Animals matter

Animals as individuals

Many of us have had the good fortune to know some animals as individuals. We care for the animals we share our house with and we get to know their personality and their wants and needs. We form emotional bonds with animals and even see them as members of our family. Most people really care about animals.

While we will go out of our way to care for a dog or a cat, most of us have a completely different relationship to the animals we eat, such as cows, pigs, chickens and fishes. Yet, like dogs and cats, these animals also have the capacity to feel emotions like joy and pain, bonding and loss. Most of us believe that unnecessary violence against animals is unacceptable, so why do we eat and wear animals and exploit them in other ways? Humans do not need to eat or use animal products in order to live well, so why do we continue to treat animals as resources for human use?

Speciesism and moral contradiction

This ability for humans to divide other animals into these two categories - those we love and those we eat - has been described variously as cognitive dissonance, moral schizophrenia, carnism or speciesism. Each of these terms tries to describe how and why people, who otherwise care about animals, justify the use of animals for food, clothing, entertainment and other purposes. Once we become aware of how our history and culture has shaped us in this way and we understand that humans have no need to kill or exploit animals, we are well on the way to becoming vegan.

The myth of ‘humane’ farming

The animal industries work hard to convince us that the animals we eat live freely on small family farms. In truth, most spend their entire lives confined in crowded, windowless sheds or barren enclosures, viewed simply as commodities. Even animals raised under so-called 'humane' or 'free-range' labels are still treated as property and are ultimately transported to the same slaughterhouses. Consuming animals marketed as 'happy' or 'ethical' does not change the fundamental injustice of breeding, exploiting and killing sentient beings for profit and human preference. Regardless of how they are raised, animals value their own lives and are not ours to use.

In Australia, over 500 million land animals are confined and killed every year for food. This means that, on average, more than 15 land animals are killed every second.

Animals as commodities

Cows farmed for their milk are repeatedly impregnated and their babies are taken away from them soon after birth, destined either for immediate killing or for a short life before slaughter. The cows themselves are killed after only a few years, when their milk production is no longer considered economical.

Chickens farmed for their eggs are confined in cages or crowded sheds. They have been selectively bred to lay eggs at an unnaturally high rate, placing immense strain on their bodies. Male chicks, considered economically worthless by the industry, are killed shortly after hatching, commonly by gassing or maceration.

Like animals used for food, sheep farmed for wool are considered property and are bred as products for human use. When animals are treated as products, their lives and interests inevitably become secondary to human use and profit. Selective breeding has resulted in many individual sheep developing folds of skin that attract flies to lay eggs. To reduce 'flystrike', farmers cut off sections of skin from the sheep, often without pain relief, in a painful procedure known as 'mulesing'. Like other farmed animals, these sheep are killed once their 'productivity' declines.

Farmed animals are treated as property and resources for human use. Because they are viewed as commodities, their lives and interests are routinely sacrificed for efficiency and profit. The result is a system characterised by confinement, deprivation, mutilation and premature killing.

The animals we use and eat do not live comfortably on idyllic farms, as some honest research will quickly reveal. The flesh on your plate comes from the body of a sentient being who valued their own life and who did not willingly give it up to you. There is a better way, for both humans and our fellow animals.

Learn more

Well documented examples of the suffering routinely caused to animals used for food are numerous and easy to find. These examples reflect standard farming practices, not merely isolated acts of cruelty. The problem is not simply that some animals are treated badly, but that sentient beings are treated as commodities to be used and killed for human purposes. Below are some links to more information.

• The Australian film Dominion is a feature-length documentary which exposes the reality of modern animal agriculture. It focuses on animals used for food, but also explores other ways animals are used and exploited by humans, including clothing, entertainment and research. It challenges the myth of 'humane slaughter' and documents standard farming practices in Australia.
• The Australian documentary film Lucent, the forerunner to Dominion, examines the largely hidden realities of Australia's pig farming industry.
• Chickens are among the most heavily exploited animals. The websites Australian Chicken Farming and Australian Egg Farming document the lives of chickens used for meat and eggs.
• The in-depth report by Voiceless, The Life of the Dairy Cow, offers valuable insights into the emotional stress and physical strain experienced by modern Australian dairy cows and their calves.
• From PETA's Fish Feel Pain website: "there is as much evidence that fish feel pain and suffer as there is for birds and mammals."
• The comprehensive Humane Myth website critiques many forms of so-called 'alternative' animal farming, including 'cage free', 'free range', 'humane certified', 'grass fed' and 'organic'.