vegan for all: August 2011

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Fish Can't Feel Pain? Don't Be So Sure

“But why not at least eat fish? They can’t feel pain anyway”.
Growing up vegetarian, this was an argument I encountered on a regular basis. I always balked at it, for a couple of different reasons. First, was the implication that the inability to feel pain somehow caused a life to be of lesser value. The other was, perhaps, a bit more complicated. How, I would ask, can we be sure that fish really don’t feel pain?

Breaking Investigation: Behind Indonesia's Exotic-Skins Trade

Every year in the exotic-skins industry, millions of snakes, lizards, crocodiles, and other animals are grotesquely abused and cruelly killed. Welfare is never a consideration for those who hunt, poach, farm, abuse, and kill these animals to turn them into bags, shoes, belts, gloves, and other accessories.

Who do you eat?

I am scared and don't want to die.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Be careful what you buy, even in the UK!!

Horror Chinese imports on sale in UK. Cuddly toy made from dead dogs

THE truth about this life-like cuddly toy will shock animal lovers the length and breadth of the country. It was bought in Scotland and appears to be a cute kitten, curled up asleep safe and sound in its wicker bed. But this “kitten” is made from the fur of REAL dogs — farmed in horrendous circumstances in China and slaughtered for their pelts.

Some are skinned before they are completely dead.

Fish: The forgotten victims on our plate

"Fish are not only capable of feeling pain, but also are a lot smarter than most people believe..."

When I was a child, my father used to take me for walks, often along a river or by the sea. We would pass people fishing, perhaps reeling in their lines with struggling fish hooked at the end of them. Once I saw a man take a small fish out of a bucket and impale it, still wriggling, on an empty hook to use as bait.

Mother bear kills cub and then itself

The Chinese media has reported on an extraordinary account of a mother bear saving her cub from a life of torture by strangling it and then killing itself.

The bears were kept in a farm located in a remote area in the North-West of China. The bears on the farm had their gall bladders milked daily for 'bear bile,' which is used as a remedy in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
It was reported that the bears are kept in tiny cages known as 'crush cages', as the bears have no room to manoeuvre and are literally crushed.

The bile is harvested by making a permanent hole or fistula in the bears' abdomen and gall bladder.
As the hole is never closed, the animals are suspect to various infections and diseases including tumours, cancers and death from peritonitis.

The bears are fitted with an iron vest, as they often try to kill themselves by hitting their stomach as they are unable to bear the pain.

A person who was on the farm in place of a friend witnessed the procedures and told Reminbao.com that they were inhumane.

The witness also claimed that a mother bear broke out its cage when it heard its cub howl in fear before a worker punctured its stomach to milk the bile.

The workers ran away in fear when they saw the mother bear rushing to its cub's side.
Unable to free the cub from its restraints, the mother hugged the cub and eventually strangled it.
It then dropped the cub and ran head-first into a wall, killing itself.

Many TCM practitioners have denounced the use of bear bile in their treatment as there are cheaper herbs and synthetics that can be used in its place.

Bear bile is traditionally used to remove 'heat' from the body as well as treat high fever, liver ailments and sore eyes.