point in the book.
I would also like to extend an open, and very warm, invitation to you to attend one of our potlucks. I promise that the food will be delicious, and the company unextreme! We love to share our food and cooking with one another and recent triumphs include tiramisu, sausage rolls, tequila cupcakes, savoury watermelon salad and (my own) peanut butter ice cream. We would love for you to come along; we have a great community and appreciate the opportunity to share it. You would be most welcome at any time.
With thanks for two wonderful series of books, and in hope that you will have a read of our blogs and perhaps admire the baking,
Warm regards,
Rachel
PS: I am writing this as an open letter and publishing it on my blog in the interests of my own transparency. Please feel free to respond publicly too.
Blog roll: www.misstprincessvegan.blogspot.com (my own blog) www.bluerthanpink.blogspot.com (Kristy) www.cupcakekitteh.blogspot.com (Mandee) www.lisadempster.com.au (Lisa) www.fairestfeed.blogspot.com (Pip) www.veganabouttown.blogspot.com (Steph) www.veganyumyum.com (USA - Lolo) www.herestheveg.blogspot.com (Cindy and Michael) www.theppk.com (USA: website of vegan chefs with massive baking component)
Other sites: www.animalsaustralia.org www.voiceless.org.au
On the second anniversary of my veganism – my veganniversary – I have been noticing how my understanding has changed since mid-September 2007, when I had a Skinny Bitch-inspired epiphany at my desk.
I have broadened, and somewhat deepened, my understanding of animal rights and welfarism; I have read and read about food equity and down-the-chain cruelties to humans and animals alike. I am better informed and more widely read – and so I suppose it is inevitable that I have noticed changes in how I feel.
I am, two years on, both more and less committed to mainstreaming. I began with the firm conviction that I would do best if I was open and calm, and I still believe wholeheartedly that if I am the only vegan many of my friends know, then the example I set is especially important. I can be most influential when I am most approachable. To this end, I try to be reasonable, rational and intelligent about my positions, and relaxed about social eatering situations. I try bring food to share, and not put my hosts out. I try to adopt an equitable discussion style and I believe very much that although I decry the happy meat-schmappy schmeat movement, that when someone is proud enough of the changes they have made in their lives to buy organic meat or free-range eggs, that I should tell them that I am proud of them too. I believe that to critique someone else’s choices in these situations is counter-productive and plain rude. When they are ready to talk more, I will be ready to talk with them.
I want veganism to become mainstream so that it is accessible and understandable, and a market force. I want veganism to be normalised and demystified and I want it to become as widespread as possible. I see this as the way in which what was originally such a tiny, fringe movement can spread its message and practices to people who may otherwise have no understanding or knowledge of what we do and why we do it.
But I have also noticed that I have developed a small resistance. I find it harder and harder to be silent and I find that my thoughts as I watch someone devour their meaty dinner are more and more filled with disbelief and frustration. I feel this more keenly and more often that I did two years ago. I am more aware, and I am more committed, and I think this has lowered my tolerance threshold.
I have also found friends. Through blogging, potlucking and writing I have found a whole community, spread beyond the Veganville of Brunswick to Perth, Sydney, Brisbane, Townsville, Chicago and those who I know only through their comments. I have found people who I both like and admire, and to meet people who you not only respect but whose company you enjoy is a pleasure.
Although my primary motivation is animals, I know and believe that I am also doing the right thing for the environment and for my health, and that sustains my belief in veganism as a lifestyle, not a diet like locavism or a practice like recycling. It is an everything. There is nothing that would make me want to go back, and there is nothing that would make me feel that I had to.
This is especially relevant as I look towards the next few years of my life which I hope will contain babies and little creatures running around a noisy house. I am certain that having a vegan pregnancy will only benefit both me and my baby, which stems from my deep conviction that a typical vegan diet is three quadzillion times better for you than a typical omnivorous one, and that a consciously healthy vegan diet (the one in which I give up BBQ shapes, beer, chips and spring rolls) will give me the healthiest pregnancy possible, and my babies the healthiest body and mind I can give.
I like to think that I spread a little understanding amongst those I know who don’t know any other vegans. If I can at least cause one omnivore to say to another “Oh, I know a vegan. She’s ok”, then I’ve done a little dance and made a little love, and next time, one omnivore might say to another “Oh, she’s not a pain in the arse”, and the time after that, one omnivore might say to another “I don’t agree with her, but maybe she’s got something sensible to say”, and the time after that, one omnivore might say to another “Let’s not order steak tonight”.
At least, I like to think that I debunk a stereotype. That is, there is a place for the peace-loving, mung-bean-eating, hemp-wearing, loopy-doopy hippie, and there is a place for the activist, militant ALF types. But their place is where they are, and my place is here.
I have never doubted nor wavered in my knowledge that this is it, forever.
The Ipswich City Council has made the inestimably sensible and compassionate decision to ban circuses with 'exotic' animals from its boundaries. I wrote to congratulate and received a reply today from Paul Pisasale.
From Miss T to Ipswich:
Congratulations to Ipswich on joining 42 other local councils across Australia who recognise that all animals, including exotic animals kept in a circus, are entitled to live free from cruel and unnatural treatment, in a suitable environment, and with our protection. Thank you for affirming that animals are not here for our entertainment, and that all animals suffer when forced to 'perform' for us.
With thanks and regards,
Miss T
From Ipswich to Miss T:
Rachel - Thank you for supporting Council's action. Although it was a hard decision to make, we feel strongly that this is the best thing for the community and for the animals' welfare.
My blogging of late, as foreshadowed, has diminshed as the follies of renovation provide me with a second full time job.
But here, with emphases added by me for highlighting-of-disgustingness purposes, is an article from today's Mercury.
Horror. Egg production has little to recommend it over slaughterhouses.
Fine for rotting chickens
SALLY GLAETZER
May 29, 2009 12:00pm
A MARGATE egg producer has been fined $3000 for leaving decomposing chicken carcases in cages with live hens.
Glen Peter Balke was found guilty in the Hobart Magistrates Court today of doing an act which caused pain to an animal and failing to provide veterinary treatment to a sick or injured animal.
Balke did not attend today's hearing and his guilt was determined on the basis of a written statement made by Department of Primary Industries agricultural officer Colin Jessup.
Mr Jessup did an audit of Balke's Minchins Rd farm on March 4 last year and removed 18 dead birds from cages that housed live laying hens.
"The birds were easy to detect by the smell of decomposing tissues," Mr Jessup said.
It appeared many of the hens had been dead for up to two weeks and one was being cannibalised.
"The carcases had been trodden on and were pressed deeply into the mesh on the bottom of the cage," Mr Jessup said.
"Some had manure on top of them and I noted eggs laid by the other birds in the cage either on top of or against the decomposing birds."
That indicated poor hygiene standards for egg production and threatened the welfare of the live birds, Mr Jessup said.
The hens were forced to roost and sleep on top of the carcases and would have had difficulty feeding and standing at full height in their cages, he said.
Mr Jessup returned to the farm two weeks later and found another five long-term dead birds with a "strong smell of decomposing flesh" in cages with live hens.
He went to remove another apparently dead hen and found it to be alive, but comatose.
"It was clearly well beyond retrieval and needed to be put down to stop it being walked on and suffering," Mr Jessup said.
Another 27 carcases were found on the floor alongside cages in a shed.
"I was baffled over why they were not removed from the shed for hygiene and smell reasons," Mr Jessup said.
In an interview Balke acknowledged that a hen living on top of a dead bird would have experienced pain or suffering.
He said the dead birds were not removed on a daily basis because of "labour pressures".
The appalling start to the jumps racing season has at least attratced some media attention, with both The Age and The Herald Sun online covering the rapidly increasing number of horses who have died so far this season - and that's four horses dead in four days. I have previously blogged about flat racing here and here, and Pip has written "Ponies Aren't Playthings".
whether city people are naive, cossetted lily-livered sooks.
This is what this article is about:
that there is no such thing as happy meat;
that there is no such thing as environmental meat;
a legal cull (problematic in itself) being carried out and what its consequences for joeys are;
what the flow-on consequences of roo killing are and whether consumers are aware of them; and
that people are in general entirely unaware of what happens to animals before they appear shrink-wrapped on platters in the supermarket. One commenter with his heart in the right place but his brains apparently somewhere in the clouds said: "Why do we need to kill all these lovely animals when all we have to do is go to the shops for all our food. Surely getting food from supermarkets is not as cruel as this mass murder. I think it's time we took action against these cruel farmers.".
There is no such thing as cruelty-free meat. It's meat. It's great that this is getting attention. But it's terrifying how little people really know about what happens to all the animals who become their dinner.
Sometimes I just don't feel that I do enough. I wrote about the dislocating experience of thinking you're changing the world and then being re-confronted with all the atrocities that made you go vegan in the first place, that you'd conveniently subsumed in a food orgy of happy potlucks, here.
Reading articles like the one above causes a similar dislocation. I do nothing like what Pete, an undercover animal rights investigator, does. And the simple, stark truth is that I couldn't. There are so many things in life that I know I could face, and things that I know I have the resilience to cope with, but not this. I could not, even in the course of pretending to be a slaughterhouse worker, do what they do.
And if you think you could, then consider this: why do commercial slaughterhouses never let anyone inside? Why, when respected academics and authors Peter Singer and Jim Mason offered to undergo the same processes as employees do to avoid contamination, were they denied? Why, when they offered to observe through cameras, utterly uncontaminable, were they denied? Why do AR groups have to obtain illicit footage using undercover investigators to show the deliberate mistreatment and cruelty to animals both inherent in the slaughtering process and that which is tacitly permitted for 'fun'?
Because slaughterhouses don't want you to know what they do. Because, like Miss Trunchbull in Roald Dahl's Matilda who was so horrible that no-one believed there was a Chokey because really, those sorts of things just don't happen in nice society and there are laws against it, without visual evidence you will choose to believe that stories of deliberate torture and animals being skinned and dismembered alive are the hysterical fantasies of AR extremists. Because that way you can pretend that your sausage was 'happy meat', or that it didn't know what was coming, or that it didn't feel a thing, or that it's part of the circle of life and a natural end, or that nothing we do to animals has any significance for our own humanity, or whatever it is that helps you eat your dinner.
And they don't want you to see what happens because if you see it happen, if you see it happen a lot, then you'll know it's not right. Because it's not.
Apologies for the truculence. Sometimes things remind you that you should be angry.
So a thousand credits to Pete. You do more than I could ever do and more good will come of it.
In the hallowed, insular state-of-being of Australian Rules Football, there are immutable precepts and sacrosanct laws. One of them is that everyone hates the Collingwood Magpies. In return, Collingwood's mortal enemies are the Essendon Bombers and the Carlton Blues. As a one-eyed 'Pie, I am bound by blood, duty and honour to loathe mine enemies and smite them (this causes some real problems with Buzz, as we are in fact a mixed marriage. Whilst I am a mongrel magpie, he is a bloody blue and I can't repeat the epithets I delivered to him when Carlton beat Collingwood twice last season).
And I now have another Carlton to loathe and despise. Last night we went to the Carlton Hotel and the contempt I hold for their decorating preferences outstrips by a millionfold even my antipathy towards the Blues.
The Carlton Hotel is festooned with the stuffed bodies of animals - peacocks, parrots, butterflies, an ostrich and the neck and head of a giraffe. A rhino head is a copy in flocking, but in the midst of the other 'exhibits' provides little relief.
I just can't fathom the decision to pay for the corpses of deliberately killed animals to adorn your walls. They are positioned, observing, around the bar; dumbly witnessing the evening and the subject of both pointing fingers and bland stares from eyes that slide over them as they would any other object.
Perhaps I am an animal sizeist, but it was the head, neck and part of the chest of the giraffe that made me the saddest. So large, so quartered, so anomalous in her journey from wherever she was killed to an upstairs bar on scummy Bourke Street on a drunken Saturday night. She raised her head over the goings-on, like a spire, with the body of a tiny bird perched on her ear in a parody of life.
Somehow no matter where I tried to stand, I was always facing her.
As the night wore on I noticed more, and what became apparent after closer observation of the animals made me angry, contemptuous and despairing.
The ostrich had pearls wrapped around her neck like a choker; the giraffe had been prettied up with glittery eyelashes and golden eyeliner.
It was meant to be amusing, quirky, perhaps a reflection of the clientele; but it was the ultimate assault on the dignity of death. Such a fate - slaughtered to become a still and silent 3D mannequin, only to be gussied up for decoration and display. It's not enough that a living, breathing, sentient animal's dead body is presented for decoration, but it must be made a mockery of, dressed up and dolled up like a grand dame.
I can't think that the Carlton Hotel is bringing itself any good karma. I can only despise a decision to display what they have. You should bury those bodies with the dignity they deserve.
She sat on the train serene and aware of the sight she was. Young and luminous with the confidence of the teenage experimenter, she was all sparkle and fluff.
Her hair was piled on top of her head like an Anne Boleyn headpiece, pale and wig-like and sticking up in teased abandon to the stars. Her face was smooth and round with invisible eyebrows and lips painted to match her magenta tights. She wore a dress embroidered with little girls just like her and on her feet, over her tights, were silver sparkling dancing shoes which should have been at a ball.
Resplendent and knowingly majestic she sat, knowing her picture and beauty and sparkles.
On her lap a dog, a bag, a dog. A dachshund with purple jewels disturbingly accurate for eyes, her own coat tied around its neck. Its body was tan, but the texture unclear to me as I snuck looks from the other side of the carriage, sneakily inspecting and knowing she thought I was examining her.
The dog was made from close-cropped fur, ponyskin perhaps, a flayed hide fashioned into a facsimile of life. It was vile.
Can I describe the grotesqueness, the perversity of killing an animal, skinning it, and then re-creating it into some golem of a toy? Absurd parody, sick joke, cruel amusement: it was once real and living yet you killed it only to re-make it to look like it did before death, with purple glassy eyes and a shoulder strap.
To make animal out of animal, skin out of skin, but no warmth, no blood, no smile, no heartbeat - profligate foulness.
What a lovely country. Let's all go there and pay our respects their ancient and noble traditions, shall we?