CRUELTY TO FARM ANIMALS

I am not an activist vegan - just an ex-farm boy of middle Australia

Last week I watched the ABC program Landline and was saddened by the brutal killing of farm animals in abattoirs.

I was once a farm boy. When we stopped farming, my parents sent all our dear old cows to be slaughtered. They all had names.

The program showed the shots by hidden vegan cameras of sheep, cattle and pigs being slaughtered by gas, throat cut and electric shock.

The most hideous killing was shown of thousands of pigs in China being culled to prevent the swine fever epidemic. Thousands were herded together by bulldozer and pushed into huge pits to be buried alive.e.

Many years ago I attended a pig kill in a PNG village in the Southern Highlands. About a hundred pigs were tethered by the foot and killed by a group of men with iron bars. 

The pigs stood petrified and waited to be killed. They all had their tails between their legs.

The human race assumes that animals have no feelings. The elephant has feelings of family, friendship and grief at death. Females will gather around the bones of a family member years after the death so we are told. 

Dogs certainly have feelings and can even a sense of compassion seen when dogs save human beings. We must not dismiss the rights of animals. Animals know to run from a predator. They have a sense of danger.

Scripture tells us that the human race has dominion over the creatures of the planet. That does not mean we can abuse and violate them.

What else can be done? The primary purpose of raising farm animals is for meat. milk and eggs.