“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for human any more than black people were made for whites or women for men – Alice Walker (Easyaspeace, 2008).
It is not hard to imagine that we, both people humans and animal humans, wake up each day having our own agenda about what we would like to do or accomplish in our lives. This includes who we marry, where we live, if and when we bear children and if we believe religion or not. These are basic fundamentals but we, as defined above, all feel pain, and all recognize that there is a hierarchy in the food chain and must survive; but must we in the interest of money and greed torture another being for profit? As humans who are on the top of the food chain we need only look to the animals for example because only humans are capable of causing such harm and injury the factory farming industry causes. In nature, only what is needed for survival is killed and eaten. Half of the meat that is the supermarket that is never sold goes to the garbage and that is many animals that suffered, in concentration camps, aka farms, for nothing.
I think Singer would agree that game hunting for winter survival by a skilled hunter would be preferable to the techniques today in the factory farming. Many people in my family and my friend’s families share resources like this and we find this more humane and efficient than buying meat from a store that one does not know how the animal was treated or injected with. Of course there is nothing 100% humane about separating an animal from its family but if it came down to surviving it is a better choice.
Happy Sheep June 2014 Sharon CT.
Note: while I have watched plenty of disturbing videos on factory farming in the past, this past one made me reach out to each of my five cats and give them a big hug to let them know how much I appreciate them.
References
Easyaspeace. (2008, April 7). Tom Regan, a case for animal rights [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5RRLBC1S3w
The Cat's Meow 