Here are a few posts by Bridget Saunders that I really respect:

I remember years ago in Papua New Guinea, being out on some super $$$ game fishing launch with a bunch of Aussies. I was there because it was beautiful being out on the water, but they were there to catch marlin and sailfish.

They caught one too. And lots of beers were drunk in disgusting celebration. I was really upset, which was totally pointless and useless. But they hadn’t killed it because they needed to eat. They had killed it for fun! Go figure!

Some years before that, I had been out night fishing (this was before my ecological concerns were fully formed) with some Chinese friends who were hell fisherman.

I got the biggie though. It was something massive. We turned the boat’s floodlights into the water but could see nothing. I couldn’t pull whatever it was up, because it was so big, so the guys all gathered around and pulled and pulled too. And some of these were really big, mixed-race hunks. They were blown away by my catch. The whole boat was in awe as to what the hell this thing could be. As we hauled away, something deep down came into view. We hauled more and it loomed immense in the farther reaches of the floodlights. Then, as we strained, we got it into view.

A whale? Nope.

Giant shark? No

Sea monster? Uh-uh.

It broke the surface and we could see it was a ray. A giant ray. And it had had its “wings” out horizontally, during the haul to the surface, which is why it had seemed so gargantuan.

So there it was, on the surface, a big hook in its mouth. We looked at it. And I looked at the guys. What do we do with a giant ray?

Easy. One of them pulled out a knife, cut the fishing line, and set the creature free to swim away. But with a very damaged mouth and probably highly traumatised. I have wondered ever since if it survived.

People seem to assume that fish are swimming vegetables and insensitive to pain, but the latest research shows otherwise.

Dr Donald Broom, scientific adviser to the British government, explains, “The scientific literature is quite clear. Anatomically, physiologically and biologically, the pain system in fish is virtually the same as in birds and mammals”.

And in 2003, scientists at the University of Edinburgh concluded that fish clearly experience pain in the same way as mammals, both physically and psychologically.

Like “higher vertebrates”, they have neurotransmitters which relieve suffering and the only reason for a nervous system to produce painkillers is to relieve pain. Claiming that fish do not suffer is as intellectually and scientifically sound as arguing that the Earth is flat.

How do we avoid heart disease if eating fish is unethical? The answer is to replace your fish intake with nuts. Consuming about 30 grams of nuts per day at least five days a week can halve the risk of having a heart attack. No other single component of diet has been shown to be as effective.

Back in 1999 Karremann found that two million dog and cat skins annually find their way into Britain, Germany, France, and Italy.

I have to say that I do not think it is any worse to treat cats and dogs like this than any other type of animal because they all feel the same pain – but it is more emotionally shocking.

The skins mostly come from northern China, where dog pelts are sold for about $8 each, and cat skins can cost as little as 50c. They are killed in the winter when their fur is thickest.

Karremann found that some of these animals are farmed, some are stolen pets and some are rounded up as strays. The farmed ones are particularly unlucky. One dog farm had live dogs in the middle of the northern Chinese winter in a bitterly cold shed, without food or water, tethered by thin metal wires and surrounded by the bodies of dead dogs hanging on hooks. Those that were destined to be eaten “fresh” were put into sacks and taken to restaurants. One investigator saw a dog pulled out of a sack at a restaurant that wagged his tail! He was slaughtered by being stabbed in the groin and the other dogs in the sack could hear his cries as he slowly died while they waited their turn.

My friend has a beagle and he’s so cute. Here’s a gorgeous photo of him:

One time we went for a walk together and he ran on ahead… Later when we called out to him he turned around a looked at us, but then continued going on! So we chased after him, but as soon as he realised we were chasing him he thought we had wanted to play so started running away even faster! It was so much fun.

Unfortunately there is a company that uses beagles for experiments here in New Zealand, which just makes you devastated to hear. Please visit SAFE’s website on this issue for more information.

But in the end we’re still using animals for our own purposes, and the following information (which I got from the Meat Free Media forums) might help you come to a decision as to whether you want to choose to do a bit more for animal welfare or not:

In addition to having distinct personalities, cows are very intelligent animals who can remember things for a long time. Animal behaviorists have found that cows interact in complex ways, developing friendships over time, sometimes holding grudges against cows who treat them badly and choosing leaders based upon intelligence. They have complex emotions as well and even have the ability to worry about the future.

Researchers have found that cows can not only figure out problems, they also enjoy the challenge and get excited when they find a solution. In one study, researchers challenged the animals with a task where they had to find how to open a door to get some food. The researchers then measured their brainwaves. Professor Broom said that ‘The brainwaves showed the cows excitement; their heartbeat went up and some even jumped into the air. We called it their Eureka moment,’ Cows can also learn how to push a lever to operate a drinking fountain when they’re thirty or press a button with their head to release food when they’re hungry. Like humans they quickly learn to avoid things that cause pain like electric fences. In fact if just one cow in the herd is shocked by an electric fence, the rest of the herd will learn from that and will avoid the fence in the future.

Grandmother cows often help their daughters with mothering duties, but one cow named Olivia wanted no part of that. She never left her calf’s side, and she ignored her mother’s offers to help groom him. Offended, her mother finally marched off to another field to graze with her friends and never communicated to her daughter again. Cows can also remember and hold grudges against people who have hurt them or their family members

Dairy cows are continually kept pregnant and lactating and their babies are sold off to the meat industry when they are only two days old. The life of a dairy cow is not as natural as you might think, especially considering that 80 percent of dairy cows are made pregnant through artificial insemination.

The only way for a cow, like any other mammal, to produce milk is for the cow to have a baby. The milk produced by cows is naturally meant for baby calves; however, because people want to drink this milk, the baby calves are taken away from their mothers when they are only a few days old. Cows are extremely maternal animals and both the mother cow and the baby calf suffer terribly from being separated at such a young age. In fact, one cow missed her baby so much that she broke out of her paddock and trekked through 8 kilometers of paddocks and rivers to find her baby. On dairy farms, mother cows can be heard bellowing out wildly trying to find their babies as well as running after the cattle trucks that take their babies to separate farms.

The baby calves life is then decided by their gender. That’s right, not only is the dairy industry hell for the animals, the environment and your health, it is also an industry that decides an animal’s entire life based on whether they are male or female. If the calve is male then he is taken away to be raised and slaughtered for meat. Because of this the NZ dairy industry contributes to the death of more than 1 million male dairy cows every year. That’s one death every 20 seconds. In fact, 55 percent of all beef in New Zealand supermarkets comes directly from the dairy industry. These male calves are transported to separate meat farms where they will never see their mothers again. They suffer terribly on their journey to the meat farm. Transported as young as 4 days of age, they endure cold and hunger, without food for up to 30 hours, while struggling to maintain their footing in the cattle truck.

However if the calf is female she is raised as a dairy cow, living in the same conditions as her mothers. She too will live in a cycle of pregnancy and lactation, being forced to give birth to a baby calf each year, only to have that baby torn away from her within a few days. In the wild cows can live to be up to 25 years old. But on dairy farms they are slaughtered when they are only 8-10 years old meaning that most dairy cows live less than half their natural life span.

Because dairy cows are milked so excessively, NZ dairy cows have increased risks of teat diseases like mastitis. When a cow has mastitis her udder may become so inflamed that it is as hard as a stone, and blood bubbles into her milk, which becomes clotted and watery. Severe cases of mastitis can kill a cow in less than a day.

Dairy is a very nutritional, healthy and natural food, if you’re a baby calf! Cow’s milk is designed to be healthy for calves, who have four stomachs, gain hundreds of pounds in a few months and can weigh up to 1000 pounds before they are two years old. Dairy products contain no complex carbohydrates or fiber but instead are packed full of saturated fats and cholesterol. Because of this, dairy products have been linked to asthma, allergies, heart disease, cancer and obesity. Dairy companies continually promote dairy products for calcium and bone health. However dairy products are actually quite low in calcium, compared to foods like soy milk, almonds, nuts, apricots, broccoli, figs, and tofu. In fact, one serving of sesame seeds has almost double the calcium as a glass of cow’s milk and one serving of soymilk has almost 100 milligrams more calcium then a serving of cow’s milk. Magnesium, Potassium, Vitamin C, and Vitamin K are all required for good bone health. These vitamins are all found in a vegan diet. The only mineral that vegans should look out for is Vitamin B12. Vegans should either take a B12 supplement or eat foods fortified with B12, such as marmite and soymilk

There are dairy free cheeses, chocolates, milks, yogurts, pretty much any dairy food you can think of can be made vegan. For example try replacing dairy yogurt with soy yogurts like King lands, which is available at most supermarkets. Replace cheese with vegan cheeses like Scheese and Cheezley which you can buy at http://www.choosecruetlyfree.co.nz. There are rice, almond, oat and soymilks all available at supermarkets, just experiment with different types, flavors and brands until you find one that you like. Most people think that if they go vegan they will have to give up chocolate. This is simply not true. All of Whittaker’s dark chocolates are vegan, and you can get dairy free white chocolate at http://www.choosecruetlyfree.co.nz. Replace butter with dairy free margarine like Olivani, which can be found at most supermarkets. Literally anything can be made vegan. Nachos, pizza, pasta, casserole, stew, soup, burgers, hot chips, sausages, you name it there’s a vegan alternative.

The person who wrote the above has a website with lots of information on this issue and I’d really recommend going to see it: http://www.nzdairy.webs.com/

Here are a few more pamphlets… The view them properly right click on the files and select “view image” – really worth reading.

Please take the time to read the following pamphlet we were handing out to people, it makes a difference if we can all know about it and talk to others about it (it’ll also make you cry) – right click on the image and select “view image” to see the whole picture:

Thank you for your editorial on pork farming in New Zealand on 25 May 2009. I had the privilege of bumping into Save Animals From Exploitation’s campaign director Hans Kriek the other day and he informed me that in their natural habitat pigs would not eat and excrement in the same area, yet they are forced to do this in the factories. Seeing the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee’s chairman Peter O’Hara justify such cruel conditions on TV One’s Sunday programme by saying that “there is no reason to think that the animals are not happy” made me so angry. It is incredulous that this is the man the government is relying on to make recommendations on reviewing the animal welfare code. If only he could experience the same suffering they go through – perhaps he could have his dinner inside a toilet bowl and keep his wife inside a crate with no room to move during her pregnancies?

It’s distressing how much pain pigs have to go through just to end up on our plates. Please have a read of these extracts from Liberate Magazine, it’s so sad (right click on the pictures and then select “view image” to view the whole page – note that there are three separate files):

To be honest though I only went on though because I thought that the police had given us the go ahead after seeing everyone else go on. It was a bit distressing seeing footage on the news of them risking their lives running in front of oncoming vehicles to stop them in order to protect us.

Obviously had the Transport Agency allowed us two lanes to cross over in the first place that would have been the best. I really respect how the organiser Bevan Woodward didn’t go over as he was keeping his word about how he wanted it to be a peaceful protest and not break the law.

Here’s a photo of me and my friends on the top:

My earliest memories of thinking about animal rights was when I read about how all the members of Def Leppard were vegetarians. The singer explained that he went to a farm once and looked into the eyes of a big brown cow and just couldn’t bring himself to eat meat anymore.

I first found out about SAFE when I was in College and saw Angela Bloomfield talk about them on TV. Later on I used one of their battery caged hen ads which I found in a Time Magazine for a 7th form English class, and reading it just made me realise what animals have to go through just to satisfy our own selfish desires.

If you’d like more information you can visit SAFE’s website, or more specifically their campaign site for pigs.

I wrote to some of the MPs regarding this issue and received responses from Bill English and Nick Smith. This was the format of my letters:

I would like to write to you regarding the potential resumption of live sheep exports to the Middle East. I honestly believe that although having a good trading relationship with other countries is important, this is an area that we must withhold from. I understand that you are an extremely busy person but I really hope that your secretary or volunteer assistant can watch the following two minute video and convince you to either do the same or discuss it with you. It is a video made by an Australian animal rights group that shows footage of the conditions sheep have to go through when transported overseas:

I strongly urge you to seriously consider this issue and stand up for the rights of the animals in your next meeting with your caucus regarding this. I also attach some delicious vegetarian recipes for you to try out with your family if you wish.

I finally received a reply from the Prime Minister’s office today, and here is what he wrote:

On behalf of the Prime Minister, Hon John Key, thank you for recent letter concerning the export of live sheep for slaughter.

Mr Key can assure you that the export of live sheep for slaughter will not resume unless strict animal welfare standards are met and New Zealand’s reputation as a responsible exporter of agricultural products is maintained.

Since 2004, New Zealand has been negotiating towards a bilateral Arrangement with Saudi Arabia to re-open the way for the export of live sheep for slaughter. New Zealand stopped livestock exports to Saudi Arabia following the 2003 Cormo Express incident where there was a delay in offloading of live sheep from Australia to Saudi Arabia, resulting in a high death toll.

The aim of the Arrangement is to establish clear veterinary, transportation, quarantine and arrival processing guidelines, in order to ensure the welfare of animals. If the Arrangement is finalised, it would provide for an inspection by MAF Officials of the port, methods of transportation, holding and quarantine facilities, and commercial slaughterhouses in Saudi Arabia that would be utilised if a shipment from New Zealand was approved.

The Arrangement includes specific provision to guarantee the offloading of sheep – to prevent the risk of a repeat of the Cormo Express incident – and restricting trade to commercial slaughter houses. In addition, we propose requirements on both New Zealand and Saudi Arabia to abide by guidelines for the slaughter and transport of animals and killing of animals for disease control purposes agreed by the World Animal Health Organisation, of which we are both members.

These negotiations are continuing, and there is no set timetable for completion.

In 2007, Cabinet directed MAF to review the policy on the export of livestock for slaughter. Following this, the Customs Export Prohibition (Livestock for Slaughter) Order 2007 (CEPO) was put in place to prohibit the export of livestock for slaughter from New Zealand. The CEPO applies to all exports of cattle, sheep, deer and goats for slaughter regardless of the country of destination and the size of the shipment. The prohibition is not absolute and individual consignments may be approved by the Director-General of MAF on a case-by-case basis.

The Government is confident that trade in live sheep for slaughter to Saudi Arabia will resume only when there is a country-to-country agreement in place to support the trade relationship and in circumstances where individual consignments satisfy animal welfare standards.

Please do make the effort to send them e-mails of your own as major public pressure can often affect political decisions.

I think what we could do to help is to share our love for animals with the little children we know, and as they grow up they’ll become more aware about it and have a passion for making a difference. It can be quite easy to just become desensitised towards animal welfare and say things like: “that steak was delicious”, at a restaurant or: “that burger was delicious”, without thinking about the animal who never got a choice as to how their life would turn out. Animals deserve so much better and we’re failing them.

Here is the link to Bobbie’s story.

I don’t endorse the domestication of animals, nor the breeding of them for the purposes of food. I wish more people could see the harm that’s being done to them – if you’re reading this I encourage you to visit http://www.safe.org.nz/. If we can’t look after those who need our love the most in this world, how are we ever going to be able to save it?

Below is an extract:

In a joint operation called “Operation Unity,” the three Zionist terrorist gangs, the Haganah, the Irgun and the Stern Gang surrounded the village at 4:30 AM, and then went in, raping and killing as they went, looting valuables and destroying property. The slaughter went on for two days. On the second day, a Red Cross volunteer happened onto the scene, and later described what the Zionist terrorists told him was “mopping up.” He indicated that the “mopping up was being done with knives, machine guns and grenades.” In a previously secret British report, quoted at “Deir Yassin Remembered,” (a web site operated by an international group of scholars, half of whom are Jewish or Jewish Israelis), “many young schoolgirls were raped and later slaughtered. Old women were also molested. One story is current concerning a case in which a young girl was literally torn in two. Many infants were also butchered and killed. I also saw one old woman… who had been severely beaten about the head with rifle butts. Women had bracelets torn from their arms and rings from their fingers and parts of some of the women’s ears were severed in order to remove earrings.”

Reports by some of the survivors:

Mr. Fahimi Zeidan, 12: “The Jews ordered all our family to line up against the wall and they started shooting us. I was hit in the side, but most of us children were saved because we hid behind our parents. The bullets hit my sister Kadri [age four] in the head, my sister Sameh [age eight] in the cheek, my brother Mohammed [age seven] in the chest. But all the others with us against the wall were killed: my father, my mother, my grandfather and grandmother, my uncles and aunts and some of their children.”

Ms. Haleem Eid, 30: “A man [shot] a bullet into the neck of my sister Salhiyeh who was nine months pregnant. Then he cut her stomach open with a butcher’s knife.”

Ms. Naaneh Khalil, 16, saw a man: “take a kind of sword and slash my neighbor Jamil Hish from head to toe then do the same thing on the steps to my house to my cousin Fathi.”

Ms. Safiyeh Attiyah, 41: “I screamed but around me other women were being raped too. Some of the men were so anxious to get our earrings they ripped our ears to pull them off faster.”

Mr. Mohamed Jaber, student, “The Jews [broke] in, [drove] everybody outside, put them against the wall and shot them. One of the women was carrying a three month old baby.”

Mr. Abu Mahmud 70: “They took about 40 prisoners from the village. But after the battle was over, they took them to the quarry where they shot them dead and threw their bodies in the quarry. After they [the terrorists] removed their [the terrorists'] dead and wounded [from the village], they took the prisoners and killed them. They took the elderly prisoners, women and men and took them out of the village, yet they killed the youths.”(DYR)

There are reports that both the British commander in the area and the Jewish Agency both knew what was happening, but no one intervened to stop it.

The whole article detailing the background of how it began is available here.