animal farming – Elisa Aaltola

Suez and the Need to End Live Animal Transport

3.4.2021 Elisa Aaltola3 kommenttia

As the enormous vessel Ever Given blocked the Suez Canal in March 2021, an estimated 200 000 animals became trapped, most of them sheep shipped from Romania to Saudi Arabia. The ships transporting the animals were unlikely to contain enough water or food to keep them alive. Moreover, the heat onboard the ships was blistering. It was estimated that most of the animals would die in hellish conditions before reaching their destination.

Such animal catastrophes are not isolated events. Live animal transports have been the object of valid yet ignored criticism for a number of years. They are excruciatingly long, and take from several days to many weeks or even months. They expose the animals to prolonged and intense physical discomfort, fear, and stress. The petrified and tired animals are often subjected to violence, such as beating, kicking, punching, pulling, and prodding. The suffering is further accentuated by overcrowding, heat, and lack of water/food. As the number of slaughterhouses has dropped, animals are being transported ever-greater distances, which further increases their anguish.

Some politicians have tried to step in. For instance, the EU commissioner for food safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis, has asked Romania to stop exporting live animals to the Middle East. This is because the searing temperatures on board the ships can be deadly, and because the transports have been shown to include extremely violent handling; moreover, at their destination, the exhausted sheep are often stuffed into car trunks before eventually having their throats slit. Instead of following the recommendation, Romania has increased the exports. Evermore animals will thereby undergo the horrors of transport, desperately trying to find comfort from each other amidst the chaotic, frightening conditions.

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They nurture their friendships, are loyal to and defend one another, and likely feel the pangs of love for their nearest, just as we human beings do.

Let’s take a pause to consider, what type of animals we are talking about. Sheep are highly intelligent creatures. Their memory abilities outshine that of many human beings (mine definitely included), as they for instance can remember the faces of 50 individuals for two years. They also excel in solving problems, and are known to navigate complex mazes. Most importantly, next to manifesting these and many other intricate cognitive abilities, they are also highly social and emotional creatures. In all likelihood, sheep can feel emotions ranging from anger to fear, frustration, despair, care, attachment, joy and happiness.

Therefore, the existence of Ovis aries is coloured by – not only learning, remembering or intending – but also sensing, wanting, yearning, feeling. In the terms common in philosophy of mind, it is like something to be a sheep. Just like you and me, sheep have their personal histories, experiences, wants, emotive aches and delights. In short: they are conscious, minded creatures. Next to being a member of her flock, a sheep is thereby a subject, an agent, an individual with a unique perspective onto the world.

In the wild, sheep can live up to 12 years or longer. Female offspring stay with the ewes that gave birth to them, and thus daughters, mothers and grandmothers tend to spend their lives together. Rams, on the other hand, usually leave their mothers at around six months of age, and form playful, boisterous groups with each other. In general, sheep form life-lasting bonds with their conspecifics, and are known to defend one another against dangers and competitors. As such, they nurture their friendships, are loyal to and defend one another, and likely feel the pangs of love for their nearest, just as we human beings do.

Lambs have just arrived onto this planet, and playfully, eagerly, jubilantly run toward its offerings.

Lambs are the blissful crown of the sheep-world. These nonhuman children greet the world with astounding curiosity and wild joy that makes them flick their legs as they take enourmous, care-free leaps into the air. Lambs have just arrived onto this planet, and playfully, eagerly, jubilantly run toward its offerings. They are the manifestations of elation, of a boisterous and inquisitive engagement with reality, a playful desire to jump, run and snuggle up to others out of sheer joy. When looking at lambs that are playing catch or sleeping curled up to one another, I cannot but smile and think: the world is beautiful.

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Unfortunately, however, that world does not treat lambs well. First, lambs are separated from their mothers long before their natural weaning age. Depending on the farming method, the forced separation can take place as young as 6 weeks of age, and is deeply stressful both for the ewe and the lamb. Stated in realistic terms, here nonhuman children are violently taken from their mothers.

After weaning, it is common for the lambs to undergo extensively long transports. They are routinely shipped alive from one end of the world to another. Depending on the destination, the transport can take from several hours to several weeks. As described earlier, the transport conditions are often excruciating.

When the lambs finally arrive at their destinations, another hell begins. They are shoved onto trucks and brought to slaughterhouses, where they may have to wait for days in hunger and thirst for their turn to have their throats slid. Some are sold for ritual slaughter, some undergo standard killing. Whichever the mode of slaying, the animals will be petrified, exhausted, and pained.

Some members of Homo sapiens prefer the texture of young animals’ flesh – they like to eat the young children of nonhuman mothers.

It is worthwhile remembering that often, the lambs are brought to slaughter straight after they have been separated from their mothers. This is because some members of Homo sapiens prefer the texture of young animals’ flesh – they like to eat the young children of nonhuman mothers.

Let’s take stock of the situation. Joyful, playful youth are coercively separated from their mothers, then forced onto trucks and ships, where they all too often undergo physical injuries, severe thirst and hunger, and the sort of fear and stress most of us human beings will never have to even contemplate. These are nonhuman kids at the beginning of their lives – eager to bounce around, play, run and explore, and desperate to stay with their comforting mothers. These are young creatures with their own emotions, their own unique perspectives, whom are met with depriving, slashing violence.

When their lives have just begun, the lambs are pushed into a human-made hell and made to suffer injuries, deprivations and terrors no human should ever inflict on feeling, sensing beings. The reason? Financial gain, an appetite for the flesh of young animals, custom – in short: human profit, human preference, human selfishness.

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The joy and playfulness of lambs is thereby cut very short. Each year, around 550 million sheep are killed for food. 550 000 000 individuals with their own perspectives, fears, joys, yearnings. Let’s repeat that: 550 000 000 conscious, minded individuals. 550 000 000.

Most of these animals go through agony before their dead muscles are put on human plates. Some end in major catastrophes before reaching their untimely and unseemly deaths. Beside the recent Suez disaster, here are just some examples:

In 1919, 14 000 sheep sent from Romania to Saudi Arabia drowned in the Black Sea.

In 2017, 2,400 sheep died of heat-stress, as they were shipped from Australia to the Middle East.

In 2016, an undercover investigation revealed that sheep in Australia were routinely punched, jabbed with sharp objects, kicked, jumped on, and had their eyes poked with fingers.

Most of the horrors never make it to international headline news. As I am writing this text, there are bound to be vast numbers of sheep being violently beaten, and dying from heat-stress or lack of food. As you are reading this, there are uncountable young animals fearing for their lives, calling for their mothers, trying frantically to make it back to their nearest despite of being hundreds of miles away, gripped by panic and pains, incapable of knowing why and what is happening to them – all in the name of human want and custom.

I repeat: these are nonhuman children, ripped from their mothers, scared and anxious. They are young animals, who should be playing, running around, chasing each other, getting nurture from their mothers. What type of creatures are human beings to subject these animals to torment and abuse in the name of eating meat with a particular texture?

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When meat is cheap, so is animal life.

Of course, sheep are not the only animals to suffer live animal transports. Cows, calves, chicken, turkeys, and many other of our nonhuman kin are made to spend from days to weeks or even months in transport. To give one recent example: in early 2021, 1600 cows were confined at sea for three months, in unbearable conditions, only to be slaughtered when they finally reached the shore.

Jo-Anne McArthur / Israel Against Live Shipments

Both the distances and the numbers defy comprehension. Transports from one continent to another are common. Each year, around half a million cows are shipped from South America to Turkey. In 2017, 640 000 sheep were transported from Australia to Qatar, and four million chicken were shipped from Holland to Thailand. These are just some examples. Transport between countries on the same continent are even more common: for instance 5-6 million pigs are transported each year from Canada to US.

Some countries specialize on exporting live animals. Next to South-America and Australia, Europe is a place of such export eagerness. Each year, around 15 million pigs are exported from Denmark, and 12 million pigs from Holland. Annually, 350 million chickens are shipped from Holland, whilst the number of chickens shipped from Germany is 320 million.

Indeed, the European Union is the biggest live animal exporter. In 2019, it exported 1,6 billion animals. The EU does so despite of knowing that the transportation continually violates welfare measures – it allows live animal transports regardless of the utter agony it causes to nonhuman beings.

The motivations for live animal transports consist of absurdities. Danish farmers have bred sows that give birth to bigger litters, whilst the Polish farmers have made the rearing of piglets as cheap as possible. As a consequence, five million piglets are each year transported from Denmark to Poland. Some countries, such as Romania and Slovakia, can rear animal cheaply but lack the needed processing technologies, which means that animals are exported from these countries in order to be slaughtered elsewhere. Indeed, increasingly animals are born in one country, bred in another, and slaughtered in a third.

Here, animals are defined as living ingredients of processed food, who are treated as if they had no consciousness, no minds, no feelings, no value. Ethically, the situation is wholly untenable, wholly unjust, and wholly lacking in compassion. Live animal transports are among the vastest moral crimes of our times.

Animal young, such as piglets, are routinely separated from their mothers and made to stay in lorries for days or weeks, just so that the profits of the meat industry can be increased. I repeat: young animals are taken from their mothers and made to suffer long transports just so that financial profits are greater. When meat is cheap, so is animal life.

These animals try to stay alive, they struggle to hang on to life. They undergo extreme suffering and terror only to be killed. These animals are made to suffer trauma, neglect, the sort of multiple physical and emotional miseries nobody should ever have to face.

Two billion unique agents, who deserve empathy and respect, not violence and neglect.

Worldwide around two billion animals are shipped from one state to another each year, and the rate is increasing. Let’s take another pause. Over two billion animals! Two billion lives and individuals, each filled with stress, fear, longing. Two billion unique agents, who deserve empathy and respect, not violence and neglect.

Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals for The Guardian

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Dinner is best served, when it doesn’t contain the slaughtered bodies of non-human toddlers or their parents.

This is the price of meat: animal terror, animal agony. This should never, ever take place. Animals are not meaty ingredients, whom can be shipped around without moral constraints. They are individuals, who deserve much, much better.

If there is anything to be learned from the animal catastrophe at the Suez Canal, it is this: dinner is best served, when it doesn’t contain the slaughtered bodies of non-human toddlers or their parents. Human beings can thrive without meat, and ditching meat will also support the wellbeing of other animals and the planet. Let’s make meat history – and live animal transports a terror of the past. Sheep, pigs, cows, chicken, all animals deserve better.

(Cover image: Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals Media)

The Illness of a Superpredator

2.3.20202.3.2020 Elisa AaltolaJätä kommentti

The Coronavirus has come with disturbing images from Chinese live animal markets. The international media has shown footage of koalas, wolf puppies, bats, pangolins, and wounded deer shivering in sheer horror in their captivity, trying desperately to escape their ropes or cages. Behind them are piles of dead animals and in front of them people, who are curiously estimating which animal to buy and eat. In many of the news reports, the animals have been called “live food”.

Whilst the spotlight has been on human misery caused by the virus, the fate of these animals has gained much less attention. Yet, the meaning of phrases such as “live food” deserves focus. What does it mean for a living, minded creature to be reduced to “food”? Can one really approach wolves or deer as one does bean sprouts, void of moral concern for their experiences and perspectives? Moreover, what does all of this reveal about human beings and their relation to other species?

Global Misery

To point blame only on China would be a drastic mistake. When witnessing images of the tormented animals on Chinese markets, it is worthwhile remembering that similar torments take place amidst most societies. The only difference is that in many countries such suffering is conveniently sanitized – it doesn’t take place in front of curious crowds but is concealed behind the walls of farms and slaughterhouses to a point of being a carefully protected secret. Whilst the agonies from the live animal markets make many pause in pulsing sorrow and anger, similar pauses are apt at the face of Western animal industries, which routinely reduce living, minded creatures into meat-machines, whose experiences bear no relevance. Even if most Western countries have no live animal markets, they do have live animal farms and slaughterhouses, which treat animals as mere meaty or milky resources void of independent moral significance.

Therefore, violent disregard of other animals is not restricted to China, but stretches its greedy limbs everywhere. Our precious Earth is littered by animal factories, supermarkets and industries profiting from nonhuman pain and death. Respect for life and nonhuman needs has been diminished into a tiny trickle in the awareness of the modern human, consuming ever increasing amounts of steaks and dairy without taking a moment to think whether (s)he even needs them.

Because of this, classifying animals as “food” – whether “live” or “dead” – is a like an act of magic, which suddenly makes the individual animal with her experiences, needs and memories disappear from sight.

Suffering and death are here, regardless of geography, for almost everywhere animals are defined as “food”, and “food” has no perspective, which to care about. Indeed, studies show that naming animals “food” facilitates disregard for the animal viewpoint. As soon as deer or pigs are approached as meat, empathy diminishes – how could one feel empathy for a piece of flesh? Food cannot have subjectivity, it is just chunks in your soup or liquid in your milk carton, so why would you care? Because of this, classifying animals as “food” – whether “live” or “dead” – is a like an act of magic, which suddenly makes the individual animal with her experiences, needs and memories disappear from sight.

The Scale of Destruction

The sheer amount of animal death and suffering is hard to comprehend. Globally at least 70 billion mammals and birds are slaughtered annually within the animal industries – ten times the amount of the human population. 70 billion. Yet, even this is only a small segment of the total amount of animals killed, leaving outside wild animals and enormous groups such as fishes, which are killed each year in their trillions. Trillions. As the human population is rapidly increasing, also these numbers will keep on growing, amounting to, not only unbearable animal lives and deaths, but also mass extinction pushing multitudes of species out of existence.

10 zeros, 12 zeros – who can take in these numbers? How to comprehend that this amount of individuals, all of whom had their own unique window into existence, their own memories, experiences and wants, lived and were killed due to human demand? When I try to grasp all of this, my thoughts get entangled and my emotions seek to escape to a place where one does not have to remember that raw horror and death, which Homo sapiens are routinely causing to their nonhuman kin.

At this very second billions of animals exist in claustrophobically minuscular cages, crates and barns, where their offspring are torn from them soon after birth, where the sunlight may never reach, and where the chaotic mix of ammonia, faeces, distressed animal sounds and petrified squabbling is the norm. To offer just a few examples, in many countries sows are forced to exist in farrowing crates, where they cannot actively nurture their young or even turn around. Hens are routinely kept in small cages that are as far from their natural habitats as Earth is from Jupiter. Calves are separated from their mothers, whom are left behind wailing for their young.

Both the Chinese “live animal markets” and Western animal factories originate from the same source: the reduction of animals into body parts and tissue, void of mindedness and inherent value.

Even sadistic acts of violence appear worryingly common, as undercover footage from various countries shows animals being kicked, punched, whipped with electric prods and even beaten to death. Even the law fails to protect animals. Often, the role of animal welfare legislations is to offer legal protection for keeping animals in conditions that in no way match their biological needs and capacities – they tend to serve the interests of farmers and corporations whilst downgrading and ignoring the possibility of “the good life” of other species.

Most of us know that animals pace anxiously in their cages and scream and fight when being killed, yet many say “they are just food”. Both the Chinese “live animal markets” and Western animal factories originate from the same source: the reduction of animals into body parts and tissue, void of mindedness and inherent value. The world is witnessing historically unprecedented use and obliteration of animal subjects. This is systemic, wasteful violence against life.

Wake Up

Homo sapiens has been named ”a global superpredator”, for humans kill other species around the globe without any significant risk to themselves. They (we) are everywhere, annihilating other animals and species ever-more rapidly. In a sense, humans have also become extreme parasites – a species that selfishly benefits from the surrounding world and its beings whilst doing them palpable harm. Yet, many fail to realise the true nature of what is happening. The parasitic species will not recognize its own harmfulness. In the West, humans also want to think that the fault is found from China or other far away places, not one’s own living room.

All around us thinking, feeling creatures are reared in hellish conditions just to be killed and eaten; the shelves of supermarkets and the plates on dinner tables are filled with the flesh of once-conscious beings.

Denial stands at the core of the problem. As the writer J.M. Coetzee has claimed, we are surrounded by unprecedented animal misery. All around us thinking, feeling creatures are reared in hellish conditions just to be killed and eaten; the shelves of supermarkets and the plates on dinner tables are filled with the flesh of once-conscious beings. Yet, many fail to notice that something is elementally wrong. Coetzee’s character Elizabeth Costello is pained by the horrifying absurdity of this all; how billions of conscious beings spend their short lives in desolation and are then killed whilst decent, civilized, seemingly good human beings lift pieces of their flesh onto their lips as if nothing strange was happening.

It seems that Homo sapiens is plagued by a virus much more severe than Korona. It is as if limitless greed, egoism and intellectual dishonesty has infiltrated the minds of many like an illness working its way through the brain tissue and preventing humans from recognizing the pained nonhuman realities – the fact that billions of animals suffer horrendously amidst perfectly ordinary human societies. Costello’s disbelief over the fact that this is let to continue is like a howl in the middle of a feverish, unwell world.

Indeed, the contrast between our self-perception and reality is vast. Many want to think of Homo sapiens as the most developed species of all – a moral and rational image of God or the pinnacle of evolution. However, in actuality, humanity is muddled by a shortsighted and irrational insatiability for evermore resources and ensuing aggressive ruining of the world around us. From the perspective of nonhuman nature, Homo sapiens is the opposite of a moral and rational creator – a source of constant and needless violence, destruction and death.

The same contrast is evident in everyday life. We want to believe in the inherent goodness of our conspecifics and societies. Amidst the environmental crisis and annihilation of animal life, ordinary human existence in the West continues in its own, secure bubbles that often consist of work, visits to the grocery store, Netflix and time spent with loved ones. The world is breaking apart, but many try to escape knowledge of this by retreating further into the comfort of their bubbles, thereby allowing the damage faced by other species to escalate. Echoing Hannah Arendt, there are mundane and banal shades of evil in our existence, and in this case they slice other species and nonhuman individuals into nonexistence.

This is particularly a problem formed by modern humans and industrial societies, which constructed the animal factories, reduced nature into a resource with its technology, and began to measure conscious life with stock prices. Modern, industrial people also need to be the solution to the crisis of their (our) own making. It is time to wake up from the virus-like fever-dreams, which prevent many from facing the reality. The final call to awaken to the value of other species and to demolish the egoistic ideologies that are annihilating life is sounding its alarm.

If anything, I hope that images from both the Chinese animal markets and Western animal factories stir us awake and into recognition of the fact that things need to change extremely fast.

Animals do not belong into cages in China or in the West; billions of conscious minds do not deserve frustrated lives and fearful deaths in the infernal animal industries designed by humans. Homo sapiens herself could be something far better than a destructive superpredator or a dreamful parasite gnawing the veins of the very nature, which gave birth to us all. If anything, I hope that images from both the Chinese animal markets and Western animal factories stir us awake and into recognition of the fact that things need to change extremely fast.

Costello ponders, why she cannot adapt to the society of annihilation just like everyone else. “Why can’t you, why can’t you?”, she asks. The answer is evident: she was woken up, and can no longer fall into the captivity of anthropocentric dreams.

References

Bar-On, Yinon M; Phillips, Rob; Milo, Ron (2018). ”The biomass distribution on Earth”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115 (25): 6506–6511.

Bratanova, B., Loughnan, S. & Bastian, B. (2011). ”The effect of categorization as food on the perceived moral standing of animals”. Appetite 57 (1): 193–196.

https://www.worldanimalprotection.org/our-work/animals-farming-supporting-70-billion-animals