We wanted to provide a quick update on the Sentience Bill ahead of today’s debate. This afternoon at 14:30, the House of Lords grand committee meet for the second time this month to continue reviewing suggested amendments to the bill.
Two particularly important amendments being debated today are calling for invertebrates, like crabs and lobsters, to be included in the bill. If the Lords agree that these amendments should be made, then we’re a big step closer to getting these animals protected!
At the time of critical debates such as this, it is essential to show how much support there is for this issue! Make sure to show your support today by completing our two actions. They only take a few minutes and make a massive difference:
These things happen legally because crustaceans and molluscs are not included in the Animal Welfare Act.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell the UK government to end these cruel practices and make it mandatory to treat these wild animals humanely – WITHOUT PAIN AND SUFFERING! – it will only take you a couple of minutes and it has to be NOW because they deciding right now whether to include crustaceans in the Sentience Bill and the Animal Welfare Act.
Stop lobsters, crabs and other shellfish being boiled alive by uploading a selfie to show the government you support Crustacean Compassion’s campaign.
The government is still undecided about including crustaceans in the new Sentience Bill, so please, no matter where you’re from, upload a selfie to tell the British government to do the right thing. This is an opportunity we’ve never had before. Thanks to Crustacean Compassion we are closer than ever to getting some protection for these horrifically abused animals. Don’t let it slip through our fingers. Add your picture to Crustacean Compassion’s selfie wall now!
Stop lobsters, crabs and other shellfish being boiled alive by uploading a selfie to show the government you support Crustacean Compassion’s campaign.
The government is still undecided about including crustaceans in the new Sentience Bill, so please, no matter where you’re from, upload a selfie to tell the British government to do the right thing. This is an opportunity we’ve never had before. Thanks to Crustacean Compassion we are closer than ever to getting some protection for these horrifically abused animals. Don’t let it slip through our fingers. Add your picture to Crustacean Compassion’s selfie wall now!
I haven’t posted in a few weeks – still working on The English Family Anderson Chapter 4 which is not ready yet – but right now I want to share something I just read at the Tamera Peace Research and Education Centre. It was written in January this year and is filled with truth and rationality – something very hard to find in the current climate. I thought it would interest you too.
You can read the whole article here. [NB The grey text above the top photo and below the bottom one are from me. The black text in between is all Tamera 😉 ]
For a year, Covid-19 has held the world in suspense. The infection with SARS-CoV-2 is evidently mild in most cases, but unfortunately not in all. … At the same time, we observe millions of cases of human suffering which aren’t caused by the virus, but precisely by the measures taken to contain it: The elderly, the vulnerable and the sick, who in many places become lonely, desperate and often enough have to die alone; the traumatization of an entire generation of children and young people, who are being inculcated with the fear of other people and the guilt of being themselves a danger to others and loved ones; an increase in psychological distress, mental illness and domestic violence, a rising suicide rate; and the medical undersupply of millions of people, because hospitals, medical practices and examination institutes cannot work as they used to, due to imposed Corona measures.
In addition, there are the unmistakable socio-economic consequences of the prevailing Corona policies. We are seeing an economic crisis and redistribution of wealth that has been unparalleled since the 1920s: countless small and medium-sized businesses have been driven into insolvency, while the super-rich reap unprecedented profits. While hundreds of millions of people become unemployed, while hunger and homelessness skyrocket around the world, large corporations are recording all-time high profits, especially in the digital and pharmaceutical sectors. Stock markets have flourished. Between April and July 2020 alone, in just four months, the wealth of billionaires grew by 27.5%, or US $10.2 trillion.
The economic and humanitarian consequences of the lockdowns have been particularly devastating in much of the Global South. In many countries, almost the entire informal sector came to a standstill virtually overnight, pushing hundreds of millions into extreme poverty, hunger and misery. The UN currently estimates that the number of people starving worldwide will increase by 83 million to 132 million as a result of the Corona measures alone. Last summer, the aid agency Oxfam predicted that by the end of 2020, up to 12,000 additional people would starve to death every day as a result of the measures alone.
Today, we know that the early hypothetical model calculations for Corona deaths, which moved governments in many countries to impose lockdowns and other drastic measures, were inflated. At the same time, many experts have voiced doubts over determining infection numbers by PCR tests alone, over the effectiveness of lockdowns, social distancing and mask-wearing and over the hastily approved new vaccines and their associated risks. Yet, to date, very few diverse expert committees have been able to review the effectiveness and proportionality of the measures taken.
The Corona virus has often been portrayed by the media and politicians as an unprecedented new phenomenon. Nevertheless, as with any disease, the same principle applies: Treatment measures must not cause more harm than the disease itself.
Fear has been the principle that governments and media in many countries have followed in responding to the Corona crisis from the beginning. Instead of providing prudent information, many governments fomented fear of disease and death – sometimes deliberately, as can be seen, for example, in an internal strategy paper of the German government, to “achieve the desired shock effect” and make people comply with the measures. Fear, however, is rarely a good advisor when it comes to managing crises. Unconscious fear causes polarization, disrupts communication and makes it hard to assess events in a rational manner. Fear often leads to protective measures that only intensify danger or even conjure it up.
The Covid-19 measures are resulting in deep societal divisions, and meaningful communication between the different camps hardly seems possible. On the one hand, governments are trying to curb the spread of the virus with extensive information campaigns and restrictions, while on the other hand, thousands of renowned doctors, scientists and experts critical of the way Covid-19 is being managed are ignored by politicians, defamed by mass media and censored on social media.
A new vaccine that was approved within just a few months is proposed for billions of people, even though it normally takes 5–10 years to complete the necessary studies and testing phases to assess the extent of harmful side effects of new vaccines. With this, the pharmacologist Prof. Stefan Hockertz warns of “human experimentation.” Already now, there are more and more reports of side effects, some of them severe, from various countries. However, it is still unclear as to what extent the vaccine may actually contain infections. On December 29, WHO lead scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan admitted, “I don’t believe we have the evidence on any of the vaccines to be confident that it’s going to prevent people from actually getting the infection and therefore being able to pass it on. So I think we need to assume that people who have been vaccinated also need to take the same precautions.”
The Covid-19 measures raise deep ethical and social questions. In his essay, “The Coronation,” the author and visionary Charles Eisenstein writes, “What world shall we live in? How much of life do we want to sacrifice at the altar of security? If it keeps us safer, do we want to live in a world where human beings never congregate? … Are we willing to accept the medicalization of life in general, handing over final sovereignty over our bodies to medical authorities (as selected by political ones)? How much are we willing to live in fear?”
If you don’t trust pharmaceutical companies, or politicians, why would you believe anything they tell you about this or anything else? I’m not saying this isn’t a crisis, but I haven’t heard anyone in the mainstream talk about ending animal farming to prevent future crises; or teaching people that whole food plant-based nutrition will strengthen their immune system while an animal-based diet will compromise it. I wonder if that’s because pharmaceutical companies make nearly all their money from the medications they sell for the chronic diseases caused by consumption of animal products; the medications they sell to tackle the avoidable infectious zoonotic diseases* like covid which emerge from the way humans treat animals; and the medications they produce for the farmed animals themselves**.
The World Health Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, and the World Organisation for Animal Health got together to uncover the key underlying causes of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. They came up with four main risk factors. These include the exotic pet trade, and bush meat, but number one on their list was the increasing demand for animal protein the world over. They blame the emergence of COVID-19, H5N1, SARS, Nipah virus, all these new deadly viruses, on over-consumption of animal products. [From a youtube video by Dr Michael Greger]
It’s worth bearing in mind that covid 19 has a mortality rate below 1%. What if the next highly infectious disease has the mortality rate of H5N1 bird flu (60%)?
I said I would do this every year until Raystede went vegan, but last year I didn’t because it was lockdown, Raystede was closed to the public, and I thought I’d give them some breathing space in the hope that they’d come to their senses. Sadly they haven’t so we begin again.
I promised to publish photos of dairy babies every year for the duration of this campaign because these gentle souls are usually forgotten in the consumption of milk, butter, cheese and ice cream. They deserve to be remembered.
These adorable tots have only been in this field for a few days now but they might remain here for a few months. The ones from last year did. And the ones before that. And the ones before that. Their brief motherless lives will end after that, unless they’re female and required by the farmer to provide milk like their…
Remember The English Family Anderson? You know, the ones who live on a bus. Well, we haven’t heard from them in a while but now they’re back and it’s about to get spooky!
Chapter 4 begins with Casey catching you up on the story so far:
This is a brilliant inspirational post from Eartha Lowe, which makes me want to grow my own food, and tells you all the ways to go about it, even if you don’t have a garden. Click here to read the whole thing.
Gardening, for many people, is a uniquely fulfilling leisure pursuit. There are few better ways of quieting anxieties, stilling emotions and regaining a truer perspective on life. The whole point of maintaining a garden is to provide relaxation, or even food for the spirit with your own nurturing hands. However small your plot is, use it to grow aromatic herbs or flowers, attract butterflies, or maybe even vegetables and fruits – if you are really ambitious.
Healthy, fresh food is right at your doorstep, but before you get growing, you MUST do a bit of planning. You can grow food even if you do not have a yard. Grow food on a window ledge, up a wall, on a roof, in a community garden allotment garden, or through a backyard sharing program. Here are some important things to know to start growing food at home.
Why? It’s a good time to explore ways to grow your own food. You get to enjoy healthy, delicious, family favourites right where you live. Growing food at home in your city, is also an important and effective way to create food-friendly neighbourhoods, and space to grow can be found anywhere.
Where? As more and more people are interested in growing their own food and exploring ways to create productive gardens at home, getting to know the small spaces, bigger spaces, or space in between where food can be grown, is an important first step.
The Perils of Percy Peardrop continues from yesterday. To catch up on the story so far, click here 😀
Well done team! But hurry up and get Percy untied Mildred, the twins won’t be able to detain Mr Bottom for long, and the Flat-Capped Menace is heading your way. Hurry!
Percy’s story will continue on Monday. Have a great weekend! 😀
The Perils of Percy Peardrop continues from yesterday. To catch up on the story so far, click here 😀
Oh come on Mildred – don’t leave us hanging! What’s your plan? Is it clever enough and will it be quick enough to save Percy from the fast slow-approaching steam roller? I guess we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out. See you then! 😉
The Perils of Percy Peardrop continues from yesterday. To catch up on the story so far, click here 😀
Oh my gosh! 😮 Is Percy finished? Has the Flat-Capped Menace conquered his prey? Or will Mildred and the girls get there in time to stop him? Come back tomorrow to find out! 😀
Oh my goodness! Will Mildred and the girl scout twins reach Penelope in time? Will baby Percy be caught by the despicable Mr Bottom? Will the Flat-Capped Menace fall out of his balloon basket? Come back tomorrow to find out!
Hillside is now home to over 4000 rescued animals but their work doesn’t end there. They also conduct investigations into the way animals are treated on farms and have repeatedly exposed and published the horrors found there. They say they have always known that one of the main reasons animals are left to suffer in factory farms is because people have little or no idea about the immense cruelty involved in their ‘food’ production.
We have supported Hillside’s amazing work for many years now so we’re thrilled to be able to donate 100% of the royalties from our Luke Walker series of books 😀 For every Luke Walker book sold in our Lulu shop, Hillside will receive £1, so if someone you know has a birthday coming up, why not get them a present full of funny stories they’ll love that will also help the animals they love? ❤
UPDATE: The result of Defra’s independent review of decapod sentience is due imminently, and the outcome will be crucial for moving towards legislation. Crustacean Compassion are working hard to prepare. The best thing you can do right now is make sure you’re following their social media channels, like and share their posts (Crustacean Compassion Facebook and @crab_welfare Twitter) and are subscribed to their emails (sign up via their website) so that as soon as they release their action you are ready to take part! Keep an eye out as once Defra release their outcome, they’ll need you immediately!
***
Download and colour these lovely pictures of crustaceans and then scroll down to see how you can protect them in real life 😀
Crustacean Compassion is an award-winning animal welfare organisation dedicated to the humane treatment of decapod crustaceans. They are a group of animal welfare professionals who are shocked by the inhumane treatment of crabs, lobsters, prawns and crayfish, particularly in the food industry, given what is now known about their sentience. They founded the organisation when they heard that crabs were being sold alive fully immobilised in shrinkwrap in UK supermarkets, and that the RSPCA were powerless to act as the animals are not covered by the Animal Welfare Act 2006. It is also legal, and commonplace, in the UK for crustaceans to be boiled or dismembered/cut while still alive.
Inhumane Slaughter Methods
All of the following methods have been described as inhumane by the EU’s Animal Health and Welfare Scientific Panel:
Live boiling. During this process lobsters and crabs thrash, try to escape, and shed their limbs, known to be a sign of stress. Crustaceans, unlike us and other animals, are not able to go into shock and lose consciousness to protect themselves from extreme pain. A crab can take 3 minutes to die in boiling water.
Chilling in the freezer/ice slurry before live boiling. There is no evidence to suggest that this induces anaesthesia rather than just paralysis. Roth and Øines find that chilling is often slow and ineffective. Keeping live lobsters on ice has been banned in Switzerland and Italy. (Roth, B. and Øines, S., 2010. Stunning and killing of edible crabs (Cancer pagurus), Animal Welfare, Volume 19, Number 3, August 2010 , pp. 287-294(8). Universities Federation for Animal Welfare)
Live carving / dismemberment. Whilst some uses of the knife may be more humane than others (see the RSPCA’s guide), it is vital that the correct nerve chains are severed quickly. In particular, lobsters must be severed lengthways all the way down the body. All too often this is not the case, with chefs claiming splitting the head of a chilled lobster kills him instantly. This method is highly likely to cause pain – even if the animals have been previously chilled to a torpor.
*
Crustacean Compassion engage with legislators and policy makers to strengthen and enforce animal welfare law and policy. They work to persuade and enable companies to sell higher welfare products across their shellfish product ranges. And they seek to educate both the public and policy makers on the science of decapod crustacean sentience and on their humane treatment and care.
Sign Crustacean Compassion’s petition to get crustaceans included in the Animal Welfare Act 2006! This would mean that anyone farming them, storing them or slaughtering them must abide by basic animal welfare rules – providing enough food, decent water quality, protection from pain and suffering, and humane slaughter methods.
Other countries including New Zealand, Austria, Norway and Switzerland include decapod crustaceans in their animal welfare legislation in the food preparation and restaurant trade. Their decisions are based on scientific evidence of the animals’ ability to feel pain and suffer, dating as far back as the 1990s; and they have largely taken a common sense approach to prevent unnecessary suffering where doubt still exists. For example:
the sale of live creatures to the general public is prohibited
chefs or other slaughterers must have a certificate of competence and prevent unnecessary suffering
decapods must be appropriately housed, in good quality water
they must be cared for in a way which prevents injuries and disease
their conditions must allow for ‘species-specific behaviour’
Until decapod crustaceans are included under the definition of ‘animal’ in welfare legislation, the UK government is not obliged to draw up guidelines for their humane slaughter. This means that even where restaurants and supermarkets want to do the right thing*, it’s not easy to find guidance.
UPDATE: The result of Defra’s independent review of decapod sentience is due imminently, and the outcome will be crucial for moving towards legislation. Crustacean Compassion are working hard to prepare. The best thing you can do right now is make sure you’re following their social media channels, like and share their posts (Crustacean Compassion Facebook and @crab_welfare Twitter) and are subscribed to their emails (sign up via their website) so that as soon as they release their action you are ready to take part! Keep an eye out as once Defra release their outcome, they’ll need you immediately!
The RSPCA has made it easy for us to contribute to the UK Government’s consultation about their proposed end to live transport. They’re asking for the opinion of a lot of farmers who will argue for its continuation so we’ve got to make sure they know how many people are desperate for it to end.
Or you can fill in the complete consultation questionnaire here on DEFRA’s website. There’s quite a few questions but many of us non-farmers will just answer N/A (not applicable) to many of them.
When I began it, I tried to follow the RSPCA suggestions but I soon found I could no longer pretend to agree that it was okay to transport animals to their deaths at all. I know this is a consultation to end live transport and not to end animal farming altogether, but I felt that surely it must be worth making the point that there is no justification for any animal farming in the first place. It might make an impression if enough of us say it. Anyway, if you want to speed up the process of answering the full DEFRA questionnaire, you’re welcome to copy my answers:
Until we, the human collective, fully awaken–from within our hearts–to acknowledge the Absolute Truth that we are One with ALL Life, ONLY then can we ensure the survival of Mother Earth and her Universal Family.
To evolve to the inner consciousness of ONENESS means living with the full understanding that ALL Life is sacred and must be treated that way.
ONLY then can we bring our normalized violence–which separates and targets any being, human or nonhuman, deemed “NOT LIKE US” and therefore, “LESS THAN US” – to an end.
ONLY then can sustainable social change take place – in our outer world – to ensure that institutionally oppressed INDIVIDUAL lives matter. To transform systematic racism, sexism, heterosexism, speciesism, transphobia, etc., we, the human collective, must now awaken within us a new COMPASSION for ALL that will reflect an inclusive culture, honouring the interconnectedness of life.
“The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.” Paul Farmer
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. ” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
ONLY Compassion for ALL Beings can create a culture of Peace on Earth.
Compassion means, literally, “to suffer with.” The State of Being Compassionate involves allowing oneself to be moved by suffering, so that we experience the motivation to help alleviate and prevent it.
Compassion can ONLY be manifested by daily NON-VIOLENT choices and actions. And that includes standing up against ALL Injustice.
In Dr. Will Tuttle’s book, The World Peace Diet, he reveals the invisible attitudes we ingest at every meal by the relentless and routine killing of animals for food. Our inherent wisdom and compassion, he says, is brutally suppressed as our culture’s mentality of violence and disconnectedness is injected into our meal rituals of animal-derived food.
If we, the human collective, continue to live much of our daily lives by rote behaviour passed down through the ages, from parent to child, disconnected from our True Nature as we separate ourselves from the diversity of Life – which includes other human and nonhuman animals alike – and abandoning Mother Earth herself, our compartmentalized existence will NEVER sustain a world worth living in for ALL.
Until we choose to awaken our hearts to the INTENTION of Compassion for ALL who share our Home [Planet], with daily NON-VIOLENT actions aligned to that conviction, ONLY then will our chaotic, violent culture slowly begin to change our current reality.
Therefore, Veganism must be the necessary FIRST step to deprogram ourselves from centuries of archaic human conditioning that has indoctrinated us to believe in, and fully accept, the Paradigm of OPPRESSION in our culture.
“A revolution of the heart,” says Gary L. Francione, is required. “What I mean by that is that we must reject all ideologies of domination and power, whether religious or secular, that allow us to transform sentient beings—human or nonhuman—into the ‘other,’ thereby allowing us to ignore their moral value and to treat them as things. We must embrace nonviolence as a basic normative principle—a principle that we see as reflecting a moral truth.”
Compassion for ALL understands that “Thou Shall Not Kill” means ALL sentient beings, for we are all valued members of Mother Earth’s Universal Family. “FARM” ANIMALS ARE SENTIENT BEINGS. FISH ARE SENTIENT BEINGS. RATS AND MICE ARE SENTIENT BEINGS. PITBULLS and “RACE” HORSES ARE SENTIENT BEINGS. WILDLIFE ARE SENTIENT BEINGS. THE HOMELESS, HUMAN AND NONHUMAN, ARE SENTIENT BEINGS.
And YOU and YOU and YOU across the globe, no matter the body you live in, no matter the skin color, the age, the race, the nation, the culture, the economic class, no matter the sexual orientation, the gender, the physical or mental disability, the spiritual or religious belief. And no matter the species. For here is the diverse beauty of our interconnectedness.
Last week, or the week before, I got an email from a lovely lady called Alison who works at REDFIN (an Estate Agent) in Seattle. She said she wanted to do a blog post filled with beginner tips for how to make your home vegan, and wanted us to join in. We were delighted to help and if you read her post you’ll see that the best tip (number 7) comes from Violet’s Vegan Comics! 😉 I also suggested another tip about wearing an extra jumper so you can turn your thermostat down, but I guess she didn’t have room for that 😀
NB: Not all vegans live in a house like this. Some of us live in a caravan!
By Alison Bentley of REDFIN:
“The beginning of every year is filled with New Year’s resolutions- whether that’s planning to clean your home more, make your home more sustainable, or deciding to go vegan. Every year more and more people take steps to live a more vegan lifestyle. But for many, becoming vegan can be tough to follow through with, and people often give up a couple weeks in. To help make living a vegan lifestyle easier, we’ve reached out to experts from Atlanta, GA to those living in Phoenix, AZ [and the UK (us!)] to share their best beginner tips on how to create a vegan house. From pantry essentials to fabrics and cleaning products to avoid, these 21 tips will help you transition your home to one that’s more vegan-friendly in 2021.” Read on …
Violet's Vegan Comics 