Has anyone seen my calf?

A grieving mother cow with tears in her eyes and a hankie held up a sign with the details on her missing calf and led the public vigil.  Many people wanted to take pictures with our cow volunteer!

Our super-sized milk carton also got a lot of attention.

The enthusiastic group of volunteers handed out approximately 400 pamphlets over lunch and talked to the public at the City Centre Skytrain Station at Georgia and Granville Streets.

Milk comes from a grieving mother.

Our message that Mother’s Day is for mothers of all species, not just humans, was positively received by many people. A number of people I spoke with told me they didn’t eat dairy, and there were even a few vegans who came to say hello.

We even received coverage of the event in the Georgia Straight!

To honour these grieving bovine mothers, we are encouraging supporters to wear a cow ribbon.  For more information, visit CowRibbon.com.

Harry and William were born in 2011.  Like the mothers of Arnold and his friends, Harry and William’s mothers are anonymous, lost to the industry like so many other dairy cows.  They may still be alive, suffering through repeated artificial inseminations and pregnancies only to have their calves taken away within hours, or they may already have gone to slaughter, their bodies exhausted after only a few years of intensive milk production.

Harry and William were on a truck with nearly 100 other orphans of the dairy industry, en route to the slaughterhouse, when they were rescued by wildlife rehabilitators.  Emaciated, hypothermic, and suffering dehydration as a result of severe diarrhea, they were so sick that the veterinarians did not expect them to live.  It took some time and a lot of intensive care, but Harry and William pulled through.

The pair now lives at Farm Sanctuary’s Animal Acres in southern California. You can see a video of them enjoying their freedom here:

(Harry and William’s story is one of Farm Sanctuary’s 2011 Featured Rescues.)

Arnold

We can’t tell you about the mothers who gave birth to Arnold and his friends, but we know that they are only a few of the millions of dairy cows who are impregnated year after year only to lose their calves within hours of their birth so that we can drink their milk.  These mothers may already be dead, having been sent to slaughter for cheap beef–a common fate of dairy cows whose bodies give out at 4 or 5 years of age, only a quarter of their lifespan.  The average Canadian dairy cow gives 9,519 kilograms of milk a year, seven times more than she would naturally.

Conrad

Though many of the male calves born to these cows are raised for veal or slaughtered outright as a byproduct, others are sent to auction.  Such was the fate of eleven calves, including Arnold, Tweed, Conrad, Milbank, and Orlando, in 2011.  Just days old, the eleven babies were sold for a few dollars each to a farmer who planned to raise them for cheap beef.   When the calves contracted pneumonia, he opted not to spend the $20 or so that it would have cost to provide proper treatment for all eleven, choosing instead to shoot them.

Millbank

Authorities intervened after the farmer had killed six calves, and he was arrested–not for animal cruelty, but for violating his probation by discharging a firearm.  Rescuers from Farm Sanctuary stepped in and saved the remaining calves, who were extremely underweight and dehydrated, as well as unfed, as their milk replacer was mouldy.  They were taken immediately to the Cornell University Hospital for Animals to be given antibiotics.

Orlando

The oldest and strongest calf, Arnold, recovered first and was released after one day, but his four friends were slower to heal and spent days in the hospital.  In addition to pneumonia, they were suffering from ringworm, giardia, umbilical hernias, Bovine Papular Stomatitis, hypoglycemia, and sinus arrhythmia, among other conditions.   Their intensive medical treatment continued even after all of them were released to Farm Sanctuary’s New York Shelter.

Tweed

In a safe environment, the calves finally began to flourish.  Orlando, who at one point was the sickest of all, has revealed himself to be playful and goofy.  His best friend, Conrad, the smallest calf, is also the sweetest.  Millbank is very shy, as is Tweed–though he appears to be learning some bravery from Arnold!  It’s hard to imagine that all five of them were almost just another casualty of the dairy industry, and now have the opportunity to live 20 to 25 years at Farm Sanctuary.

(Information about Arnold and his friends taken from Farm Sanctuary’s 2011 Featured Rescues.)

Sadie

Sadie is from a typical dairy farm. She was impregnated four times and all of her babies were taken from her immediately after birth. Her male calves were sold as veal and her female calves were used to replace adult dairy cows sent to slaughter.

She lived with 6,000 other cows on a dry lot. She never ate grass or roamed free.

When she was 4 or 5, Sadie developed mastitis, a painful, swollen bacterial infection of the udder which reduces the quality of milk by increasing its somatic cell count.  (That’s pus, by the way.  Yum!)  Mastitis is not unusual on dairy farms; in Quebec, one of the biggest milk producers in Canada, it is the second most common reason for culling.  Like so many other dairy cows before her, Sadie was slated to be sent to slaughter at only a quarter of her lifespan.

Before that happened, however, a veterinary teaching hospital purchased her and used her body as a teaching tool.  They did not treat her mastitis, though, and after 20 weeks she was en route to the slaughterhouse once more.

A vet student stepped in and saved her life.  Sadie has lived at Animal Place since June of 2005.

It makes sense to have a special day to recognize chickens, who are the most abused animals on the planet.  Those raised for meat are slaughtered at 45 days of age, if, indeed, they manage to survive the considerable toll that the industry has placed upon their bodies by forcing them to grow to adult size in only 6 weeks.  Many do not–their hearts explode, or their legs give out under the weight that their skeletons are unequipped to support and they simply starve to death on the floor of the enormous warehouses in which they are raised.

Please do an action for chickens in May!

In Canada, chickens (as well as turkeys and pigs) can legally be transported for up to 36 hours without food, water, or rest, and there are no limits as to the length of the journey.  These standards are among the worst in the industrialized world.  They are transported in open-air crates, resulting in high mortality as the birds are exposed to all sorts of weather.  Each bird is worth so little, however, that it is cheaper overall for the industry to use open-air crates.  Every year in Canada, 2 million broiler chickens and 20,000 turkeys are already dead when they arrive at slaughterhouses.  An additional 8 million broiler chickens and 200,000 turkeys arrive so diseased or injured that they are considered “unfit for human consumption”.

At the slaughterhouse, they will be dumped onto a fast-moving conveyer belt and hung upside down by their feet to be dragged through an electrical stunning bath.  The lucky ones will be rendered unconscious by this process, but because these baths are typically set at a low voltage so as not to damage the meat, many continue on, fully conscious while their throats are cut.  The speedy conveyer belt combined with a struggling bird sometimes means that the chickens are still alive when they are dunked into a scalding tank full of boiling water that is meant to remove the feathers from their carcasses.  Estimates place the number of birds boiled alive at 1 in 20; at any rate they are so common that the industry has a name for them: redskins.

Despite all this, chickens raised for egg-laying have it much worse.  98% of those in Canada live their entire lives on the slanted, wire floors of cages that they share with 5 to 7 other hens.  The Canadian egg industry requires each hen to have 67 square inches of space, slightly smaller than a piece of notebook paper, despite the fact that she needs 144 square inches to spread her wings, and 303 to flap them.  Though chickens can live 10 to 15 years, egg production slows down earlier than that; at a year or a year and a half of age, the egg-laying hens are considered “spent”.  Some are killed outright at this point–tossed live into woodchippers, buried in mass graves, or even turned into cheap, low-grade meat that hides bruising, like soup, potpie, or baby food.  Others will be subjected to forced moulting, and those who do not starve to death during the process will have a few months left in the cages before they, too, are killed.  The first and only time they will see sunlight is on the way to slaughter.

Think organic and free-range chickens have it better?  Think again.  Many of the abuses we consider objectionable in conventional farming are still legal–debeaking and castration without painkillers, the early slaughter of “spent” dairy cows and egg-laying hens, the cruelties of hours or days of transportation, lack of outdoor access, and the slaughter of billions of “useless” male chicks born into the egg industry, to name a few.

So on International Respect for Chickens Day, do an action for chickens!  Take a moment to talk to your friends and family.   Write a letter to the editor.  Remind everyone that chickens are brave,  smart, and sociable animals who protect their friends and love their babies just like we do.

For more ideas of how to honour chickens today, check out United Poultry Concerns here.

The back of the book states that the essays demonstrate “with painful clarity why every woman should be an animal activist and why every animal activist should be a feminist.”  I’ll admit that I believed this before I read Sister Species–that every social justice activist should be an advocate for the rights of all oppressed individuals, regardless of species, race, gender, etc.  But I am more completely convinced of that fact after having read it, and now I have a more concrete understanding of how and why.

When I finished the book, I felt overwhelmed.   But I also felt inspired and empowered by the reminder that so many of us are working towards a truly fair and compassionate world.  I learned so much from reading it and know I’ll be referencing it again and again in the future.

Sister Species features essays from lauren ornelas of the Food Empowerment Project, Breeze Harper of Sistah Vegan, pattrice jones, and Karen Davis of United Poultry Concerns, among many talented others, and the foreword is written by Carol J. Adams, who first became known for her groundbreaking 1990 book, The Sexual Politics of Meat.

Here it is:

• The Art of the Possible: A Handbook for Political Activism by Amanda Sussman (McClelland and Stewart, 2007)

• Animals and the Law by Lesli Bisgould (Irwin Law, 2012)

• Don’t Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, by George Lakoff (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2004)

• The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st Century American Politics with an 18th Century Brain by George Lakoff (Viking, 2008)

• The Revolution Will Not be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything by Joe Trippi (Harper, 2004)

• Toxic Sludge is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies, and the Public Relations Industry by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton (Common Courage Press, 1995)

• Trust Us, We’re Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber (Common Courage Press, 2001)

• Citizen Muckraking: How to Investigate and Right Wrongs in Your Community by the Centre for Public Integrity (Common Courage Press, 2000)

We also were fortunate enough to have three other fantastic speakers!

Camille Labchuck of the Green Party and Lawyers for Animal Welfare:

Lesley Fox of the Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals:

Sarah Kramer, cookbook author and owner of Sarah’s Place: Vegan Curio Shop:

Participants take a "hug break" during Lesley Fox's speech about avoiding activist burnout.

…were you there?

On February 25th and 26th, about 100 awesome, compassionate people attended Liberation BC’s 2nd Animal Advocacy Camp.   This participant-led “unconference” was an inspiring, energizing event, and I know I’m far from the only one who cannot wait for next year!

You can see photos here and here.

And thanks to the work of our fantastic volunteers, you can see a complete set of notes taken at (almost!) every discussion session that weekend.  They’re right here, and worth a read.  For those of you who weren’t able to make it, they should give you a good idea of what was discussed, as well as some very useful knowledge.

CTV.ca

But it’s zoo business as usual.

The news came out today that some of the sheep and goats at the former Stanley Park Children’s Farmyard were sent to slaughter by Trevor French, owner of Golden Grounds Farms, who promised to take them in when the petting zoo closed.  Instead, it appears that the majority may have been sent to auction and slaughtered not long after having been adopted.

The agreement, the park board says, was that the animals would be allowed to live out the rest of their natural lives at their adoptive homes.

“…We followed very stringent, thorough practice to check everybody out,” [Park Board Chair Constance] Barnes told CTV, noting that letters of reference were sought and site inspections carried out. (source)

 

Gordon Barber, the park board’s manager of revenue operations, told the Sun the park board wouldn’t have allowed French to adopt the retired pets if they had realized he sold meat from his farm. (source)

Somehow, the fact that French runs a farm that specializes in free-range beef, lamb, turkey and eggs slipped past them.

Regardless of intent or negligence on the part of anybody involved, the fact remains that while French may be in trouble for breaking his contract with the city, he didn’t violate any laws.   This sort of thing happens all the time and has been documented over and over again.  Though in this case, the animals were sold because the zoo was closing, it is legal, routine practice for petting zoos to  send their animals to slaughter once they grow past the optimum age for cuddly cuteness.   Animals at zoos (the non-petting kind) frequently suffer the same fate: when babies are born, bringing in legions of new customers, it is the older, less popular animals that pay the price.  They frequently end up in slaughterhouses, in decrepit roadside zoos or travelling circuses, or even on shooting ranges and hunting ranches.  That includes bears, tigers, lions, antelopes, kangaroos, giraffes, hippos, and more.

Liberation BC will be posting a new info page on our website with more facts about zoos soon.  Watch for it!

The Agenda (photo by Amanda Daniell)

Network with other animal rights activists and learn about other groups and campaigns – and build a stronger movement

There are many groups in Vancouver and across Canada who are working on all sorts of issues. Fur, factory farming, veganism, health and the environment, animal testing, and many others. At Animal Advocacy Camp you can meet activists working on all of these issues and learn from their experiences.

And, by building connections and networking, you can build a stronger and more effective movement.

To register, visit animaladvocacycamp.ca. There is a low income option available as well, so no excuses!