Radio 4: Best of Natural History Radio. ‘Would You Eat an Alien? – Emotional Aliens’
‘Would You Eat an Alien? – Emotional Aliens’
Professor of Animal Welfare, Christine Nicol, discusses ideas relating to the welfare of animals we choose to eat, our relationships with all other animal species and the emotional states of animals.
New York blood centre leaves chimps to die after research has used them up.
http://theirturn.net/2015/05/28/new-york-blood-center-leaves-chimps-to-die
This news is shocking and beyond contempt. Perhaps this displays the level of regard such an organisation has for these (and any) animals used in laboratories? Tested on, and then dumped to fend for themselves once they have outlived their usefulness as a test subject.
Taiji, Japan: Where Do The Wild Dolphins Go?
With the lucrative dolphin and small whale hunt season underway once again in Taiji’s killing cove, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, here is an article by David Kirby (author of ‘Death at Seaworld’, a book worth reading) and map tracking all dolphins taken from the wild by the Taiji Fishermen’s Union last hunt season (Sep 2013/Feb 2014). Based on Ceta-base data, it shows the numbers and locations of those unfortunate mammals sold on to marine parks after capture.
That’s where the “lucrative” part comes in; this is why the highly unpopular and extremely unethical dolphin drive hunt season in Taiji continues – profit. Lots of it. These people make a fortune – and let’s not forget the slimy middlemen, trading in captive, traumatised cetaceans – so why would they ever stop?
An ongoing source of numbers and location of Taiji captives is the continuously updated website by the good people at Ceta-base. They have been following the drive hunt seasons in Taiji for a few years now, recording slaughter and captive species numbers, and tracking captives to their shipped destinations around the world.
Naturally, those countries buying and selling Taiji dolphins are the ones who haven’t yet outlawed trade in wild-caught cetaceans. They are Ukraine, Russia, China, Japan, Iran, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea, S. Korea, and various other countries. Most are sold for use in dolphinariums, swim-with facilities, marine parks, and some are sold to private buyers. Our part in this vile trade is clear – DON’T VISIT ANY CAPTIVE DOLPHIN FACILITY. Kill the trade. Don’t give them our money. Openly denounce the exhibiting of wild-caught cetaceans. These animals are traumatised slaves, barely kept alive to perform tricks for tourist entertainment, barely living. That is not entertaining, nor is it educational, as they might have us believe.
The answer to ending Taiji’s drive hunts is clear to see. It has to become illegal to trade in wild caught dolphins and whales, anywhere and everywhere in the world. It has to become illegal to transport wild-caught cetaceans, too. No shipping, no sale. CITES has to become involved, along with WAZA (who have consistently, dismally failed wild cetaceans at every turn – which proves a valid point regarding where most captive facilities’ priorities lie). This needs strict international laws and further strict regulation.
Only then, I believe, will the drive hunts, slaughter of whole pods and destruction of entire genetic lines, and the capture and trade in wild cetaceans be put to sleep forever. While there is perfectly legal profit to be made from killing, misery and slavery, we know, from history and experience, that humans will continue to trade in it.
Don’t take it personally…
Justice. Equality. Compassion. Morality. Empathy. Respect. Non-violence. Love. Veganism.
All these things are compatible.
Vegan Agenda? I’m talking to you.
To those who whine that vegans have an agenda: some of us do, some of us made a radical choice and simply and quietly live by that. But a vegan’s agenda is a good agenda; it is unselfish and acts as a voice for those who have no voice.
A meat eater’s agenda is selfish and ignorant in the extreme. Too many times I hear, “I eat meat because it tastes good…”, “I don’t care how it got to my plate…”, “Animals are put here for us to eat them”, “If we didn’t eat animals, we’d be over run by them”, “You need meat for protein”, “You’ll get ill and die if you don’t eat meat”. And so on.
Firstly, that’s shocking ignorance. Get a clue; use a brain cell. Think it through. We’ll be over run with farm animals? Erm, no. What we will find is that we suddenly have an amazing abundance of…FOOD! Grain, which can feed all those starving kids around the world. Funny, that. Rainforests wouldn’t be so appealing to cattle farmers and they would leave them alone instead of ripping them out to rear cattle for your burgers. That’s a good thing, remember? There are so many good outcomes from us not rearing animals for meat that expose the utter absurdity of the fact that we do, and on such a large scale.
Secondly, who gave you the right to kill animals and eat them? I thought killing things was generally accepted as a bad thing in a moral and decent world? Somewhere along the way we forgot to include everything except humans in that moral code?
Killing animals is unacceptable. Would you kill it yourself? In the majority of cases, the answer is no. If you wouldn’t kill it yourself, don’t eat it. It’s pure hypocrisy.
Nature dictates that animals kill other animals to survive. The key word there is SURVIVE. There is no reason in this world for humans to eat other animals, and most definitely not on the scale of consumption that we do. That huge scale, brought about by greed and profit, has led to a sick and perverted system of factory farming of animals as if they were commodities, objects, foodstuff to be used and abused. No wonder there is so much shocking abuse and barbaric treatment of animals within farming. Theyre seen as ‘things’. It’s sick and WRONG. Why would you want to be a part of something so wrong? Because it tastes good? Your reasoning is confused at best and, frankly, pathetic.
The meat industry’s agenda is all-pervasive and insidious, using misinformation and lies, subterfuge and legal loopholes to smear and hide horrific abuse and the truth. If you eat meat, you fuel this industry of suffering, abuse and lies. Why would you want to do that? Because it tastes good? Is that really an acceptable reason?
I’m so disheartened by the selfishness of human beings. You tuck into your meat-laden and dairy meal, without a thought or care in the world how it got there; without one second’s consideration for the animals who suffer in their BILLIONS every day to fill your plate, clog your arteries, bind your gut with rotting meat and cloud your feeble brain with ‘feel good’ hormones.
I choose to think about what I’m eating. And it was in those first few seconds of thinking, at the age of 11, that I made the very obvious, logical and simple connection between an animal begging for its life – with every right to keep that life – and what was on my plate, and made the easy choice not to eat meat. What’s so difficult about using your brain cells to make the connection and the correct moral choice to cease fueling a world where animals are objects and life is cheap? The only obstacle is your own selfish arrogance.
If we create a world where life is no longer cherished and respected, we get what we deserve. If you choose to be a thoughtless, greedy, selfish uncaring consumer, may you get all that you deserve on life’s plate, and so much more.
Dragon Mother 
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