Back in May 1999, I had to do a graduation standard for my Social Studies class. We were supposed to write a 3-5 page paper about an issue that teens face today. Im a teen, so I wrote about one of the things that matter most to me, Animal Cruelty.
By the time I was done, I had done weeks of research, and had written a 6-page paper. I had to shrink the type down, but I got 70/70, and a greater appreciation for animals.
Im going to put my paper on this page, and I just wanna say a huge thankyou to PETA. They gave me the "meat" of my story *no puns intended hah.. =)*. Contact me if you have any questions!! Now, on with the um.. paper. =)
The word "animal" was derived from the world "anima" which means "soul". There is significant proof that if we have animals as companions, we live longer. Our souls need animals.
But some people take advantage of the fact that we can have animals on this earth. People eat them, which in itself is not bad, but the picture of bessie running free in the pasture is long gone.
It has been proven in many medical journals and research programs that people who abuse animals when they are young are more likely to abuse humans when they get older. Some recent examples are:
Andrew Golden, the 11 year old boy who was part of the bloody Arkansas school shootings last year boasted that he shot dogs.
Michael Carneal, the boy charged with shooting 3 people in his school in Kentucky tossed a cat into a bonfire once.
15 year old Kip Kinkel, was accused of shooting and killing 2 school mates in Oregon, also bragged that he killed cats and blew up a cow.
Luke Woodham, the 16 year old shooter in Pearl, Mississippi, beat his family dog and burned him to death before he killed two school mates.
Days before he shot to death two police officers and injured a tourist, Russell Weston Jr. killed a dozen cats at his parents’ home in Illinois.
Although there are no documented cases of factory farm workers abusing their spouse, children, or their pets, a large percentage of them do abuse the animals in the factory farm.
"For centuries man has eaten meat and people have paid no attention to it. But for centuries man has murdered one another. Should we disregard that too?"
There are no laws against animal cruelty in factory farming. Although just about everybody that knows how bad the conditions really are say there should be laws against cruelty, but most do nothing about it.
On the subject of eating meat, people who eat meat think it is good tasting, good smelling, good looking, and also think there is nothing wrong with it. I asked one meat eater what they think about eating meat, they commented, "It's proven that people who don't eat meat or don't use a substitute, they become anemic." Which is true, because anemia is caused by an iron deficiency and a large amount of people’s daily iron comes from red meats. Although there are plenty of iron-rich vegetables and other vegetarian foods.
When I asked one more meat eater what they thought about eating meat, they replied back to me, "Well, I like the flavor of it. If it isn’t burnt, I like the look, color, and texture of it."
On the subject of meat eating from vegetarians, they will tell you that meat is gross, fatty, contains diseases, and pesticides. They will certainly make clear the point that animal cruelty in factory farms drove them towards a vegetarian diet. When I asked one vegetarian what they think about eating meat, they commented, "Basically all things that have eyes have souls. So if you eat meat, you are eating an animal that had eyes, that had a soul. You are eating the soul an animal. Some religions believe that you can come back as an animal like a cow, or a pig and if you are slaughtering and eating the soul of those animals you are slaughtering and eating your own soul."
When I another meat eater what they thought about eating meat, they replied back to me, "Eating meat is unnecessary. There are too many sources of protein out there like eggs to have to kill in order to survive. It is mans way of saying that we are superior to other beings."
If an average American ate meat all their lives, on a regular basis, they would consume: 1 calf, 3 lambs, 11 cows, 15,665 chicken eggs, 23 hogs, 45 turkeys, 1097 chickens. Imagine what all those animals had to go through.
The conditions of factory farms are partial reasons people do not eat meat. Poultry for example, 20% of all hens raised in factory farms die of stress and/or disease. 80% of all poultry are given antibiotics. One-half of all chickens have the disease, salmonella, which will be passed onto 4 million people annually. The chickens are subjected to so much stress that they peck each other to death in their cages.
Another example with pigs. 70% of all pigs are confined for their whole lives. Seeing daylight only when they are riding in the truck to the meat processing plants. Also, 30% of all pork products contain "toxoplasmosis", a disease caused by parasites that is passed on into the pork consumers.
Cows are also victims of the factory farms. Cattle can lose up to 9% of their body weight being transported to the meat processing plants. 60% of all cattle are given antibiotics regularly. Of all the United State’s antibiotics, 55% is given to livestock. That means a total of more than 2,000 different drugs and chemicals are being put into cows. Many of which can be passed on to human consumers.
Out of all the animals though, veal calves are treated the worst. One out of every ten calves die in confinement. The calves are fed an iron deficient diet of milky gruel in order to obtain the light-colored meat that people like. The calves, desperate for iron resort to licking their own urine and feces. To prevent any muscle development and to speed weight gain they are not allowed to exercise and are kept in their movement confined stalls all their lives. Newly born male calves are taken from their mothers within days of birth and are slaughtered at the early age of 16 weeks. In the crowded stalls respiratory and intestinal diseases and chronic diarrhea run rampant.
Anyone who knows the pain and suffering these animals go through and is compassionate must be a vegetarian.
The health benefits of being a vegetarian are wonderful too. You can reduce the risk of a heart attack by 90% if you eliminate meat, eggs, and dairy products fully from your diet. Vegetarians on an average, suffer less osteoporosis than do meat eater. Also, 88% of all pesticides in the United States diet are contained in meat and dairy products. Vegetarians as a group have lower blood pressure than do meat eaters.
The benefits for women are good too. For a woman that eats meat once a week is four times less likely to get breast cancer than a woman who eats meat daily. Breast milk from mothers who eat meat contains 35 times more pesticide contamination than milk from vegetarian mothers.
If you think about other people too, vegetarianism is the way to go. If Americans alone reduced their meat consumption by 10% there would be 12 million more tons of grain to feed humans. That is enough to feed each of the 60 million people that starve to death. United States livestock consumes enough grain and soybeans each year to feed more than five times the population, 1.3 billion. It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef. One acre of pasture produces 165 pounds of beef, while the same amount of land produces 20,000 pounds of potatoes.
There are plenty of famous people who have decided to give up eating meat too. Too many to list, but to name a few: Anna Paquin, Janeane Garofalo, Fred Rogers, Drew Barrymore, Fiona Apple, Ringo Starr, Downtown Julie Brown, Adolf Hitler, David Duchovny, Sara Gilbert, Boy George, Billy Idol, Lisa Loeb, Prince, and Julianna Hatfield.
PETA, the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, recently did an undercover investigation at Belcross Farms, a pig farm, in North Carolina. Some entries are too gory to even write, so I will include the better ones I read of.
"November 9, 1998: All male pigs except for HDs (a breed) are castrated. Kelly demonstrated castration by holding a male pig upside down by his legs and making two incisions in the scrotum with a scalpel. He then used his fingers to pull each testicle out. During these procedures, the pigs were screaming and writhing. When placed back with their mothers, the pigs continued to cry and shake. Kelly then gave everyone a pig and we were told to try to process them. I saw the piglet Elyse had been processing lying dead on the floor in a pool of blood. They told me that, when Elyse was attempting to castrate her piglet and pulled out the first testicle, the internal wall ruptured and the pig’s intestines began spilling out. Kelly grabbed the pig and smashed his head on the concrete floor, killing him."
"December 10, 1998: I finished my daily duties shortly after lunch and went to the breeding barn to see what was happening. I had been hearing continuous screaming coming from the barn for approximately 10 minutes. As I got closer, I could see that they were trying to move a sow who had collapsed and was wedged in the narrow space. Ray began stomping on the sow’s side and kicking her in the face. Robert's beating escalated in intensity as he became more frustrated. He gave up and Ray got on top of the sow and pretended to tap dance. Robert began beating the sow again, raising the cane over his head and hitting her as hard as he could. After five minutes of continuous beating, he gave up and we began to push and pull the sow along the walkway and around a corner leading out of the barn."
"Later, I walked out to the sow and saw that Robert had slit the sow’s throat with a scalpel blade. Robert’s hands were covered in blood and he was holding a red metal pipe. The sow was still fully conscious and was looking around and lifting her head off the ground. As she breathed, I could hear blood gurgling in her throat. I looked into the wound and could see that the large vein was not severed, that her throat was not properly slit. After about five minutes, he decided to bolt her with the captive-bolt gun. He loaded it, placed it against her forehead and fired it. She convulsed and Robert started laughing."
"January 7, 1999: Elyse told me that Russ came to the boar stud facility a couple of days ago to kill two boars that were no longer useful. I had seen them both when I worked at the boar stud facility; one had a broken hip and the other had had a stroke, incapacitating him. Sonja, who ran the facility up until January 1, 1999, had asked Dr. Cunningham to do something to help the boars, but he had done nothing except look at them. Elyse said that one day he had come by with a barbiturate and could have euthanized them but did not. The young boar with the broken hip, Jekyll, was dragged outside by Russ, Kelly, and Chris and loaded onto Russ’ truck and then killed with a bolt gun. MJ was an old boar who had had a stroke and had been lying down on the concrete floor in his pen for so long that his skin was stuck to it and he was unable to stand to reach his food or water. Russ, Kelly, and Chris pulled MJ off the floor, ripping all the skin from his side. Elyse said that he was screaming the entire time and that his pen was covered in blood. They then loaded him onto the truck and killed him."
"January 16, 1999: Kelly said that we had to kill a lame sow today and we might as well use the meat for our own benefit so that it wouldn’t go to waste. Ray was very excited at the prospect of killing a sow and being able to take home the meat (apparently, he and Kelly had already planned this). Kelly said that he does this all the time and that his freezer was almost full, so he just wanted the tenderloin."
"Ray attached the snare to the sow’s left front leg and began pulling. The sow was screaming but had little energy to try and escape. Ray pulled her onto the grass so we wouldn’t get any blood on the concrete. Kelly quickly got the orange metal pipe wrench and hit the sow on the top of her head twice. The sow completely collapsed after the second hit but kept her head raised and was moving it around. Kelly hit her some more on the head and then left and got the scalpel. He put a foot on her to try and get her to be still, but she was trying to stand up. Ray got the pipe wrench and hit her two more times."
"The sow was still moving while he was trying to cut her throat, so Ray got the snare and tried to hold her still. He couldn’t, but Kelly managed to cut her throat by making a series of cuts, each a little deeper, since the small scalpel blade quickly dulled. He kept cutting and trying to make the slit deeper and wider, but it was difficult since the sow was still moving. She was opening her mouth, trying to breathe and trying to lift her head. Kelly would look at her face to see if she was dead yet and keep cutting. After the blade got too dull, he left the sow and changed blades. Ray joked that the sow was looking at him and making him feel guilty. Kelly returned and began cutting again. The sow was making low groaning noises and I could hear her breath gurgling in her throat."
"Kelly began sawing the back left leg off at the "knee" and, while he did this, the sow sucked breaths of air and moved her front legs."
To find out more about animal cruelty and laws that are trying to be passed you can go to the official United States Humane Society webpage.
You can also go to the American Society for the Prevention of Animal Cruelty, or the ASPCA.
If you are interested on becoming a vegetarian and stopping abuse to cows, poultry, pigs and other animals you can check out this site. They have hundreds of good vegetarian recipes.
Envirolink is a very informative site that keeps you updated on and teaches you about the animal rights movement.
A huge animal right organization, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).
The Animal Rights Handbook; Everyday Ways to Save Animal Lives, has addresses you can write to for vegetarian cookbooks, vegetarian dog supplies, and more animal cruelty facts.
Go to the local humane society and ask to volunteer. You must be 14 and able to volunteer 2-3 times a week. If you can’t volunteer you can still contribute something.
You can write your congressmen about getting more strict animal cruelty laws and push for them until something happens.
Join an animal rights organization that is localized in your city or state. If you cannot find any, join an Internet organization and sign on-line petitions.
The Animal Rights Handbook: Everyday Ways To Save Animal Lives
E-Library; Ace Atkins of The Tampa Tribune, December 12, 1998
E-Library; The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 1998
http://www.state.mn.us/
http://www.hsus.org/
http://arrs.envirolink.org/
http://www.chickpages.com/veggiefarm/famousveg/
http://www.peta-online.org/
All opinions stated on this page are mine.
Although most everything writen in this paper is fact, the idea is the same. Now if you wanna steal my paper, please ask me first! Kay?!