The Weekly Times, a rural Victorian newspaper, had a feature this week on animal rights. It reports on a group called Voiceless that plans to work with school children against the eating and wearing of animal products.
Interestingly Voiceless already have a program with Griffith University for the development of a school curriculum.
While the Weekly Times article suggests Voiceless are also against the harvesting of kangaroos, their website focuses on intensive farming of animals, particularly pigs.
Not so long ago I spoke with farmers at Cowra about what groups like Voiceless and PETA represent. Here’s an extract:
“There has been much written about how Australia’s national character emerged from a bush ethos: the idea that a specifically Australian outlook emerged first amongst workers in the Australian pastoral industry. The recent, big environmental and animal liberation campaigns, however, challenge key assumptions from this history. They portray Australian agriculture as harmful to the environment, and the animal liberationists suggest that our farmers are inhumane.
Banjo Paterson, perhaps more than any other writer, created and defined our cultural heritage. His story about the shearer and his jumbuck in outback Queensland remains our most popular national song.
Renditions of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ dominate when Australians gather at major international sporting events, including the Olympic Games and Rugby Union matches.
But People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are campaigning against the wool industry. They are against live export and they are against mulesing. As part of the campaign against wool products focused on US consumers, PETA campaigners have also suggested that the Australian climate is too hot for sheep.
‘The Man from Snowy River’, also by Paterson, is about bushmen and their horses in the High Country. The man from Snowy River chased the brumbies ‘down the mountain like a torrent down its bed’ through open country and mountain scrub before ‘turning their heads for home’ with his pony covered in ‘blood from hip to shoulder from the spur’.
Now the NSW and Victorian Governments are intent on banning grazing and brumbies from the High Country on the basis that they have an adverse impact on the natural heritage of the Alpine region.
The Victorian mountain cattlemen sought an emergency cultural and historic heritage listing with the Federal Environment Minister to counter the Victorian Government’s proposed ban on grazing. But lost.
No-one has a monopoly on the future. Perhaps it is time that Australians moved beyond ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and ‘The Man from Snowy River’? The PETA Website explains that there are alternatives to wool, including:
“polyester fleece, synthetic shearling, and other cruelty-free fibres. Tencel — breathable, durable, and biodegradable — is one of the newest cruelty free wool substitutes…. Choosing to buy these non-wool products not only helps the animals, but can also reduce or eliminate many of the consumer problems and inconveniences that go along with wearing or using wool. “But what about a replacement for lamb chops? While the animal liberationists are against the farming of exotic animals, like sheep, they are also intent on preventing the development of any industry based on the farming of Australian native animals, including kangaroos. PETA is even against the drinking of milk.”
Perhaps we will one day all eat tofu and wear polyester fleece jumpers?
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
If it is true that PETA is against the drinking of milk, then I think this is intrusive and misguided. But I highly doubt that your third or fourth hand account of their position is accurate. Did you verify this?
It is easy, both for animal rights activists and for those who disagree with them, to conflate the fact of consumption with the method of production. I object to any of those on either side of this issue who forget that the problem is not farming, but factory farming.
Why do you have a problem with factories? (insert numerous links)
I think the living conditions in many of them, such as egg factories and veal farms especially, are really apalling and the reliance on hormones and antibiotics and other pharmacuticals is very unhealthy for the human consumers.
I don’t know that much about Australian methods, I am thinking about NA. I do recall that the meat products in Australia are quite delicious though…
Coby,
i am quoting from speech notes … the speech notes were developed from researching the PETA website… PETA work from the Vegan philosophy and Vegans are against the use of all animal product including real milk. you will note that the Weekly Times article begins with reference to a promotion for soya milk. is soya milk, really milk?
Can’t stand soya milk! Or soya cheese. Funny anecdote: in Alberta (Canada praries) the dairy industry is very powerful and it is ILLEGAL to sell soy cheese! Some health food stores smuggle it in and sell it on request from the basement…true story.
Ok, didn’t know PETA are vegan. Should not try to force those choices on anyone they are persona.
Are you sure cody? – there is a heap in BC, canadian suppliers are on ;
http://www.soybean.on.ca/database/search.php3?Business=
Dear Coby
If you “don’t know that much about Australian methods” why state state on an Australian website that “the reliance on hormones and antibiotics and other pharmacuticals is very unhealthy for the human consumers”?
Australian broiler growers do not use hormones.
If you are so concerned about verification it wouldn’t have been too hard to check.
Blair
I am sure at least in 1991 or 2 when I moved back to Calgary for one year. Alberta is *very* different from BC (where the goods were “smuggled” from). In Vancouver (1.5 million) there were hundreds of organic food stores, veggies, soy milk that kind of stuff. In Calgary (800K) there were TWO!! Oil, beef and diary country, long haired freaky people need not apply 😉
Could be very different now, organic veggies are available in all supermarkets in Vancouver now.
So much for that story.
The movement against factory farming does not make sense. Under such conditions animals are given shelter, food, water and are treated for disease. Healthy animals make better use of food resources thereby reducing wastage.
The alternative eg open range chicken and pig farms, have problems with loss to predators, extremes of weather and sickness (loss of weight and/or death), more (cleared) land required for animals to roam, soil erosion and environmental pollution.
The increased consumption of food and land and loss through disease would result in less product at higher prices with poorer people unable to afford these products.
It just does not add up.
Reading the Voiceless stuff on pigs; our experience with sows was that they can roll on and squash piglets hence the barrier (they can also eat the young)
Anything of substance to show that factory animals are happier & healthier rog?
Jennifer are the ranges are overstocked and overgrazed (brumbies and cattle)? What is the environmental impact from current stock levels?
Hi Blair,
The comment was about factory farming, where ever it may be done. Sorry if you found it off topic. Point taken about not checking, thanks.
Rog,
Factory farming is the biggest threat to animal welfare worldwide.
Factory farmed animals are caged or crammed in conditions that allow no display of natural behaviour and in most cases no daylight. The animals live in a stinking hell.
Factory farming is also the reason to the development of bird flu.
Animals are born to roam around in the fields and not to be caged in, and no I’m not a vegetarian.
http://www.wspa-international.org/farmanimals.asp
I thought bird flu was caused by a virus, not by a system of farming. Of course, animals and people living in the natural state get sick too, as well as having shorter life spans than those living in captivity/domestication. (Other than those slaughtered for meat at a young age or at the end of their productive life.)
Animals don’t actually want to roam around in fields, they want to satisfy a fairly simple set of needs. Good intensive farming practice aims to satisfy those needs in a cost effective way so the farm can produce meat or whatever at a price that consumers will pay. It’s a good system that has helped to achieve the high levels of nutrition that we have in developed countries.
Hi Paul,
Some interesting info on avian flu and its development in large scale poultry industry:
http://www.birdlife.org/action/science/species/avian_flu/index.html#4
Animals don’t actually want to roam around in fields?? Could you please back this up with some scientific studies. It’s quite amazing to think that after thousands of years, jungle fowl finally get the break they’ve been looking for and been domesticated and put in factory farms.
PETA’s official Milk website – http://www.milksucks.com
I do not know where Coby got his information but, it is certainly not illegal in Alberta for soy cheese, soy products of any kind or any dairy alternatives to be sold. Such ignorance hurts….