Dairy Cows and Beef Production

Dairy cows are impregnated artificially so that they give birth to calves and give milk. Once the calves are born, some are kept to replace their mothers while the weakest are slaughtered almost immediately for pet food. Others are fattened for veal while many are reared intensively for beef. They are confined in a closed area on concrete floors so afflictions such as lameness are common. Routine mutilations include branding, ear tagging, tail docking, castration, spaying and dehorning.

This method of raising cattle is also spreading to India. Pass the soya milk! GO VEGAN!


Animal Sentience

Compassion in World Farming organised a hugely successful conference on animal sentience in March 2005. Hundreds of delegates from many parts of the world attended the conference. There were eminent speakers, many of whom were
scientists. The scientific community is beginning to accept that animals have emotions and feel pleasure and pain
- an idea that was taken for granted in India tens of thousands of years ago!

Modern science killed off any idea of animal suffering, but CIWF is doing wonderful work in getting that very
scientific community to think again!


Asiatic Black Bears

Right across China 7000 Asiatic black bears are factory farmed under the most deplorable conditions. The Animals Asia Foundation is doing great work in rescuing the bears with the ultimate aim of ending this terrible practice. For further info go to www.animalsasia.org

Avoid...

Woollen clothes, leather goods (shoes, sofas etc.), silk ties and saris! Avoid meat restaurants even if they serve veggie food! Give your business to vegetarian restaurants!


The Slaughter of Fish

Around 70 million fish are produced and slaughtered in Britain every year. Somehow people seem to think that
fish do not feel pain and that it is not as bad as killing other animals. But fish do suffer and feel pain – we humans just need to take more notice.

Here are the various methods by which fish are killed:

1 By using a club to hit the fish on the head. The gill arches are then cut to bleed the fish.
2 Carbon dioxide stunning – this is done by placing the fish in a seawater bath saturated with carbon dioxide. Fish can be observed shaking vigorously in pain.
3 Bleeding without prior stunning - the gill arches are cut with a knife and the fish bleed to death.
4 Electrocution - an electric current is passed through water containing fish.
5 Suffocation - Hauling the fish out of the water or draining the water away and suffocating them. Alternatively they are removed from the water and put into bins containing ice. Fish suffer a long time before dying.

(The above information was collected from a CIWF trust report called, ‘In too deep’, by Philip Lymbery)