In the Guardian’s monthly round-up on “Animals Farmed”, I read that France has exported 2,000 breeding pigs to China to help them recoup losses caused by African swine fever. Almost a quarter of the world’s pigs are expected to die from the outbreak.
Fifteen ducks in an American lab studying avian diseases were found dead by a caretaker – they had died of dehydration.
Although the badger cull is finally being phased out, at least 100,000 badgers have been killed since 2013 in a (failed) attempt to prevent bovine TB that leads to the compulsory slaughter of 30,000 cattle in the UK every year at a cost of £150 million. This, the Guardian reports, is a severe problem for farmers and taxpayers. Does it ever occur to people that this is a severe problem for the animals too?
The pigs, the ducks, the badgers, the cows and on and on with our insatiable demand, come hell or highwater, to find safe ways to continue to eat animals? What are we doing here? Why are we continuing to shove a system that is obviously broken?
Well, guess what, nature is having her revenge. With COVID-19 we are getting a very small taste of what it feels like to be waiting to die. To die an unnecessary death – just like all the animals we eat – because of people eating animals. The circle has closed. We need to stop now, for us and them, before it’s too late.
(photo source: Fred Tanneau, AFP, the Guardian)