Thanks very much for this article. For me the question of eating meat and if so, how much and what and how, is a daily one. I am not a vegetarian (even though I have been in several periods in my life). I realise that being a vegetarian (an option I consider many times) is socially almost impossible. Think about all the barbecues, dinner parties, christmas parties with an abundance of (meaty) snacks, etc. I try to find free range bacon whenever I want to eat bacon and eggs, but it is not as widely available as I hoped it would be. I really think that people eat too much meat and it's only getting more every year. The problem is that whenever we eat meat, we never know how much an animal has suffered for our greed. I think in the end I have no intention of becoming a vegetarian again, but I think the way people think they can do anything they like with animals is really disgusting.

Congratulations, Katrina Sharman and Voiceless!
Yours is a timely messge of hope.
If the human species doesn't start treating other species with compassion and dignity, what hope is there for us to deal decently with each other?
Therefore, what hope for the survival of the human species - preoccupied as it is with fear, suspicion, and the "need" to develop ever more terrible means of destroying each other.
I truly believe that compassionate treatment of animals is the starting point. It is good to know at Christmas, supposedly time of "peace on earth goodwill towards all people" that legal ways to protect animals are starting to happen.
Christina Macpherson
www.antinuclearaustralia.com

Like KeesB, I too cannot claim to be a strict vegitatian, but the only "meat" I will buy is a few sausages and a couple of boxes of re-manufactured fish fillets of dubious origin per year and KeesB, I fully agree with you. It's hard being a vegitarian unless you lock yourself away from all your friends and relatives who regularly partake in the famour "Aussie Barbie" however some sort of balance needs to take place. A colossal amount of water goes into intensive animal farming simply to feed obese patrons of fast food outlets such as McDonalds and Hungry Jacks, not to mention the plethora of pizza and chicken meat outlets dominating the Australian scene. It's a ridiculous situation and one the Government should have acted against long ago in the interests of a healthy population, but it won't happen while big business holds the reins of Government, nor will it happen whilst people continue to believe that animals are simply commodities who feel neither discomfort or pain. Humans, after all, are simply predatory animals who are currently at the top of the heap, but they can't remain there forever. Their own practices are slowly destroying their status and nature will eventually restore the balance.

Studies have consistently shown that wildlife populations can plumet by more than 90% when impacted by drought periods as short as three months. And if Katrina and her ignorant metrocentric cohorts think "factory farmed" animals live a sad life and a cruel death then she should take the time to observe wildlife starving en masse.

Yet, we have these urban "bimbocrites" who are first to condemn farmers for their practices but are never there with the bullet that would put an animal out of its misery. Indeed, at a time when farmers are being condemned for overstocking and all the ecological problems that result from it, there is no legal mechanism in the Kangaroo protection legislation to allow even the slightest culling of starving macropods in a drought.

For months after graziers have destocked their sheep or cattle, or have switched to hand feeding the core herd with debt, the community's 'Roo herd is desperately destroying the last vestiges of pasture in death throes that are cruel, destructive and tragic.

And where is the Minister for Environment?
Where is the Director General and his minions?
Where are the animal rights activists?

They've spent the budget on workshops, on leave, or posing for the camera, a thousand miles from care for any of the suffering they cause.

In response to KeesB and Wildcat:

I've been vego for 14 yrs now and would definitely consider myself a very social Aussie. I attend BBQs, go out for dinner and host dinner parties. It really is a bit of a cop out to say it is too hard to be vegetarian in today's society - if anything, it is much easier than it used to be. If you're invited to a BBQ just take a packet of vegie sausages along or make your own kebabs or patties. There is ALWAYS a vegie alternative on restaurant menus and if there isn't just ask the chef to make you something different. It really is no big deal. If you feel passionate about animals in factory farms then show some initiative and don't support the industry - it is NOT that hard to stop eating meat.

Another city slicker with absolutely no idea what is involved in living on the land, or the realities of feeding a nation. She's likely one of those kids who doesn't know where eggs come from.

I grew up shooting pests and ferals, and I've hated doing it, but it's a necessary evil so people who've been kept in cotton wool their whole lives (like most animal rights activists) can eat on a daily basis. They say society is only ever three hot meals from anarchy (or Arnold Rimmer did anyway :P)
Farmers shoot to kill by the way, not cause pain. They always go for the head shot, and minimise pain & distress for the animal, contrary to what the author would have you believe. The reality is most pests are dead before they hear the shot.

I wonder if the author has ever come close to, or even seen a feral predator in action? Clearly not, since they would gut you as soon as look at you, and they regularly do kill livestock, and it's a far more painful way to die than a .22 slug to the brain.

I hate that Roos are shot since they're native (don't care about shooting introduced pests), but the reality is they aren't in short supply, and culling is required to keep the livestock fed (though I refuse to participate in the shooting of any native animal).

Some lawyer with too much time on their hands, who clearly can't cut it in the real world, has no right to tell farmers how to live or operate, since she's just trying to carve out a niche or name for him/herself and their organisation.
Btw in my experience, one can hardly be expected to listen to a lecture on morality or humanity of any kind from a lawyer, since it's their business to make a mockery of the moral compass of society.

I will however, agree with the author that activities such as duck hunting, or any other form of "sport" hunting is disgusting, and should be banned outright.

Katrina Sharman is the Corporate Counsel for Voiceless, Clueless or Gormless; which one is it? Katrina, I explored the Voiceless site and saw scant mention of the religion that insists on an animal to be completely alive just prior to having its throat slit. A more cruel or callous act is hard to imagine yet it fails to disturb you and your organization.

I can’t take you seriously Katrina.

Ironically being tasty and docile has been a very successful strategy for domesticated animals. They have spread to every inhabited continent and vast areas of world has been altered to provide a suitable habitat.

However the author does have a point. Why should we protect one species to the nth degree (our own) while we can kill many others at will.

I suspect there is something about how our brains are wired because group based discrimination is deeply rooted in every society. Just look at how hard it is to root out racism, nationalism and gender discrimination. Taking on specieism will be a challenge.

Technology may come to our aid. It may be possible to grow steaks in the lab before too long. No cows will have to suffer as they'd be redundant. Or perhaps the sentient part will be removed from farm animals.

I am surprised that the author didn't mention that the PvdD (Party for the Animals) won two seats in the dutch lower house a couple of weeks ago. I am sure we'll hear much more about this issue in years to come.

The myth that hunters do not respect animals and that they take animal life lightly is one perpetuated by people who have never observed the close links hunters have with the land. Hunters have been among the first, throughout human history, to call for conservation and protection of refuges and habitat for wild animals. Unlike many, they are also well aware of the need to balance all species in an ecosystem to ensure healthy futures for the entire system. Feral animals, for example, are destroying habitat required by unique indigenous species as well as having a devastating impact on agriculture.

The idea that the human species can ignore their responsibilities to ensure complete natural ecosystems are maintained sustainably is not only naive, it is irresponsible. If you don't want to eat meat, that's fine. What is important is the recognition that because someone else doesn't follow your philosophy about animal rights they can still care about animals. Hunters and farmers certainly do care about the welfare of animals. Perhaps the difference is that both groups are prepared to take custodial care of natural and agricultural systems instead of abrogating their duty of care to the environment and the species inhabiting it.

The vast majority of people wish to treat animals humanely. However, when the fringe dwelling intelligentsia distill our long held cultural mores into a new religion then, the rest of us can not be blamed for speaking up. Animal welfare is justifiable, animal liberation is just another fundamentalist religion i.e. The New Taliban.

Australians have long regarded wowsers with disdain and distrust. Animal libbers are self righteous, radicalised wowsers.

Prior to the 9/11 mass homicide Animal Libbers featured on the FBI Most Wanted List, Peter Singer's psychosis was stripped bare by a Boston Globe article several years ago which outlined the pathetic lack of philosophical rigour in his assertion that "humans should have consensual sex with animals".

Now we have young lawyers training for a career in animal law. Just consider what they have done for society in reference to public liability and the exorbitant liability premiums.

Learned ministers of religion have recently identified the emerging cult of animal worshippers who feel the classical religions lack social capital.

A.L. "thinkers" have even drawn an analogy between slavery and animal husbandry.

The older I become, the more firmly I believe that one of the biggest threats to Australia is the fact that 80% of our population are pasteurised, homogenised, plasticised city slickers possessing self destructive thought processes that can only percolate out of a shallow, self righteous, egotistical mindset.

Upon reading Katrina’s article I felt uplifted with joy .

The very existence of someone as compassionate as Katrina is undeniable evidence that we humans are so ingenious that with time all of the worlds ills will be cured .

As it appears we have defeated the process of natural selection .

Jamo, wasn't the Age of Aquarius in the seventies?

Perseus; the fact that wild animals can suffer in no way justifies our treatment of farmed animals in producing unnecessary food and other products. Your argument is exactly the same as saying that since we humans often suffer and die it’s alright for us to inflict suffering and death on each other for, say, entertainment.

Stomont; animal activists know only too well “where eggs come from” – we fight to end battery cages and every other cruel and inhumane farming practice. And an animal is only a “pest” when its normal behaviour gets in the way of you and yours making a profit. The tone of your post shows clearly that you are a speciesist and human supremacist of the first order. It is not the right of humans to “cull” any and all nonhumans who get in their way. Perhaps you can explain what it is about humans, in your thinking, that gives us the right to treat other creatures as we want.

Gusi; if you remove the “sentient part” from animals then, by definition, they are no longer animals. While you may end up having your meat grown in a petri dish why the hell would you want to go to so much trouble to produce a food which causes so much disease?

Cowboy Joe; we animal libbers are not “animal worshippers” in the same way that those who condemn paedophilia are not “child worshippers”. But I have to agree that having the majority of our population ignorant of where their food comes from is a major problem. We do our best to remedy that ignorance.

Katrina’s item is timely and relevant. Please see http://www.savebabe.com before purchasing any pork for Christmas.

I support the sentiments in the article and support more humane methods of treatment of animals in all cases. But the writer should show some more balanced reasoning when they for example, talk about the amount of animals slaughtered. That is unfortunately a fact of life. The conditions they live in and the manner of their treatment can and should be changed, but you can't really slit your wrists over the fact that they are slaughtered.

I think it's great that feral animals are being hunted. If they are sadistically treated, fine bring in the lawyers, but they are a scourge of the country, tbh. Australian natives need all the help they can get. The problem with hunting (and fishing) is that *everyone* wants to do it. Not that hunting exists. If one million people want to hunt and kill one hundred thousand thylacines....well yeah :P that sucks and is rather obscene.

It's misleading to talk about the US coat of arms bald eagle(??). The bald eagle is hardly equivalent to kangaroos that can grow to pestilential numbers.

This poem is dedicated to the unevolved, intoxicated homosapiens who lack the intellect to realise they are not superior to other species on this planet:

T'was an evening in December
He very well remembers
He was strolling down the street in drunken pride
But his knees were all a'flutter
So he landed in the gutter
And a pig came up and lay down by his side.

Yes he lay there in the gutter
Thinking thoughts he could not utter
When a colleen passing by did softly say
'Ye can tell a man that boozes
By the company he chooses'
At that, the pig got up and walked away!

Dedicated to: Perseus, Sage and Cowboy Joe.

MOS,

How about being top of the food chain? Do you think a hungry predator cares about his "right" to kill you? No he just does it coz he's in a position to, and it's dinner time.
It's called nature, and I find it sad that the people who think they are protecting it don't understand it's most basic concept, i.e. survival of the fittest.
Humans just happen to be the fittest right now, which makes us the supreme species. Therefore you are also a "Human Supremacist" by default.

Seeing as how you clearly failed basic comprehension at school, I will have to pick out the pertinent points of my post for you...

"I grew up shooting pests and ferals, and I've hated doing it, but it's a necessary evil"
"I hate that Roos are shot..."
"I refuse to participate in the shooting of any native animal"
"I will however, agree with the author that activities such as duck hunting, or any other form of "sport" hunting is disgusting, and should be banned outright."

How does that suggest the "right" to do it? You seem to think that introduced pests have as much "right" to live here, and consume the food of the natives, thereby killing them.

You write well, but are you sure you can read properly?

The tone of your post shows you are an arrogant, hypocritical, poorly educated, misguided, typically reactionary hippie, which is why your movement will never succeed.
You're just not credible, and I dare say with your attitude if it weren’t for primary producers, you and yours would simply not have made it past natural selection. You would have been ‘selected’ long ago

Are you aware of how many wild animals (not animals which were raised to be slaughtered) are killed to maintain the vast Soy bean, Corn, vegetable & Wheat plantations which you suckle from? Trust me it's many more than the average grazier ever kills to maintain food for his stock. Shall I hang their deaths around your neck? No, because I understand it to be what it is. NECESSARY.

cont'd...

cont'd...

I do work in Agriculture, but not on a farm, and not with livestock products of any kind, so I don't profit from it as you suggest, but I do assist in making sure the likes of you are fed your Tofu & bread every day.
Where does your knowledge of the subject come from other than a self righteous sense of superiority over us carnivores, presumptions, and what you read on the internet? Mine is

I looked at the website you quoted, and agree that kind of farming is disgusting.
If you were just pushing to ban cage farming, I'd join you. But you don't do that do you? You’re going after every farmer out there, which displays a gross level of ignorance, self importance, and a weak grasp of reality.

My family’s livestock is allowed to roam free across rolling hills in North & South N.S.W. There are no cages at all. It’s ORGANIC, and we engage in HRM if you even know what that is. In fact, they live a great life, and are slaughtered in the most humane way possible, unlike the animals which die to provide you with food, since they are often killed by traps, poisons or combine harvesters, and it can take days to die from these injuries.

Please learn to not only read, but to comprehend what you are reading.

Btw, Nice sparring with you :)

Dearest Dickie

Is that poem the best you can offer? I'm no bible basher but any reasonable person that has a minimal understanding of history and western democracy would agree that the bible was the beginning of the establishment of the few countries that are now considered to be free societies.

The passages about animals in Genesis are the foundations of animal welfare and not animal liberation.

You are a shining example of our education system that teaches feelings = rational thought.

Just a little reality check regarding which type of pigs you may be associating with -- Scotland Yard and the FBI have formally designated Animal Liberation Front as a terrorist group. In the US vociferous PETA frequently publicises their activities as soon as they occur. PETA while not advocating violence has been described as the PR Firm for terror. Remember respectable Gerry Adams (probably not)? Animal Libbers in the US are on record for planning "to take a hunter out completely" in retaliation for killing animals.

In 1993 in Kalamazoo, a Michigan a man was arrested for coldly shooting eight hunters over a two year period. Taxidermists regularly receive threatening phone calls and some have been burned down.

Truly spiritual individuals in contrast to the self righteous do not criticise others who are following an honest path of the heart.

Mahatma Gandhi said, "Everyone should follow his own inner voice" and has also been quoted as saying, "I have known many meat eaters to be far more non-violent than vegetarians."

More and more wild life managers are being forced to determine management policies by politics rather than science. BTW Australia has 30% of the worlds marine parks, is that rational? Often rational scientific based strategies are not employed in the USA due to fear of being sued by animal liberation organisations. Animal liberationists particularly appreciate research when it used as a stalling mechanism designed to eat up limited public funds.

The animal rights movement isn't a counter culture it is an ANTICULTURE, it bases its existence on the psychological need to have an enemy. People in an anti culture group feel that they have the only legitimate values, that all other values are illegitimate.

Violence arises in these situation because they attract people who have other agendas about power and powerlessness and the angry nature of the group gives them a soapbox from which to rail and vent.

Animal liberationists do not necessarily have an intense love of animals. Peter Singer the guru of animal rightists openly states that he is not inordinately fond of animals. But he has found a unique method of funding his affluent lifestyle.

Animal rights movement receives support because it taps into our concerns for safety, personal freedom, ecological balance, racial equality, power and powerlessness, violence, terrorism and the insatiable ability of the media to sensationalise the news in order to compete for ratings which then equal advertising revenue.

Well slavery and Hitler were the law once, that does not
make the law right, just legal at a particular time.

I actually agree with humane treatment of farm animals.
My problem lies not with the concept, but with some
of the individuals pushing that particular barrow.

When we die, we get recycled, even vegans will be
chewed up by the worms. Face it!

I see a real problem here, of people who don't know
the first thing about farm animals, confusing their
love of their pet poodle etc, with other species.

They are not all the same!

Its high time that the animal welfare lobby started
hiring some qualified people, if they want to make
valid points of reason, or they will continue to
be written off as fanatics, as they are at present.

Peta's arguments seem to be based on the knowledge of
singers or women with large breasts :) Umm, perhaps
they need to get their stuff together and become more
enlightened. Some rudimentary knowledge of the topics
they are trying to argue about, would be most welcome!

Dear Cowboy Joe

So sorry you were unimpressed with my poem and that its message escaped your "rational thinking!".

You appear enthusiastic about relaying hashed up obsolete stories,on the actions of animal libbers overseas which has prompted my memory on current media reports and right here in little old Oz:

1. "Heinous act - live kitten chopped in half with axe"

2. "Starving sick horses on rural property seized by RSPCA." Officers have managed to find good homes for some of the animals.

3. Diseased and starving dogs and puppies seized and euthanased. Owner prosecuted.

4. Four dogs euthanased after ingesting 1080 bait. Vet advises community not to take pets on to pastoral stations where baits are plentiful. She says: '1080 is a shocking bait and animals can take up to 4 days to die in agony.'

5. Owners of pastoral station charged with neglect of livestock. Officers discovered emaciated starving cattle. Cattle had no access to water or feedstuff and the property appeared to have been abandoned. Many of the cattle had to be put down.

Are these your buddies, Cowboy Joe? The above media reports are not dredged up from 1993 where you have attempted to exploit the reader but are acts perpetrated this year - 2006 - there are many more!

And I see Yabby is back peddling his 1080 vitriole and portraying those concerned with animal welfare, as "women with big breasts."

The "Yabbies" are unable to comprehend that those of us who endeavour to halt cruelty to animals are not part of a left-wing loonie culture but are ordinary citizens from all walks of life. In fact I am from a family whose members were and are "rational thinking" liberal politicians. Hardly a breeding ground for dysfunctional "women with big breasts!"

Lawyer and author, Mirko Bargavic's article on the plight of pigs sends a clear message that factory farming requires serious review. This gentleman is worthy of praise and I commend him for his unfettered appraisal on the treatment of commercialised animals -"dobra dobra Mirko Bargavic!"

Rather than focusing on the extremists in these groups people should listen to their evidence and findings which are numerous. Some of their arguments and demands may be ludicrous, but the majority are reasonable or at least debatable.

Dickie, clearly you are no Pamela Anderson, so no point having
you as a pin up girl for Peta :)

My point was that why Pamela Anderson's or Pink's opinions
should matter in the first place, has me beat. I have yet
to see a link between breasts and intelligence, but perhaps
Peta don't agree. Given that their founder wants her meat
barbecued when she dies, anything extreme from Peta is
not unusual, no wonder they have so little respect in the
community.

"Rather than focusing on the extremists in these groups people should listen to their evidence and findings which are numerous. Some of their arguments and demands may be ludicrous, but the majority are reasonable or at least debatable."

Steel I fully agree. The fact is however, that most of these
extreme groups repeat some of the same old mantra over and over,
even if flaws in their arguments are pointed out. They don't
seem to let the truth get in the way of their stories, whilst
they have their hands out for donations from a teary eyed public.

So lets debate the issues on their merit and at least have some
educated comments from qualified people, not just from vegans
who want to tippytoe through the tulips of their fantasy world.

The world is not black and white, its shades of grey, which is
what we should be discussing

madam, the quality of your reasoning brings tears to my eyes. it will indeed be a happy day when all animals are equal in all respects, and the hanibal lectors of this world can resume their rightful place at the table of mankind. after all, man cannot be expected to exist on bread and lettuce alone.

Fullbore

Your comprehension of the written word is poor. Katrina Sharman, at no point in her excellent article, recommended that humans cease eating meat.

The issue here is the abominable, legalised treatment of animals in captivity and the inhumane methods of culling feral animals. These animals are feral because of man's "expert" stupidities, resulting in an imbalance of species to compete for fodder.

And typical of Yabby, he continues to associate large breasts with people sufficiently courageous to publicly speak out against the abuse of animals. He is foolish enough to ask why Pamela Anderson and Pink denounce animal cruelty (if they have) and is too obtuse to realise that the most effective manner in which to inform communities of atrocities, is to publicise these atrocities through those with high profiles who have access to the media. Ordinary folk are often denied those opportunities. Where is the relevance to "large breasts", Yabby?

Yabby also advises that we "debate the issues on their merit". Funny that, since he's again failed to address or debate the issues on animal cruelty, raised in my previous post.

Yabby and the wannabe Hannibal Fullbore may get a buzz from the Qld farmer who, last year, was prosecuted and fined $30,000 for killing a sick cow with a claw hammer and dragging it behind a truck whilst it was still alive. Of course, these gentlemen will simply regard that atrocity as "collateral" damage. Mustn't waste profits on a silly old cow now, must we?

Dearest Dickie

Points 1-5 have been illegal for many decades. Reasonable people understand that legislation has limitations. Sanctimonious preaching to people you are contemptuous of, will achieve even less.

There really are some horrible people (or perhaps damaged individuals requiring compassion) in the world and it would be reassuring to believe that AL is going to improve our lives and the lives of animals. Maybe, you could join the RSPCA and become one of their storm troopers who have more powers than the NSW Police in certain areas. However, when animals are given human rights many believe it highly predicable that humans will then be treated as animals.

Are you aware you have proved one of my main points (which were the words of a psychologist J Swan PhD) since your pent up anger is showing.

Do you think I am a mate of such criminals, what does your intuition tell you?

Why weren’t you impressed with the Gandhi quotes or are his teachings irrelevant because he lived so long ago?

Your contempt for history has been noted and dovetails with social engineers would have little appreciation for history and its relevance to society. I was once told by a high school counsellor that a history of children is basically a history of child abuse. How does your psychological baggage blend with an obvious animosity towards poorly evolved individuals who do not share your intense sense of animal ethics? Perhaps it would beneficial to discuss your “animal issues” with a community counsellor instead of demonising non-believers on websites.

So you believe recent examples of animal cruelty carry more credence than older examples of a political movement that preaches compassion and understanding who then turn around and sanction anarchy. For PETA to morally support to intimidation, murder and arson is more than hypocritical, it is amoral.

In my mind the point being made is that animal libber extremists have been around for a long time and instead of taking the opportunity to denounce such behaviour you sanction it by not directly addressing their heinous acts, be they either new or old.

Dickie said, "Yabby also advises that we "debate the issues on their merit". Funny that, since he's again failed to address or debate the issues on animal cruelty, raised in my previous post."

OK step one -- Dickie please define cruelty for us so we can focus.

In response to Stomont, in the spirit of Christmas (though I don’t call myself a Christian) I’ll ignore the insults and baseless name-calling and try to stick to the argument.

I asked initially, “Perhaps you can explain what it is about humans, in your thinking, that gives us the right to treat other creatures as we want”. I gather your first para was your answer – i.e., that we are at the top of the food chain. For a starter, climb naked into a cage with a hungry croc or a lion then let me know who is at the top of the food chain. But that aside, might is not right. The fact that we have the power to mistreat these animals does not give us the right to do so. A predator such as that will kill and eat you – it has not ethics to tell it was is right or wrong but we do. Nor does it have a lot of choices – no supermarkets, canned veg etc. but we do. I think you failed to answer my challenge.

Next, I think you have misunderstood the term "Human Supremacist”. It means someone who believes that because we are human we are therefore superior to all other species and so can treat them without regard for their interests. I am not a “Human Supremacist” (btw, your use of the terms “livestock products” and HRM show again that you are – you regard other sentient species simply as resources). Other species are not ‘failed humans’ – they are simply different species with different abilities and characteristics. They do some things better than us – we do some thing better than them – but we have an awful lot in common.
...

For Stomont.

I share your concern about the numbers of animals accidentally killed in the production of plant crops. But don’t you eat plant foods as well? (If you don’t I’d hate to think how your digestive system copes with a purely meat diet – yeewwww). More importantly, since the vast majority of crops such as soy are grown to be fed to farmed animals, moving away from animal based agriculture would reduce those figures massively.

In years gone by, a cow kept by a village family which had its milk gently taken and was finally killed and eaten after a fairly long life had a vastly better life than today’s factory farmed animals. We’ve lost touch with the animals and have let producers think they can do pretty much what they like in order to reduce the price to us and their profits.

We need to tell them now that what they are doing is completely unacceptable.

Dickie once again arrogantly assumes to know what I or anyone
else might be thinking. Arrogant ignoranace is not unusual
from the animal libber movement, so I guess I should not be
surprised.

Yup, cruelty to animals happens right here in Aus, a point
I have made many times, when some animal libbers get carried
away by their ME arguments. Yup there are laws in place
to prosecute people and RSPCA inspectors in place to enforce
those laws. Yup there are some farmers who break those laws
as well as plenty of city slickers who do the same. If they
do, so prosecute them.

Yup 1080 is used to control packs of wild dogs. All things
considered its the best we have right now, although I gather
that CSIRO are working on an alternative. I'd still rather
see those packs of wild dogs destroyed, then tens of thousands
of sheep ripped apart, dying slow cruel deaths. Given
that 1080 grows around here quite naturally along roadsides
etc, its not exactly an unusual poison in the Aus environment.

Dickie still doesent get it, about Peta using bimbos to
promote their cause. Perhaps bimbos is the best they have,
ahh well.

There has been a large shift in pig farming to straw based
shelters, which I think is positive and a win-win situation.
People are free to choose barn laid and free range eggs and
chickens, let more consumers buy them and cages will become
redundant! Personally I am against caged hen farming.
Most beef and lamb production is free range in Aus, another
positive news story. So its not all gloom and doom, as is
often promoted by the vegan lobby.

Yabby - thank you for your informative post. I'm elated to learn that in some instances cruelty to animals has slightly abated and that the good work of animal welfare groups has not gone completely unnoticed. Without their dedication, I doubt that you would be the bearer of news revealing slightly more humane actions of animals in captivity.

I'm reminded of Eleanor Roosevelt's quotation: "You must do the thing you think you cannot do".

Cowboy Joe asks: "Dickie please define cruelty to us so we can focus."

I'm completely at a loss as to how to explain the definition of cruelty to a gentleman who seemingly is of mature age and asks a question befitting of one's two year old child.

However, to accommodate this gentleman's intellectual bent, perhaps I can relate another article where he may better understand the definition of cruelty, similar to the one perpetrated by the Qld farmer:

Around about 1984, a "charming" citizen of my community raped and bashed an Aboriginal woman. He then tied her to the back of his vehicle and dragged her along dirt and bitumenised roads for a distance of approximately 6 kilometres.

I can best describe the community attitude at the time as one of "mini" anarchy (which would certainly meet with your disdain, CJ). Of course, unlike "Farmer Brown", he was gaoled for a considerable period. Can you better focus now, Cowboy Joe?

And of course, CJ, you are very selective in your zest for historical learnings where you failed to advise that it was Gandhi indeed who said:

"I hold that the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man."

And: "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

Perhaps you will reflect on the vegetarian, Gandhi's philosophies, while you are satiating your carnivorous desires, devouring your factory farmed pork on Christmas Day, along with it's "yummy" crackling. After all, it was you who advised that I should adhere to Gandhi's teachings - wasn't it?

"Without their dedication, I doubt that you would be the bearer of news revealing slightly more humane actions of animals in captivity."

Clearly your notion is flawed Dickie. What makes you think that only
animal welfare group members have a sense of empathy or care about
animals? The relationship between humans and domestic livestock
goes wayback. Go to any third world country and yes you will see
cruelty, but you will also see kindness to animals. They don't have
any animal welfare extremists chanting in their ears either.

What you see in our society is all sorts of people interacting
with animals in all sorts of ways, as its always been. People
are not all the same, as you seem to assume. I know plenty of
farmers who care a huge amount about their livestock. They farm
because its a way of life that they are passionate about, to the
benefit of both themselves and their animals. Others don't care,
no different with city people.

Who eats an animal when it dies or uses its leather, is rather
irrelevant. To me its a huge waste to simply let the worms eat
the lot. Suffering matters when we are alive, not once we are
dead.

Anyhow, I hope that you at least enjoyed some Inverell free range
pork or some West Aussie free range lamb for Chrissy. Unless
of course you prefer to stick to lettuce leaves etc :)

Yabby continues to distort the facts.

This thread is not about encouraging readers to become vegetarians - of which I'm not.

Nor has it anything to do with what one does with an animal after it has died but rather the sadistic, legalised treatment of live animals.

Read Gandhi's philosophies in my last post, Yabby.

No doubt though, you will continue to be in denial, to ensure the status quo remains.

However, I am heartened by the reality that there will come a time when your support of the current treatment of factory farmed and feral animals will have to be addressed.

What goes around, Yabby, comes around!

Well for the vegie eaters out there i was wondering how many of you actually own a cat...you wont eat meat yourself or want to allow meat animals to be farmed or harvested for others but you dont mind animals being killed to feed your cats(or dogs).What else is there to feed them on as commercial rations tell us that "such and such" contain "meaty bites" etc or do you want to go the Linda Stoner way and feed your dogs in the cruel vegetarian way? And let me remind you that the protein in your pet food generally comes from animal by products (meat meal and fish meal)
oh! by the way this meat meal also is a high proportion of your "chook feed" for those that are anti this and that but allow a chicken fillet to pass down their gullet every now and then.Think about that while you are having your latte (with farmed milk)
Anyway back to your cat itself, what an abomination, a scourge to Australia it has become,why not put your anti meat eating,anti farming meat, anti harvesting wild game ideas on the back burner and do something far more constructive in firstly getting rid of your cat and the rest of Australias cats.Attached pic is some food destined to end up in that can that you have in your cupboard to feed your cat...unless your little Fizzy is outside helping itself to another of Australia`s wonderful indigenous fauna.

Just remember that your cat/cats do far more damage to Australia`s native fauna than any other introduced animal...think about the real facts instead of trying to convert people to your vegie thinking ideal`s...i`m rambling ,yes just like you do.



[IMG]http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a48/gryphone/JW.jpg[/IMG]

All in the pic were taken far more humanely than any animal that has ever been slaughtered in a public abbatoir by the way and if you want to argue with that go ahead but of course if you do then its obvious that you simply dont know the truth and want to believe the propaganda and lies posted out there by the anti just about everything movement. Here is another try at posting the link.And a pic of my Xmas lunch straight off the spit..go on have a look vegies its what we eat.

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a48/gryphone/porcetta.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a48/gryphone/JW.jpg

Great piece of photography gryphon. I didnt think i was that niave on these matters, but obviously you are about to prove me wrong. i have nothing against humane culling of roos but i would really like to know how those pictured could possibly be killed more humanely than at an abattoir?

Well here go`s,picture the following two scenario`s

A calf or lamb is born in its paddock and lives in that paddock generally till its rudely awoken with the sudden news that its going for a traumatic trip to the abbatoir...it actually dosent know it just yet but something is happening out of the ordinary. Trucks, people,noises, dogs etc forced up a race for its first vehicle trip through places it has never seen or smelt before ending its journey into an animal POW camp basically,
Pushed up a race with a dog`s help or an electric dogs help into the carnage hole full of the blood and the adrenalin of the countless thousands of beasts before it...getting the picture? Eyes bulging white showing the fear as it comprehends almost of what is ahead of it.

Kangaroo grazing lifts its head and looks into the bright light see`s nothing and feels nothing as the bullet delivered by an extremely competent marksman enters its brain resulting in an instant kill...no adrenalin,no panic,no strange sights/smells etc,getting more of the picture?

And thats how it basically is (ex slaughterman ex roo shooter)

And farm killed meat is always far better as the animals are usually shot then bled in their own environment without suffering the stresses of the modern abbatoir...much like the roo scenario above.

“Many of these intelligent, sentient animals”

I have yet to see an assessment of the reasoning skills of a cow or a sheep and chickens sure act pretty dumb most of the time. One has to ask, if they were so intelligent, why are there never any mass break outs from farms?
Why no hunger strikes against their poor living conditions?

As for “sentient” trees and vegetables are also supposed to have some level of sentient ability.

Are we to have turnip lawyers too?

“Animal law is now a cutting edge legal discipline,” and as sharp as a butchers knife!

“Groups of animal lawyers have also formed,”

Some would say “animal lawyers” is simple tautology.

But who will pay the fees – hopefully not the tax payer, we are bled (halal style) enough!

Some folk have commented on the aggressive and terrorist actions of animal liberation extremists. I do recall at one time not too long ago, Furriers made good coats for people, until animal liberationists burnt them out.

For all the rhetoric and sentimental rubbish, the only reason an animal advocate will exist is because some over-indulged dullard is prepared to pay them.

I think it stands testament to our practicality as a nation that our national emblems are edible ones. Poor old Yanks get a bald eagle and the Brits are going to go hungry, they have never have any wild Lion roaming that green and pleasant land.

I must go and defrost some skippy steak for BBQ.

Maintaining the definition thread.

Sentient being
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A sentient being is any living thing that has the power of perception by senses or consciousness.

Amoeba, flatworm and viruses (I think so but I could be wrong) may all be demonstrated to sense things such as heat, light and pain.

Hence my assertion that Animal Liberation is yet another fundamentalist religion (lacking the integrity to say so) often as zealous as the Taliban, nothing less, nothing more.

PETA's Dirty Secret

Hypocrisy is the mother of all credibility problems, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has it in spades. While loudly complaining about the "unethical" treatment of animals by restaurant owners, grocers, farmers, scientists, anglers, and countless other Americans, the group has its own dirty little secret.

PETA kills animals. By the thousands.

From July 1998 through the end of 2005, PETA killed over 14,400 dogs, cats, and other "companion animals" -- at its Norfolk, Virginia headquarters. That's more than five defenseless animals every day. Not counting the dogs and cats PETA spayed and neutered, the group put to death over 90 percent of the animals it took in during 2005 alone. And its angel-of-death pattern shows no sign of changing.

Year Received† Adopted Killed Transferred % Killed % Adopted
2005 2,145 146 1,946 69 90.7 6.8
2004 2,640 361 2,278 1 86.3 13.7
2003 2,224 312 1,911 1 85.9 14.0
2002 2,680 382 2,298 2 85.7 14.3
2001 2,685 703 1,944 14 72.4 26.2
2000 2,684 624 2,029 28 75.6 23.2
1999 1,805 386 1,328 91 73.6 21.4
* 1998 943 133 685 125 72.6 14.1
Total 17,806 3,047 14,419 331 80.1 17.1

* figures represent the second half of 1998 only
† other than spay/neuter animals
» skeptical? click here to see the proof

) PETA runs campaigns seemingly calculated to offend religious believers. One entire PETA website is devoted to the claim-despite ample evidence to the contrary-that Jesus Christ was a vegetarian. PETA holds protests at houses of worship, even suing one church that tried to protect its members from Sunday-morning harassment. Its billboards taunt Christians with the message that hogs “died for their sins.” PETA insists, contrary to centuries of rabbinical teaching, that the Jewish ritual of kosher slaughter shouldn't be allowed. And its infamous “Holocaust on Your Plate” campaign crassly compares the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide with farm animals.

PETA has given tens of thousands of dollars to convicted arsonists and other violent criminals. This includes a 2001 donation of $1,500 to the North American Earth Liberation Front (ELF), an FBI-certified “domestic terrorist” group responsible for dozens of firebombs and death threats. During the 1990s, PETA paid $70,200 to an Animal Liberation Front (ALF) activist convicted of burning down a Michigan State University research laboratory. In his sentencing recommendation, a federal prosecutor implicated PETA president Ingrid Newkirk in that crime. And PETA vegetarian campaign coordinator Bruce Friedrich told an animal rights convention in 2001 that “blowing stuff up and smashing windows” is “a great way to bring about animal liberation.”

CJ

I'm extremely grateful for the information you have supplied.

I had no idea of PETA's enormous responsibilities in the area of humaneness and compassion for ill-treated animals.

These pitiful creatures, mercifully euthanased, will no longer be subjected to the heinous abuse of the sadistic cretins who walk amongst us.

In fact, CJ, I shall immediately post off a donation to PETA in the hope they are able to continue their good works and I know a friend who too, after learning of your invaluable information, will also forward a donation.

Again, my most sincerest thanks, Cockroach Joe, and may the Karmic force be with you.

I myself have been a member of PETA for years as a deer hunter and as deerhunters we like to think that we are all members of PETA which to us simply equates to PEOPLE EATING TASTY ANIMALS...

A bonus with wild introduced animals that do create some concerns in the environment(calls to cull them) is that they are truly organic and healthy to devour...not much better than a juicy chemical free medium rare lump of wild animal turning around on my home made beer barrel spit.Goddamn! that sounds great,i`m off on another hunt in the `morn!

A lifetime in the farming and hunting fields alerts me to the fact that there are some extremely ignorant posts above by vegans and anti hunters.

I have lived the above for my whole life,what do you metrocentric citizens of the big smoke know if you "havent been there and done that"?
You obviously rely on mis information from the various green "anti this anti that" groups out there living fat off your contibutions.
Green anti groups?

Dont know how many times we have heard reports of Laurie Levy dining out for long lunches ( on your dough )

Actually now that i have raised St. Laurie`s name i have to say that he certainly DOSENT want duck hunting banned as then he would be out of a very well paid job..think about it! No duck hunting = no LLLL.=
Laurie Levy Long Lunches.

I loved those stickers made by Northern Victorian country towns that welcome duck hunters,the stickers?
DUCK OFF LAURY, ha ha ha.

What an abominably misinformed and/or deliberately alarmist and insulting article.

The majority of Australians are animal loving people and respect the animals that are under our stewardship.

Yes, there have been a small number of 'bad apples' who have done horrendous things. Those cases have been dealt with by the courts. The rest of Australia does not need to be punished for the misdeeds of a minority.

The culling of some kangaroos is necessary because they have few natural predators.

The alternative to culling is a cruel and lingering death in an emaciated carcass, often in blistering heat with crows pecking out your eyes when you are too weak to move, and flies breeding in festering sores because your immune system has ebbed to the point where it can no longer protect you.

Today, few Aboriginals and few dingoes are hunting young roos to keep the balance of nature in check. While one young joey is hopping alongside mum there is another embryo in the pouch.
Fast breeders.

What a pity you intelligent people arent spending your time working alongside those who are conserving the future of our native animals by the humane removal of feral animals from our wilderness areas.

The use of 1080 poison has killed off a lot of the meat eaters in our native ecology, even though official sources deny this. A bullet from a professional shooters gun is a better ally of our animals future than government sanctioned use of poisons which are banned in other countries.

The future of animals does not lie in saving every animal.

Overpopulation of a species is a death threat to not only their own species, but to other species as well.

Animal rights? Or animal wrongs?

Animal rights is idealogy that is out of step with the balance of nature.

And now the legal profession is set to make a killing out of the animals too.

How very sad.

I hope Australians soon wake up to the real game.

Mimosa

Mimosa:

You claim: "Animal rights is (an) idealogy (sic) that is out of step with nature."

Animal rights are no more an ideology than human rights are, Mimosa.

Why do you regard yourself as superior to other species which can't defend themselves? Power? Profits? Ignorance? Sadism?

Let's reverse the current situation. Would you object if I chopped your hand off without the benefit of an anaesthetic? What about hacking off your testicles? Perhaps you'd like to be dropped into a pot of boiling water, alive and screaming like a banshee?

I could give you a good crutching so you wont get flyblown? No anaesthetic, mind you. You'll be OK in a week or two!

Now, be a good, brave human and don't try to escape whilst I'm operating or I may have to take you out with my bow and arrow. I'm not a good marksman therefore I may need to have a few goes at you. Mmmmm, if it doesn't work, I could decapitate you with my hunting knife. On reflection, it's probably simpler to just bash your brains out.

But hang about - here's something which you might prefer. I could incarcerate you in a cage for most of your life. You won't be able to turn around of course. Now don't go and get all depressed - silly human. It happens to animals all the time!

Did you know that a developing country like India has within its parliament, a Department of Animal Welfare? No - you probably didn't! And we call India, third world? She has developed a 21st century philosophy in pursuit of ethical treatments for all her animals, a philosophy which remains too advanced for this wealthy nation which is consumed by its fiscal desires to maximise profits at all costs!

Time to enter the Golden Age, Mimosa - the age of enlightenment!

"I could give you a good crutching so you wont get flyblown? No anaesthetic, mind you. You'll be OK in a week or two!"

Dickie, you clearly don't know the first thing about sheep lol.
Are you now suggesting that crutching sheep should involve
an anaesthetic? Do you have any idea about sheep at all?
The front from the back perhaps?

You are of course free in our society to give money to Peta.
Others give it to the Taliban, another fanatical organisation.
Personally I'd prefer to stick to organisations with a bit more
credibility. Peta have never let facts interfere with a good
story, even if they are pointed out to them. 20 million $
in donations a year requires a bit of storytelling perhaps,
never mind any kind of qualified or informed opinions.
Animal welfare is clearly big business!

Dickie you have absolutely no idea of what crutching sheep involves..its obvious from your post,one would imagine that you are another that gains their information (mis) from one of the animal rights mobs...

Here is one of your lines below

"I could incarcerate you in a cage for most of your life. "

Zoo? Ever been? Yes of course you have and you loved it too,prob take or will take your children also...whats the difference between any animal in any cage?

Got a pet of any sort Dickie? Ever had one? What do/did you feed it?
Oh maybe it was a budgie eh? A meat eating cat? Ever opened a can of Pal(MEATY bites).Ever eaten an egg?broken bread?A lettuce? Coffee? Tea? Oatmeal?Milk? Ever worn wool on your back? Cotton? Silk? Hessian? Each and every one involves pest animals being destroyed in the pursuit of more yields...who for? All of us including you too Dickie.

And as far as yapping about India (sacred cows) what a joke,i think i will try and forget you brought it up.

Anyway i`m off to fire a few shots over the vineyard...must keep the pest birds down so you can enjoy another Cabernet or perhaps you are a Chardy drinker.

Dickie,

You are quite wrong with your description of crutching sheep, but far be it for me to enlighten you. You clearly think you know more than I about such things.

The Hindu religion practised in India has as one of its most fundamental principles the sanctity of all living creatures. Animal welfare is second nature to many Indian people, as it is to the majority of Australians who have dealings with animals in their daily lives.

Your hollow pompous ravings and bullying tactics should be condemned for what they are.

Mimosa

Dickie continues to berate others and make insinuations.

She has admitted the intention to donate money to PETA which was proved to have given money to terrorist organisations; synonymous with 'acting as a front' if we were to use terminology associated with the Mafia. Words such as hypocritical do not seem strong enough to describe her attitude. Once again she provides more evidence that she and her peers are fundamentalist fanatics on an animal worshipping Jihad.

Dickie, please answer the questions 1- are flatworms sentient? 2-define cruelty. 3-Were you an abused child? This is not a snide question, we are being truthful with you and it would be nice if you did the same. 4- Is the phrase they were acting like animals anachronistic?

There is BIG money in all sorts of fuel these days. Money flows to those who create scape-coats and FUEL dissension. Every week there is another crisis identified in the papers that require solutions -- the media fuels their economic welfare in the process.

Lawyers and activists demonstrate they INTUITIVLEY UNDERSTAND this by creating businesses out of prolonging conflict, even creating them, in order to continue funding their life styles. They expand the mental paradigms into sophisticated organisations to fight the scape-coats they have constructed (much better than a franchise, but then again, I will agree ALs are creative)

S Keen in Faces of the Enemy, psychologist, has explained consensual paranoia -- a PATHOLOGY of a normal person who is a member of a war-justifying society. This forms a template from which all the images of the enemy are created ... Paranoia involves a complex of mental, emotional (including child abuse), and social mechanisms by which a person or people claim righteousness and purity, and attribute hostility and evil to the enemy, ... Paranoia reduces anxiety and guilt by transferring to others all the characteristics one does not want to recognize in oneself ... We only see and acknowledged those negative aspects of the enemy that support the stereotype we have already created. Just how relevant to the article is this cognitive light bulb.

We require a word for social or non-race based racism, AL loves to draw an analogy between slavery and animal husbandry. Vilification comes to mind but a modern improved word would be nice.

However, Animal Libbers exhibit the markings of racists; they just have a different target. For example, those who support culling feral animals by shooting are painted as amoral, cruel, stupid, untrustworthy and psychopaths.

I know of a young couple who are keen hunters one is a nurse (male) the wife is a primary teacher. AL are synonymous with a racist organisation as they attribute certain beliefs and attributes to a minority group. In addition these self appointed moralists define what is a pure belief system and then wage war when they think it is required ie ALF.

Society has taken a stand, it is called the RSPCA Dickie, which has some level of pragmatism and formal authority so most people can support it most of the time -- find some other cause as you won't have to look very hard to find one, homelessness for example.

We also have enough lawyers who always seem to be the biggest winners in any legal conflict.

Hmmmm. Mimosa says the majority of Australians are animal loving people and respect the animals under their stewardship. Bollocks!

West Australian Newspaper 5/1/07:

"One Perth cat sanctuary has been so inundated with kittens given as unwanted Christmas presents it predicts that 750 of the 1000 to be handed over will be put down."

Another small regional council pound collects 100 abandoned dogs per month.

May I suggest Mimosa, that it is not I who is "pompous" or "bullying". Official documents held by animal pounds, RSPCA's, other relevant authorities and the media clearly reveals that it is you and your buddies who are peddling propaganda to protect your vested interests!

My trivial error of "crutching" makes not one iota of difference to the practices you are condoning.

Dr John Auty (vet and sheep farmer) is quoted as saying:

"Flaying (mulesing) is unacceptable on any ground. To condone this practice in any form is immoral." It's downright criminal!

He said that the pain inflicted by the above practice would last for weeks probably months afterwards.

Now, perhaps we could get on to the subject of meat cows where I understand, these poor critters are placed in a crush, then slit open, fully conscious, without anaesthetic, while their ovaries are sliced out, one at a time. What charmers we are debating with, who categorically deny any form of cruelty takes place in factory farming.

If the AGWA are sincere in phasing out mulesing, then they too have finally entered the 21st century and now regard this practice as inhumane. So it's catch up time for the Yabbys, Mimosas, and the Gryphons (though don't gryphons have the brain of a bird?) Of course, these stakeholders' objections would be loudly reverberating within the establishment of the AGWA!

Thank you Yabby for advising me that PETA collect $20m a year. It reinforces my belief that you et al are unable to dupe everyone and that discerning citizens are able to make "qualified" and "informed opinions" before donating hard-earned dollars to a worthy cause.

Can we soon look forward to the hunter being hunted?

Dickie “Mimosa says the majority of Australians are animal loving people and respect the animals under their stewardship. Bollocks!”

“Bollocks” – I request you prove that they do not.

You might be able pick 100, 200 or a thousand examples of cruel behaviour from news articles.

However, Australia has a population of 20 million people.

For you to disclaim what Mimosa suggested, “that the majority of Australians are not animal loving and respectful of animals under their stewardship”

You will need to cite where 10 million + Australians are uncaring and disrespectful.

I await, with interest, your reply.

At this moment in time I am thinking “dickie by name, dickie by nature”.

At least “bollocks” is appropriate, you are generally seen hanging around with a couple of them.

As for PETA – a bunch of control freaks with more money and free time than sense or life purpose, busy telling the rest of us how we must live our lives.

They, along with the rest of the animal liberation movement, vegans, vegetarians and fellow opinion fascists would be better off excising themselves from the real world and try actually living according to their code.
Then we could all look back at them, after 5 years on a diet of mongo bean, thatched shirts and no soap or modern medicines and see how enthused they are with the lifestyle they would seek to inflict on the rest of us.

Dickie I wish you would answer Cowboy Joe and define cruelty as you see it. When do we cross that line between doing what we can to minimize animals suffering and actually inflicting it? It seems at time that we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

This happened to me this morning. Tell me what you would have done.

A small piglet had been savaged by a confused young mother. The resulting injuries – one gash about 1cm deep near the hip, another gaping whole in its neck about 20cm long and nearly as deep. The cut to the throat amazingly did not severe any thing vital. What do I do?

1. Put the animal down (sharp blown to head and stick with a sharp knife)
2. Attempt to get the animal to the nearest vet before it died (50km away) while also considering the actually monetary value of the piglet - $0
3. Attend to the wound myself and stitch it up without anesthetic. Of course I have on hand all the correct equipment and other medications to do so.

You know that I chose option 3. Tell me honestly, what would you have done?

I think you also need to clarify the ‘meat cow’ and ‘ovaries’ thing?

Dickie, you made more then a trivial error. What your comment in fact
suggests is that you don't know the first thing about the sheep
industry. Armchair animal libbers are a dime a dozen, that doesent
mean they have the foggiest of what they are talking about.

I've never heard of John Auty, but then one swallow does not make
a summer. There are plenty of vets, well informed about the sheep
industry, who fully understand what would happen if merino sheep
were not mulesed. Go out onto a half million acre station and try
searching behind every rock daily, for a flyblown sheep, to understand
the logisitics involved, if mulesing were banned. The reality is that
there would be huge suffering, with sheep dying, eaten alive by
millions of maggots.

As to mulesing, Peta clearly lied to their audience, claiming that
"dinner plate sized chunks of flesh" were removed from lambs.
What a load of bollocks! Have you ever seen mulesing? A couple
of small pieces of loose skin are removed, no flesh, no dinner plates.
But of course the funds might not pour in, if the truth were told.

Given that a small piece of skin is such a major concern to you,
perhaps best that you go and give a big comforting hug to all those
males whom you know, who lost their foreskins without anesthetics
as babies. No doubt they carry the traumatic scars with them
for life and could do with your affection :)

Well nothing whatsoever of substance from Yabby, Gryphon, Col Rouge or Cockroach Joe.

The usual inane defence from Yabby "if mulesing was banned blah blah". Stick to the issue, Yabby. Anaesthetic!

By the way, I omitted to advise Cockroach Joe and Yabby that I have also registered with Voiceless. They didn't ask for a donation. Hmmm. Better chase that one up. Every little bit helps in the crusade for justice.

I have noticed one common thread amongst Yabby, CJ, and Col Rouge. They seemingly have a fetish for sexual innuendo where they like referring to genitalia to support their argument.

This article is about the welfare of animals - so I don't get it? The above gentlemen continue to pepper their posts,with nouns such as "foreskins", "large breasts" and smutty innuendoes about "Dickie" and "Bollocks".

Then you have the very sick Gryphon attempting to nauseate the reader with gleeful, sadistic descriptions of animal slaughter. He will no doubt be frothing and slavering with the realisation that he has succeeded.

And CJ's obsessive references to "abused children"?

And the same members continuing to sabotage articles on animal welfare.

Smutty, sexual innuendoes? Psychotic, sick, descriptions of animal slaughter? Abuse of children?

When's your next farm orgy, gentlemen?

End of posts for Dickie

Dickie,

You have said you wont be posting again and that is OK by me. However, should you be reading I would like to tell you that I dont think I will take up your offer of coming into your "Age of Enlightenment".

It would seem that those already in that euphoric state have no idea of what majority means, some really dont know very much about animal husbandry practices, and they seem to get all tied up in knots about a minority of offenders who can be punished by existing legislation if the authorities want to get off their rear ends and enforce it.

The lights are on and the animals are happy and well cared for in the state in which I live. Things are in balance.

I will never support the regime that you and your kind promote, and I hope Australians all over will see through this charade for what it is.

Animal law is just more money for the legal profession. Punishing offenders is shutting the gate after the animals have been cruelly treated. Too late for the animals then. Fines do not put back feathers and fur.

A compulsory animal education system that involves the role of the primary producer and industry, as well as the environment, may be of more use than inflicting punishments that dont work. Promoting best practice in animal husbandry practices is the way to go - promoting animal husbandry practices that are suitable for Australian rural conditions - not the eclectic towns of urban Europe.

Look at the balance of nature in the Australian environment and determine what is killing what and the levels of cruelty that exist in nature. You may be surprised to find that the biggest devils are not those who work with animals at all.

Animal law is more money in the pockets of legal eagles and is rear guard action that is of little benefit to the real animals.

Bottom line.

Mimosa

"Stick to the issue, Yabby. Anaesthetic!"

Well dickie, if you have a bee in your bonnet about
anaesthetics, so see that they are freely available
to farmers, which they are not. Farmers don't make
them nor invent all sorts of laws to prevent them
being used. If they were available at the local
farmers stores, people would use them more often.
Its all these people in their offices, inventing
red tape, that are the problem.

If you think that foreskins and breasts are smutty
and not perfectly natural and normal, well clearly
that city life has not taught you the laws of
nature yet :) The birds and the bees, dickie, its
all very natural, forget the hangups that religion
taught you. Go spend some time on a farm for once
in your life.

Armchair animal libbers are a sad story. They sit back
and try to comment about issues, about which they mostly
really don't have a clue.Owning a pet pooch or moggie is simply
not enough! Its time to go and educate yourself.

The author raises many excellent points on pig pens and such however, the author demonstrates big city ignorance when it comes to issue's on animals such as kangaroos.

Due to farming practices, kangaroos have in fact over populated to the point where it does and can become a health risk to the Roo population. Where I live, kangaroos are hit by passing traffic on a weekly basis due to a combination of drought and ofcourse, over population.

We could stop the culling and just let them starve themselves to death. So much more humane for the foolish animal libertarian who needs to learn life from more than just a radical pamphlet.

Profile drawn from data collected by American Dr. Jon Hooper, reported in “Animal Welfarists and Rightists: Insights into an Expanding Constituency for Wildlife Interpreters,” in Legacy, November/December 1992, pp 20-25. The profile of the average AL supporter is a middle-aged white woman with a college education, average income of $40,000 USD in 1990, (66-70K 2007?) coastal & urban dwellers, politically liberal = (Democrat/ALP/Green combined CJ), supports environmentalist causes and owns several pets.

Redondo Beach, Calif, 11/1993, conference, Whose Wildlife is this Anyway?, by Friends of Animals. An attendee observed – bumper stickers were very popular .. HEART ATTACKS – GODS REVENGE FOR EATING HIS FRIENDS, SUPPORT THE RIGHT to ARM BEARS, and LAST CHANCE FOR ANIMALS. @150 attendees, mostly women, only two non-Caucasians, nicely dressed, polite and proper but when the meeting began tension permeated the atmosphere suggesting a hidden agenda behind the printed one. Organisers refused to tape the meeting. Reluctant credit was given to hunters and fishers as it was acknowledged their licence fees were the primary funding for habitat restoration.

Wayne Pacelle spoke citing “Thousands of years of prejudice”, for animals. Comparison made to the abolition of slavery, called Theodore Roosevelt a inveterate killer of animals” whose “behaviour was repugnant even though he set aside some lands as refuges” but “these were insignificant” (ie only Yellowstone Park CJ), went on to make several anti hunting statements. The observer pondered if animals should be treated as equals then why is it not ok for humans to hunt if animals hunt.

Next Paul Watson – began to describe his ramming and sinking of a pirate whaling ship, his scuttling of a Norwegian whaling ship in Antarctica and other various exploits. Mention his upcoming Newfoundland trial on 3 counts of criminal misconduct for the disruption of Cod fishing. Thanked Fund for Animals; buying his first ship which he sunk when being arrested. He was pleased that he had sold the movie rights, “When you live in a media culture you have to come up with new ideas all the time.” Thunderous applause. Meeting akin to a revival meeting and rally.

continued
Observer recollected the founder of PETA Ingrid Newkirk who often talked about the day when the lamb and the lion will lay down together. The falcons outside the conference that he observed attacking doves, were not listening, he concluded.

Hunters & hunting -- referred to as repugnant, barbaric, abhorrent, cruel, suffering, murderer, sadistic. Attendees were urged to “Leave science behind,” when you talk about animals, because “their survival is a moral obligation”. (Wanting animals to survive is a common desire CJ)

His summary – it was a rally, purpose to hunt dollars, no attempt to find creative answers to wildlife management, lively meeting; the tone was always prickly. Some speakers were entertaining, mixed good humour with images of violence and inflammatory calls for action, the act of clever political fund raisers. No speakers from a fish and game organisation were invited, no professors of wildlife management or even politicians.

No one in the audience appeared to spend much time outdoors except for P Watson. Alaskans call these folks “ninety nine fiftiers,” meaning 99% have never been more than fifty feet from their cars. The emotional undercurrent was fear and anger. People talked of animals but there were no discussions about how to raise money for habitat restoration. Pending legislation was identified and the attendees were urged to write in support but there was no attempt to help people think critically about it.

They were urged to join a group protesting about others, to give money for unclear reasons and to become vegetarians as a political act. The writer (a psychologist) believed the meeting was a primitive group as identified by Freud. Freud says these groups are characterised by, “intensification of the affects and the inhibition of the intellect” and are based upon passions. People are asked to give up their individual critical thinking and follow charismatic leaders. Freud considered political rallies, mobs (Cronolla) and religious meetings as primitive groups.

He recalled W Pacelle reckoning that generally speaking people were reasonably well off emotionally.

The kangaroo shooting situation, like global warming is our fault largely as a result of poor land management and zoning practices. Of course greed and ignorance has been a large part of this. Like global warming we are not powerless to take action to rectify the situation. Though I don't think the approximately four thousand commercial shooters would be too pleased if there were other solutions to mitigating crop damage other than shooting macropods. Hell, they'd have to get a real job with other people.

Though there are other mitgation methods as opposed to shooting. A farmer from Leeton I used to work with in the Wine Industry explained to me he had saved money on professional shooters by planting a row of lupins around his wheat, "fiteen feet thick". Apparently kangaroos don't like lupins.

HOW TO STOP SHOOTING OF KANGAROOS:

i)Ask your supermarket manager/ grocer/ baker/ butcher for products made out of imported wheat. Explain why you are asking. After all, kangaroos are not killed in any other country during the production of wheat and other cereals.

ii) Petition/ e-mail/ write to FSANZ ( Food Standards Australia & New Zealand)to include labels on products containing wheat ( barley...etc...) that state either way if "kangaroos/ wallabies were harmed during the production of this product".

iiia) Petition/ e-mail/ write to your local/ Federal member(s), local Mayor and the honorable Ian Campbell to have picture of a cute little baby kangaroo in its' mother's pouch included on kangaroo meat and products, and perhaps a statement to the effect of " if you didn't intend to buy this- these animals may have continued to live" or something like that.

or

b) Do the same as in iiia) and/ or state you believe an environment tax should be levied on kangaroo meat to make it more expensive than buying other meats. That this tax should go toward restoring the food and water supply for kangaroos in the natural environment so they have no need to drink from dams and eat cereal crops.

That this tax should go toward restoring the food and water supply for kangaroos in the natural environment so they have no need to drink from dams and eat cereal crops.
Posted by Johno J, Sunday, 7 January 2007 1:17:55 AM

Another delusional mind in thinking that he might sway the minds of us others...get real johno j,you obviously didnt know that there are far more roos in australia now than there ever were when old jimmy cook lobbed here a few years ago.

Bores,ground tanks,bore drains etc have opened up western qld and nsw where no natural PERMANENT water could be had previously to sustain roos...god boy,where have you been?Another with the ostrich syndrome?

Another tax? Laughable? Have you ever been north of the Yarra?If so have you spent time in the western areas of the above states? No? Of course not,you get all of your info from the green group newsletters that you subscibe too.
This week i`m into some roo fillet that has been marinated in o/oil,garlic,lemon juice and oregano...i will grill it over yellow box coals on a wire grill till some blood seeps onto the top side,a quick turn over and it will be just delish...mmmm,rareish roo meat done like that is superb,i might have a small side salad to compliment the meat.

And as far as you mentioning something about roo shooters having to get a real job you are definately sharing your ignorance around as the work they do is not for the lilywhite fluorescent tanned city dweller that you undoubtably are. The work in all sorts of weather requires hard workers with no cafe bar to whinge around every day.I think i should post another pic of some roos hanging on the ute,just for you JJ

1) WATER UNAVAILABILTY IN SOUTH WESTERN NSW: Few farmers I know seem to have any extended or integrated understanding of the meteorology, hydrology, biodiversity and ecology of South Western NSW ( though I do know of one). Farmers generally think that if they weren't growing wheat and didn't have dams (or a pipeline from a bore/ canal that macropods chew through to get water) that the kangaroos would have no food or water.

This may be partly true in our altered built environment, cleared, irrigated, grazed, cropped ect...though it has only been like this, in these parts ( mostly) at least since soldier settlers were given these lands to develop when they returned from WWII.

Prior to the clearing of the vast expanses of Carrathool plain, there were numerous creeks and wadis that regularly flew with opportunistic recharge. Hence why they are all named creeks on old 1800's maps. Since clearing, global warming and the construction of stupid towns like Narrandera ( stupid as in relying nearly entirely on bore water- though the hamburgers are great) a much lower proportion of available water is available for natural waterways and recharge for aquifers.

Entire river deltas and river systems have died in China, the UK and North America due to unsustainable bore water extraction based on a poor understanding of groundwater and the interrelation of plant biomass/ recharge.

The interconnectivity of subterranean aquifers and water courses in NSW is still poorly understood, though it is a fair bet it would rain a lot more here independent of El Niño if forests had not been turned into grassland. As in trees tie up water in the one place and regularly add to overall air moisture with evapotranspiration. Higher humidity = higher probability of rain.

Hence the streams in the national park I live near have only flown for three months in eight years. The flood is also overdue.

Net result is that macropods rely on farm dams for water. There is nothing else for them to drink.

You would do well to think more and spew your mind at people less Gryphon.

Net result is that macropods rely on farm dams for water. There is nothing else for them to drink.

You obviously didnt get the gist of the spew above JJ...exactly what i was saying is that there are FAR MORE roo`s now than before due to man opening up a water source for them...had a look in the freezer today and i`m wondering wether it will be wood duck,pacific black duck or,yes thats it i think i will have the teal roasted tonight..

"Ask your supermarket manager/ grocer/ baker/ butcher for products made out of imported wheat. Explain why you are asking."

Hehe, given that in most years by far the majority of our wheat
is exported to third world countries, those 20 million Australian
consumers, if they all stopped eating wheat tomorrow, would hardly
matter. World population is increasing by 80 million a year old
son, so your little feelgood exercise is no more then
that. Reality does not go away, when we close our eyes and wish
it would, get used to it.

Good Onya Johno,

Such actions would only serve to make Australian's much poorer as money is sent overseas, not kept here creating jobs for our youth.

Such is the extreme stupidity of such fools.

Johno J “HOW TO STOP SHOOTING OF KANGAROOS:” don’t do that, I enjoy skippy on my barbeque

the gryphon is completely correct, The kangaroo population has exploded with the expansion of farming in Australia. The population is now far higher than it has ever been, they breed based on food source, not because they are feeling horny.

The same with animal liberationist, a few existed a few years back and now we are getting overrun with them. A cull of animal libers is long overdue, if for no other reason than, the rationale and reasoning of JohnoJ’s post show that from a limited gene pool, there is too much interbreeding.

"Ask your supermarket manager...for products...of imported wheat...After all, kangaroos are not killed in any other country during the production of wheat."

Duh! Given that there arent wild kangaroos in other countries, then you are correct by default. However, bet their own native animals have suffered loss of habitat. There are plenty of roo's. Get over it.

I also have problems with your references to water sources on the Carathool plains. Your evidence please? Or are you another greenie-type that have told me that the farmers of the Hay plains cut down all the trees? (Note to those that dont know better, the Hay plains have vast tracts that have always been treeless). Maps with creek names dont count - Lake Eyre got named, despite lack of regular flow. I grew up in the area that you are referring to, and with pretty big generation gaps, so knew people who were around in the 1800's. The plains were pretty dry then, and those creeks didnt run often.

I do happen to have a problem with the intensive feedlotting or cage-growing of animals. I do also understand the small margins that farmers make and the need for them to produce as efficiently as possible. However, given that I am disgusted by the smell of feedlots close to the roads I drive, I avoid all but homekilled beef (which is usually head-shot where it is grazing, killed in the most humane way possible). I dont eat pork (mental problem with the killing of pigs that we named as suckers). I rarely eat chicken (not enough iron). If you want to eat a non-intensively farmed animal, do as I do and stick to lamb. Sheep are feedlotted yes, but research has shown that sheep grow much faster (therefore more profitable), if the feedlot has a certain amount of space, is clean and has toys. Yep, sheep love to play (just watch how they carry on on a dam bank), so by nature they get quite a reasonable time of things in their feedlots. Eating lamb is Aussie anyway - just watch the ads!!

Really, the way some of you fellows carry on and the gryphon's references to his evening meals makes me wonder. What is for dinner tonight - backpacker?

I think you should all consider that professional kangaroo shooters are a minority. What, about 5,000 licenses issued country wide? I understand destruction permits and recreational licences are a different thing. Though even with all the support of all the people in the country (you haven't mine), you still are a small minority.

Democracy is a strange thing. We have many laws that make little sense, why not a few more?

Wrt. the labelling thing. I believe the success demonstrated by "dolphin free" tuna affirms there is the potential for a similar impacts on the cereal industry.

As for the potential for boycott of products labelled as such, well I think you may be surprised. It may be the third world though I'm sure they still have dial-up.

For example, in Japan they have a food labelling system in which food packages are micro-chipped so that picky consumers may see exactly what their food has been sprayed with, what farmer grew it, how much water was used per kilo of product....etc. I’m sure a list of animals harmed would not be too hard to add. Additionally, the Japanese whaling commission already makes a big point of how can Australians possibly criticise them for all those whales.

So it would appear the templates for such events are there, at least in a few places.

I applaud country gal’s submission. I have heard nothing about the Hay plains clearing. I am nearly out of space for this post, though briefly; what I am talking about in reference to water supply on Carathool plain is that like many places in Australia, bore water is heavily utilised. That like matter can not be created or destroyed, surface fresh water and groundwater may or may not be interconnected depending on the area.

To draw water from bores that are interconnected with surface water, dependent on recharge actually takes that water out of rivers/ streams.

Really, the way some of you fellows carry on and the gryphon's references to his evening meals makes me wonder. What is for dinner tonight - backpacker? End quote JJ.

I think i will leave the backpackers for the experts IE: Jefferey Dahmer!Albert Fish,Issy Aragawa and the others.

Hmmm though on second thoughts i did see a couple of tasty Swedish types in their micro bikini`s on the Spit at the Gold Coast last year (the spit haha is a tourist beach).

Hay Plains? Some of the most amazing starlit nights spent there around areas as Corrong,One Tree,Booroobran and other places we have had in pursuit of wild pigs for the chillers and those roos on the truck that i posted the link too came from there also.And i must say one of the Hay Plains greatest assets is that there are no JJ`s or Dickies out there either.A rare place where the greens dont want to know about.God i hope they dont find a five legged four winged hopping mouse up there to save.Hooray.
Andrew Barton P himself wrote about the starry skies on those very plains,its a shame he wasnt around to write some wise words of wisdom about you greeny folk.

Though i suppose they (greens) could start up a "save the old man saltbush fund" and stop those horrible cockie`s sheep destroying it.

Ah! saltbush lamb chewing its tucker getting fatter for the gryphons is a sight to see,Sam Kekovich would surely agree.

I'm always amazed by the Green's who point at farmers with such derision. Animal farmers require extensive knowledge about the care and feeding of their animals. Animal husbandry is not a euphemism for wanton destruction. It isn't the honest farmer who wants his animals penned up and living their life out in a 4'x6' allotment. It's the Mega-Agri business who come along and think they can farm like they run shopping malls. 10,000 pigs under one roof and all their waste. 100,000 chickens under one roof and all their waste. It's not the honest farmer running maybe 4 animals to the acre. If the green's want to protest something they ought to educate themselves to that interest of the moment, not just react with blanket blame. Then again if they really got down to doing a proper investigation they would be surprised at the number of green-minded farmers out there. Growing up in the bush and making a living off your own land may not get you all the toys of a city life cuz it's damn hard work and money can be short. It's not an experience that leads one to destruction but towards attention and husbandry.

Hear hear, aqvarivs. Its just another reason why our society should support family farmers - those that genuinely care for their land and their animals - rather than assuming that corporations are better farmers because they have higher profits.

Although some are daunted by the size and space of the Hay plains, I love it. The sheer emptiness has a magical way of showing you just how insignificant you are - a great cure for inflated egos.

The Gryphon, I'm not sure that there is a five legged four winged hopping mouse for the greenies to find out there, but local farmers did find the Plains Wanderer, a unique bird that looks a bit like a quail, but is actually the only member of its species, and was thought to be extinct. The local farmer that found it in the mid-80's runs weekly tours for birdo's to view the bird. Which just goes to show that farmers are most certainly NOT against conservation.

Sadly there is not much saltbush left on the plains for lambs to munch - the salt-bush bug killed most of it years ago, and then it was competed out by grasses. Sad for the industry as saltbush was more drought-hardy than the rye and barley grass that you find there now (when it rains). These grasses have also competed out the wild paper daisies, which used to make the plains look like they were covered in snow.

JJ, my point re the waterways of the Hay and Carrathool plains is that these only ever ran in wet years. They are not permanent water ways. The majority of irrigation in the area is sourced from the Bidgee, and distributed via irrigation schemes. Most bores are for stock and domestic use only, and you have to go down 100+ metres to get drinkable water - at a cost of $20,000+ per bore. So these are not put down lightly. Further, a lot of old bores have collapsed from age and not been replaced. Instead water is piped from river-based sources, as is cheaper than redrilling a new bore.

The Gryphon, I'm not sure that there is a five legged four winged hopping mouse for the greenies to find out there,

Country Gal i saw one ! honest!

Ok maybe the starry skies that the banjo wrote about buggered my vision that night or was it the BOOROOBRAN HOTEL`S tasty ales that altered my vision,no matter i share your delight in those plains,Clare culpa,alma,wanganella,zarah, even out back of the Booligal pub great places and maybe the JJ`s and dickies should get off their vinyl couches and take a look at some of the other world (the real one)

Truth said. There are some very cruel people about doing God knows what to animals. However we do have laws to control that sort of illegal and indiscriminate behavior and we punish them when they're found out. Are the laws lenient? Maybe so but, if the greens really wanted to make a difference they could narrow their focus and protest during those events and call for stiffer fines or sentences. Culling is essential to maintaining healthy stock and controlling endemic disease. Hunting is a part of game conservation. As we encroach more and more into animal habitat our responsibilities and direct intervention increase. It's called planned management.
More jobs for the social conscience types. Of course they'd have to get out into the bush and get their clothes dirty... well, I guess some one else better do the work after all. We don't need the country side littered with granola bar wrappers, torn Levi's and spent tennis shoes. Poor animals have it bad enough. :-)

IN THE NEWS

WHOS SIDE IS PETA REALLY ON? Would any rational person be surprised with the following news article? After all PETA is about garnering financial and political support to build an organisation that provides jobs for metrocentric girls and a few boys who think the same. Another form of socialising the funds and privatising the lifestyles of the self appointed, self righteous, highly evolved who hate other humans who don't support some of their radical views.

Colorado Governor: PETA “A Bunch Of Losers,” “Frauds”

As many as 340,000 cows and steers have been left stranded by southeastern Colorado's most recent snowstorm, and National Guard units are helping ranchers in a frantic bid to save the freezing animals. Faced with 15-foot snowdrifts, rescuers are airlifting bales of hay and hoping for the best. But as Coloradans are learning, the wealthy People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) isn't about to lift a finger. Not for those animals -- the ones destined to be flame-broiled, grilled, or roasted. Appearing on Denver radio station KRFX yesterday morning, Colorado Governor Bill Owens spoke for all of us. PETA, he declared, are "a bunch of losers" [click to listen] and "frauds" [click to listen].

The dust-up started when KRFX morning hosts Rick Lewis and Michael Floorwax (yes, that's his real name) called PETA to ask if the group would help feed and rescue the snowbound herds. PETA spokeswoman Reannon Peterson took the call, and bluntly replied: "You're going to save them, and then in six months they're going to be killed and end up on some one's plate. So I don't know that it's really the most noble cause." [click to listen].

Peterson added that wild animals caught in the blizzard's wake -- the same animals PETA routinely criticizes hunters for bagging -- also weren't worth spending PETA's money to save. "It's an act of God," she said. "There's really nothing to be done" [click to listen].

Enter Governor Owens. In addition to labeling PETA "losers" and "frauds," he expressed amazement that "PETA doesn't want us to feed freezing cattle. Link--

http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/headline/3212

6 January continued

By contrast the 1/94 Archive of General Psychiatry, Prof Kessler reported about an extremely comprehensive survey of mental health – 1/3 of the USA is afflicted by mental illness every year and ½ will suffer from mental illness in their lifetime.

The conference literature advertised workshops on hunt sabotage but none were held, however, a number of secret meetings were conducted in hotel rooms. Conference attendees had bumper stickers reading SAVE CRUELTY and CHOLESTEROL, BE a VEGITARIAN, VISUALISE INDUSTRIAL COLLAPSE, BACK to THE PLEISTOCENE, (apparently unaware that there were lots of hunters and hunted way back then)

Driving home our writer had to drive through a part of LA that had experienced recent riots. Local news reports highlighted drugs, gang warfare, adolescent gun crime, rapes, shootings, unemployment, and homelessness and so on. By contrast, the local bumper stickers read, VISUALISE CIVIL WAR, LIFES HARD THEN YOU DIE and LEAVE ME ALONE.

Moral of the story? Being white and affluent predisposes one to being concerned about additional rights for animals. So if PETA & AL want more converts all they have to do is eliminate poverty. This strategy would have to be easier than starting a new religion based on what people eat.

Dear anti`s

My idea is that if you like sardine icecream,lentil burgers or tofu pies or some other strange food (to me) i will leave you to enjoy it and wont try and sway your opinion of such fine food,why then and what gives you the right to try and sway my mind away from dreaming about a large Angus rump steak cooked med rare and smothered in Aioli?

Why do you vegies think you have the right to protest about what i eat or what i breed or what i hunt to be able to eat..animal rights? Yes of course,plenty of tucker,clean water and good lodging/penning etc...we want them in good condition.

The finest meat i have ever eaten was from barley crop raiding free ranging Tasmanian Fallow deer...fat as fools and oh so tender too.

The Tassy season is back again in March and by all reports the deer are in superb condition,we hunters cant wait....spspspsps (sound of lips smacking!)

And we had a horse to put down here at home in the country due to a busted knee,i happened to mention the fact to an Italian mate on the phone and his immediate response was yelled out hurriedly,

"my old man will take all the porterhouse and the scotches"

An Aussie icon is Sam with his ads for LAMB

Sam Kekovich back on lamb

Dina Rosendorff

January 12, 2007 12:00am
Article from: Herald-Sun

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LOOK out lentil lovers - "Slamming" Sam Kekovich is back with another meat-loving monologue sure to miff even the most mild-mannered mung bean muncher.

In his latest TV ad for Meat and Livestock Australia, Kekovich implores viewers to take a stand against un-Australianism "before it becomes as prevalent as exposed genitals on a reality television show".

Has Sam gone too far? Have your say below.

In a thinly veiled reference to Ian Thorpe, Kekovich laments "the greatest disaster to befall our nation since tofu: the early retirement of our greatest Olympic swimmer".

"Is there anything more un-Australian than those gold medal-hungry Yanks who tried to poison a big-hearted Aussie champion with the lure of Hollywood just to stop him racing?" he says.

"It's like Phar Lap all over again. That's the danger of too much L.A. and not enough L-A-M-B."

But Thorpe's manager David Flaskas dismissed comparisons with the legendary racehorse.

"I can understand Sam's concern but the good thing is Thorpey hasn't been taken to a taxidermist and put in a museum yet," Mr Flaskas said.

In his deadpan address to the nation, Kekovich also suggests using uranium to power barbecues, reducing global warming.

"Think how many chops a portable nuclear reactor could cook," he says.

"If the koala suit-wearing, tree-hugging, alfalfa-munching lobby has a problem with that, they can chain themselves to the nearest plane.

"I hear North Korea's nice this time of year."

Sean Cadman from the Wilderness Society, famous for dressing money collectors in koala costumes, said Kekovich was an Aussie larrikin with a redneck sense of humour.

"No one takes Sam Kekovich seriously," Mr Cadman said. "If you don't see the ridiculousness in that sort of stuff you certainly don't have a sense of humour."

The former AFL footballer also proclaims eating meat would solve Australia's water crisis.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21046558-661,00.html

Country Gal

"Hear hear, aqvarivs. Its just another reason why our society should support family farmers - those that genuinely care for their land and their animals - rather than assuming that corporations are better farmers because they have higher profits."

It's a sad day when farming becomes so cost prohibitive that a country can no longer afford to feed itself and becomes dependent on the importation of it's food stuffs.

Thankfully the U.N. will be ready and willing to do food drops and finance subsistence farming once Australia reaches third world status.

This thread needs more focus and maybe some more aggressive “anti-lunacy” rhetoric from “real people".

Being a fervent supporter of freedom of choice (to eat meat or not) and to resist, at all times the aggressive minorities who seek to impose undue influence beyond their representative worth (like PETA) and those who believe in terrorism and criminal vandalism as tools for their cause (the “animal liberation” network), I present for you a few worthy quotes from the animal rights folk who want to crush your freedom of choice in the name of “Taking a stand for all animals”.

Freedom of speech means idiots condemn themselves from their own mouths. So let the babes Speak -

"We feel that animals have the same rights as retarded children."
Alex Pacheco, PETA

"It is time we demand an end to the misguided and abusive concept of animal ownership. The first step on this long, but just, road would be ending the concept of pet ownership."
Elliot Katz, In Defense of Animals,

"Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughter houses."
Ingrid Newkirk, PETA,

"It is time we demand an end to the misguided and abusive concept of animal ownership. The first step on this long, but just, road would be ending the concept of pet ownership."
Elliot Katz, In Defense of Animals,

"As John Bryant has written in his book Fettered Kingdoms, they [pets] are like slaves, even if well-kept slaves."
PETA's Statement on Companion Animals

"Arson, property destruction, burglary and theft are 'acceptable crimes' when used for the animal cause."
Alex Pacheco, PETA

"In a war you have to take up arms and people will get killed, and I can support that kind of action by petrol bombing and bombs under cars, and probably at a later stage, the shooting of vivisectors on their doorsteps.
Tim Daley, British Animal Liberation Front

Anyone who thinks they have sympathy with PETA and other “liberationists”, check out what you are really supporting and whether you are being had.

Balance People, Balance.

Dear Col

Right on.

As for being on topic did you miss PETA's immoral stance on the snowed in farm animals in Colorado -- see Jan 10 post? This is a current event. Where is Dickie Dearest when we need some one to spin and rationalise this disgusting bit of news.

You missed listing a big one that I have been saving -- Peter Singer and his advocating "consensual sex with animals" Boston Post article appeared a few years ago condemning the depravity of AL's leading light.

Will lawyers for animals defend abused animals who have been raped by Singer acolytes who failed to obtain consent?

The people who deserve the most condemnation are the apologists who lend moral and financial support because they agree with 'most' of their platform and agenda. These apologist feel it is acceptable that only a few libbers are violent. The apologist self righteously decides to be part of the problem not the solution.

Cowboy Joe "the apologists who lend moral and financial support because they agree with 'most' of their platform and agenda"

Lenin had a couple of words to describe them.

I find the whole "animal rights" agenda as offensive as any other dictatorship and that is exactly what PETA want, their dictatorship.

PETA, despite being and representing a tiny minority view, demand to direct us all along a path of their choosing without sense or reason to where it might lead.

It is no different to muslim extremists demanding we adopt Sharia law in Australia.

It is the same senseless anti-democratic pseudo-social babble which the insecure malcontents, with inferiority complexes and those with insufficient real problems in their lives, fixate on.

They are, in Lenins words "Useful Idiots".

So let every reasonable and sensible individual stand up and reject the babble. Reject PETA. Stop buying Abercrombie and Fitch Suites (A&F who acquiessed to PETA over Australian Wool)

I for one enjoy my leather coat and leather shoes.

A good steak from either cattle or kangaroo or pork chops or lamb grace my table almost every day (sometimes its fish).

I have no pets as a personal choice yet resent no one who has.

I do not deliberately harm animals but recognise eating meat is the mainstream and no crackpot vegan or vegitarian is going to dictate to me about it.

I saw a TV show recently, some looney stupid vegan woman thought she could gain energy from looking at the sun. Maybe she had managed to develop photosynthesis as a byproduct of getting up close and personal with a carrot or cucumber but I don't think so really. She was an animal rights fruitcake harrassing people as they shopped with pamphlets and placards.

And I have yet to hear of a gerbil every giving consent when participating with a human. Beastiality is beastiality and a perversion for its mentally ill practitioners to anticipate from the comfort of their straight jackets.

Col Rouge

Fish!

Isn't that vegietarian?

:-)

And I have yet to hear of a gerbil every giving consent when participating with a human. Beastiality is beastiality and a perversion for its mentally ill practitioners to anticipate from the comfort of their straight jackets.

Peta people do this? Advocate it? Geezus they are worse than i imagined!

Being a strong advocator for the zebra, I too have faced immense hardships in fighting my cause. Those damn lions though just won't listen to the ideals you preach... but we lost a few good men trying though.

Katrina, I do wonder though if you could look into the intelligent, sentient eyes of starving human beings with such compassion when there is no longer a that to offer the fries with....

Ok so i`m a meat eating horror,in fact i have been one all my life and i wont stop now. I actively pursue game and often eat the game that i hunt,however in saying that i (we) dont just go out guns "ablazing" to knock every thing that we see A over T squared.

We are also conservationists as hunters although the L Levys of this world wont see that at all...hmmm i wonder what he does for wetlands?

Anyway took my Canon no, not the cannon but the camera variety for a stroll this morning and took a dozen pics of this hind..shoot her? No, but when the freezer is bare there is a big chance of her filling it. Provacative? No! Just telling it how it is in the real world.
I can always post a link to a nice fat vealer prior to it going to Safeway`s meat dept if you vegies want to come on with the "how could you" ?(eat the venison)hey it happens daily get over it folks.

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a48/gryphone/stripgullytolmie.jpg

Just a question for all , do you drive a vehicle? if so why? as there have been accidents involving oil rigs with animals getting coated with oil.I think this maybe one of those "oh we don't talk about that i have to get to my vegie farm" maybe there is ALOT of double standards happening here.
As far as killing a feral animal inhumanely, most hunters have a STRICT code of ethics and if the animal is NOT killed correctly it will not be accepted for the international market sales. Maybe if a few learnt some facts instead of saying what "Marg" told me at the tofu tasting the better off we all would be.

You can't compare Roo culling with whaling for roo's are in abundance and easily populate while whale numbers is limited and they don't breed like Roo's.

Have a read of this post green leaf eaters..and i ask WHAT WOULD YOUR PLAN BE IF YOU WERE THE PERSON IN CHARGE OF THE ENVIRONMENT?

[IMG]http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a48/gryphone/ferals.jpg[/IMG]

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a48/gryphone/ferals.jpg

Greetings Katrina

Perhaps you may have access to today's West Australian where half of the front page is showing a picture of dozens of pigs crammed into one pen - some on top of each other, with the heading:

"WA piggery accused of letting crippled animals die in their own filth and feed on each other."

An article on Page 9 with the caption stating:

"Allegation of cruelty sparks raid at piggery"

Para 1: "A WA piggery was raided by police and other authorities yesterday amid claims some pigs at the facility had been eaten by others which had died in the pens, animals had been forced to wallow in filth so deep they struggled to walk and they had been left to die slowly once illness took hold."

Para 5: (A video) "allegedly shows dozens of pigs standing in a muddy cocktail of straw, feed and animal waste. Some appear to be disabled by a crippling disease that causes swelling of the limbs and makes walking difficult or impossible."

Para 7: "Some pigs were also allegedly captured on video gorging on carcasses of pigs that had died in the pens."

The ill-treatment was captured on video by a former worker.

I would not be the least surprised to find that the "pig" who operates this facility has accreditation. From a layperson's view, and after a cursory glance at the Code of Practice, I would suggest that all the "shoulds" and "mays" in this document be deleted and replaced with the verb "will".

One must also question the worth of the inspectors who are paid to ensure that factory farming is performed in a humane manner.

My daughter lost a friend in Scotland to Mad Cows' Disease.

I wonder what the medical terminology is for Mad Pigs' Disease?

Vancouver prosecutors offered shocking details of the alleged crimes perpetrated by a Canadian pig farmer.

The pig farmer has been charged with murdering 26 women and feeding them to his pigs.

"He would take them (the women) into a room and feed them to the pigs", a former worker told officers in a taped conversation.

The victims have been described as "mostly drug-addicted prostitutes".

I wonder how the consumers are feeling at present with the knowledge that the pigs they've been feasting on have been eating human flesh contaminated with addictive drugs?

The pig farmer during the trial protested, "I'm just a plain little farm boy."

Police suspect the "plain little farm boy" of being responsible for the disappearance of 65 women over several years.

65 women? That would be a lot of stock feed!

Seems the Canadian legislation is just as useless as our own and their inspectors are also asleep at the wheel!

Best you just stick to eating the canned tuna Dickie, most of
which is caught and canned off the Thailand coast, where all
those tzunami bodies have been floating around.

Ditzie Dickie returns; our favourite bush lawyer. The fact that arrests have been made and convictions seem likely is completely irrelevant to our sensitive, caring and sharing Dickie.

Note: Legislation does not = enforcement, Dickie being a product of the age of permissive child rearing (Dickie refused to comment on the possibility of being an abused child) it is easy to understand how Dickie could make such a mistake.

So now murder is an animal liberation issue is it?

Wild pigs eat dead pigs in the wild, fact. Wild pigs eat all sorts of dead things. Wild pigs are head shot, transported to a mobile chiller, inspected for various things and exported to Europeans who can not get enough of the stuff. Why, because they believe it is clean organic flavoursome meat.

Re: BSE or Mad Cow Disease, cows eating the flesh of cows is an entirely different matter than pigs eating pigs.

My recollection is that the cattle feed was contaminated with organisms that were present due to a lowering of the standard temperature for rendering animal products which were put into the cattle feed at that time (not a pleasant thought I agree). The infectious agent in BSE is believed to be a specific type of misfolded protein called prion. So unless the dead pigs were infected with BSE and we have not had any cases in Australia there is no chance the WA pigs were infected.

Now drug addiction due to eating pork chops -- certainly a quintessential example of Olympic standard logic leaping. There would be an extremely low chance that any one person or for that matter any one family would consume the entire carcass of one heroin contaminated pic. How much heroin could there be in a couple of pork chops for cripes sake! Porcine induced drug dependency -- Dickie needs to write this one up for the British Medical Journal.

The increasingly desperate attempts to justify the paranoia of some Animal Lib concepts only reinforces the need to be concerned about the mental health of such zealots.

PETA outed -- again. 83% of the animals they "care" for are killed. Remember when animals are treated like people then people will be treated like animals. After all PETA thinks disabled people should be euthanized also.

PETA Trial, Day 3 17 hrs ago. Dickie likes things up to date.

"Adria and Andy were simply doing their jobs to euthanize the animals."

That's Blair Brown -- a lawyer for one of two PETA employees on trial for felony animal cruelty -- virtually summing up the defense's strategy during his opening statement yesterday. Brown and the rest of PETA's legal team don't deny that the two defendants -- Adria Hinkle and Andrew Cook -- killed (at least) 31 dogs and kittens in June 2005. They don't deny that the two threw the dead bodies into a dumpster. And they don't deny that what Hinkle and Cook did is standard practice for a group that wants constitutional rights for pigs.

The flimsy justification for the pro-animal-rights/pro-animal-killing hypocrisy touted by PETA folks inside and outside the courtroom has been that euthanizing these animals is more humane than keeping them in overcrowded shelters. But that begs the question: If local shelter conditions really are that bad, and the preservation of animal life is PETA's singular purpose, why didn't they adopt the animals themselves? Maybe the home they'd provide is less than ideal -- but it's certainly better than being dead.

Then again, when you spend so much of your $25 million budget on tasteless billboards, props for naked protests, and disturbing comic books, there's probably not much cash left to care for real-live animals.

Katrina

There is a case for concern when posters on this thread who are associated with farming practices and living in the "civilised country", condone the feeding of human flesh to pigs and endorse the practice of turning factory pigs into cannibals! I would simply say: "Buyer beware!"

Australian virologist Peter Kirkland is quoted as saying : "You can't screen for viruses you don't know about".

If you have not already done so, I invite you to reflect on the excerpt from "Old Macdonald's Factory Farm" by C David Coats:

"Isn't man an amazing animal. He kills wildlife, birds, kangaroos, deer, cats, dogs, beavers, mice and foxes by the millions in order to protect his animals and their feed.

Then he kills his animals by the billions and eats them.

This in turn kills men by the millions because eating all those animals leads to degenerative and fatal health conditions like heart disease, kidney failure and cancer.

So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for a cure.

Elswhere millions of other humans are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten farmed animals.

Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man who kills so easily, so violently and once a year, sends out cards praying for peace on earth."

Clearly David doesent understand evolution theory! His ancestors
were hunter-gatherers after all, not very long ago in evolutionary
terms.

Hunting and eating meat is part of our evolutionary story.
Ok, so gathering of lettuce leaves was women's work :)

Many species eat other species, its all quite natural. Perhaps
David needs to contemplate his navel and ponder why obesity and
heart disease have become major problems since American junk
food came on the scene, with its trans fats and other rubbish.

In the end, even David will be recycled. The worms will
have their feast :) Reality happens, some just can't deal with it
and try to close their eyes, but it doesent go away.

I am beginning to wonder why we even continue trying to communicate with Delusional Dickie, READING English involves more than reading the words it requires UNDERSTADING.

NO one has condoned feeding pigs human flesh.

It was first a jibe, now I sincerely mean it Dickie find a psychologist and book in for the next three years.

Yes mankind is capable of terrible things, for Christ sake grow up, start worrying about the things you can change, get a life, get a mortgage, you have some serious issues mate. You really need to do something to vent that intense emotional anger you have stored up.

If you want to preach get elected or start a church.

You live in one of the best countries in the universe. You are one of the lucky few. Stop obsessing. If you lived in Uganda or Iraq you would be suicidal.

Do you have a normal life? Do you mow the lawn, wash the dog, change the oil in the car, prune the roses, wash the windows? I would be surprised to learn if you do.

Is your goal in life to be permanently pissed off and mad at the world?

Katrina

When one realises that most incidents of animal cruelty are reported by animal welfare groups, community members or past employees, one must assume that any regulation of these industries is a joke.

One wonders how long the disgraceful operations of the pig farm in WA has been occurring and if inspectors are turning a blind eye to these operations? Or do they inspect at all?

In 2005, a guest writer in the Lancet journal introduced a theory that Mad Cows' disease in British cattle may have originated when they ate imported animal feed that included infected human remains of Hindu funeral ceremonies in India.

The authors recommend that further investigations occur.

Since Britain has similar "standards" to Australia, it begs the question: "What are the ingredients in animal feed fed to pigs and other factory farmed animals in Australia?"

Perhaps one can now better understand the transmission of animal to human diseases where outbreaks of infections are occurring regularly with the subsequent slaughter of millions of birds and animals overseas.

I already have two friends (both nurses) who became ill on separate occasions, from eating infected chicken. On investigation, both claim to have discovered that chicken is often drenched in a chlorine solution to resist the increase in bacteria.

Whilst chlorine is used in public drinking supplies as a disinfectant, it is unacceptable to soak fresh produce in bio-accumulative, DNA altering organochlorines which have a serious health impact on the human body. These chemicals are persistent in the atmosphere, are carcinogens (with a long latency period) and invade the entire food chain.

Unfortunately, these inhumane, highly toxic and dangerous practices in factory farming will continue to increase, endorsed by incompetent, colluding "regulators" in their endeavours to "sustain" the economy!

ok dickly what about shouting out your theory on crocodile farming where they are fed on dead or cull chickens from the intensive farming industry...lets hear it eh! Or are they another that we shouldnt farm?

I suppose that you dont mind them eating us so whats wrong with us eating them?

Dickie clean food is a concern for sure but I would be more worried about the lack of health inspections of restaurants etc.

It is common for council health inspectors to have so many outlets to inspect that they are unable to visit more than twice a year.

As for nurses and bacteria, or whatever, what is the subliminal message supposed to be? Nurses being so well trained and aware of micro-organisms that we should be shocked it happened to them?

More cognitive crap from the forum raging Dick.

Recall the studies about MDs not washing their hands? The lack of hygiene amongst medical practitioners is generally agreed as a serious problem. Maybe they brought the bugs home from hospital.

We seldom keep chicken refrigerated for more than 3 days and frequently wash our hands when preparing it. In addition the meat is thoroughly washed first. We eat chicken at least once a week and have not been sick from a home prepared chicken dish in 57 years.

Time to mow the lawn Dickie or are you too paranoid to step outside the doorway.

Hopefully he doesn't ride in motor cars or rant on forums during an electrical storm oooohhh sooo scary. The risks of modern living are simply tttooooo m-m-much, aren't they dearest dream boat Dickie?

"What are the ingredients in animal feed fed to pigs and other factory farmed animals in Australia?"

Meat Meal, Blood Meal, Fish Meal - all allowed in the australian pig diet - even organic pigs. Why? because it forms part of their natural diet. Just like humans, pigs are not meant to live on cereal grains.

Protein starved sows will go to the extreme of eating their young to get it. If I laid you out unconscious in a paddock of my pigs, they would make pretty short work of you Dickie!

I can tell you Dick fella that even your dog is an inadvertant cannibal,why ?well the dogs that are euthanised at the Nth Melb dogs home leave there in a Pridhams truck,you know the big tippers seen carrying the bones of butchered animals from boning houses etc...yep the dog carcases go into the meat meal mix that is used for pet foods....waste not want not....there is more to know about life than just bitching about the real world cobber.

Mornin' Katrina

The following is a letter in today's West Australian, on the animals dying in their own filth at a WA piggery:

"Piggery Filth"

"Your report and picture about the disgraceful treatment of pigs, not for the first time, needs immediate attention from State welfare groups that have avoided this for too long.

"It beggars belief that it continues, unheeded by those employed to control animal living conditions and general welfare.

"Things have never been so ignored - the size of the cages for housing and the slaughtering and exporting.

"It is inhumanity at its very worst."

It is inhumanity at its worst?

I think not.

A gross exaggeration? Absolutely.

This statement was made in reference to the unacceptable treatment of farm animals in WA.

Self deluded, unmitigated claptrap from another sanctimonious do gooding twit. Terrible, YES; inhumanity at its worst, NO WAY JOSE. Does this person live in a parallel universe? Do they read about current events or just children's bed time stories?

Darfur, Sudan; genocide & ethnic cleansing -- apparently this is less despicable than mistreating pigs.

Iraq car bombings and 150,000 people gassed to death -- apparently this is less of a problem to the moral compass from WA.

Mugabe and Zimbabwe -- On November 17 2006 it was reported that female life expectancy is now 34 as opposed to 63 ten years ago & the Zimbabwean police torture unionists and human rightists. Obviously nothing for a WA animal worshipper to be worried about.

Those who espouse positions such as the WA writer, reveal themselves as emotional basket cases, so consequently, can not be taken seriously as a rational source for comment and or policy development.

I get the impression that Dickie and the writer would only be satisfied with the death penalty as punishment.

Cultural cringe is one thing, despising your own species is pathological.

Letter to the West Australian 31/01/07

"Thank you for giving the issue of cruelty in pig farming the attention it deserves (report 26/1).

"The allegations are of the most disturbing kind and really bring into focus the question of rights for farmed animals.

"Animals are not products, they are living creatures that deserve respect and protection.

"I applaud the West Australian for supporting the work of animal rights activists." (Matt Tilley)

Wow Dickie, thats now two of you, out of two million!

I remind you that the chief of the pork growers, has
condemned what one grower did. Every day, there
are incidents of married people beating their spouse,
that does not mean that all marriages are evil.

Today we have more emotional rhetoric in the West
Australian, about the live sheep trade. Meantime
the staffing situation is so bad in WA meatworks,
that they can't cope with present orders and animals,
despite the 3 million shipped live. Would you rather
they die in the paddocks from starvation?

No solutions offered, just emotional rhetoric and
no doubt a suggestion of financial donations, for
people to sit in their offices and play on the internet.

Nothing changes it seems.

Katrina

Psychiatrists, when investigating the major moral issue of cruelty to animals have discovered that most perpetrators were cruel during their formative years and often were abused as children.

On reaching "maturity" these misfits continue to practise their zoosadism and frequently display violent aggression to other adults, particularly those they view as opponents to their sadistic practices.

It is interesting to note that one zoosadist, a sheep farmer, spends most days abusing other posters.

In fact, he has already raised 961 posts and mostly during working hours.

One wonders if he ever tends to his sheep.

But then I imagine the neglect of his livestock and his gleeful support of animal cruelty is simply another form of domestic abuse?

ROFL Dickie, clearly you don't know the first thing about sheep!

You city types, still don't understand the difference between
the world of Little Bo Peep and nature!

One moment you criticise factory farmers, next moment, when
animals are left alone to do what they should do and live
naturally, like eat pasture, have their siesta each afternoon
and enjoy life, you think they should be interfered with.

Perhaps its time you examined your own city based, unnatural
ways of treating your pets, no wonder they go psychotic
alot of the time! Locked in houses, cars and flats. Dressed
up in clothes, jewelry and whatever else petowners can waste
their money on.

With crazy owners like that, no wonder the pets go nuts:)

Clearly Dickie doesent have the foggiest about sheep and
their natural ways!

It sounds to me that Little Bo Dickie lacks any kind
of sheep husbandry skills.

quote:Perhaps its time you examined your own city based, unnatural
ways of treating your pets, no wonder they go psychotic
alot of the time! Locked in houses, cars and flats. Dressed
up in clothes, jewelry and whatever else petowners can waste
their money on. :end quote

you forgot to mention the diamonte collar...

My apology to Dickie, I did not use the correct number.

Not 150,000 gassed but 184,000 according to a news report I read yesterday. But the papers seldom get statistics correct.

Yup, that's right Dickie a newspaper, usually written for people with a reading age 12 years and above.

Maybe you could trade in your well worn library of Golden Books at the book exchange for Peter Singers new 'Book', it has something to do with eating ethics, there should be one or two copies in the second hand shop by now.

The world awaits Singer's next book, The Ethics of Consensual Sex with Sentient Animals. The Sydney Writers festival will gladly invite him along to their next festival.

However, he may be too busy drafting a Constitutional Amendment to give pigs their constitutional rights. Apparently he conducted extensive interviews in order to identify their needs and wants. The research took longer than expected as Singer found one spotted sow particularly sensual.

Home-Grown Animal-Rights Militant Banned From UK

The British Home Secretary, acting on Center for Consumer Freedom research and investigative reporting from a top London newspaper, has banned animal-rights extremist Jerry Vlasak from entering the United Kingdom. On May 20, we sent a letter to Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), whose subcommittee was investigating the very real danger posed to America by violent animal-liberation militants. Included in our letter -- which the Senator read aloud to the entire committee -- was a chilling quote from Vlasak advocating the murder of researchers whose work requires the use of animals.

Billed as a speaker for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM is a quasi-medical group affiliated with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), Vlasak told the national "Animal Rights 2003" conference: "I don't think you'd have to kill -- assassinate -- too many ... I think for 5 lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million, 10 million non-human lives."

On July 25, the London Observer's Jamie Doward broke the story that the violence-preaching Vlasak planned a UK trip to instruct British animal-rights terrorists. Now, the Home Office (roughly analogous to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) has informed Vlasak and wife Pamelyn Ferdin that they aren't welcome "on the grounds that their presence here would not be conducive to the public good.

UK Continued:

Vlasak has extensive ties to PCRM, which disguises its animal-rights agenda behind doctors' lab coats. But Vlasak openly advocates violent tactics. Speaking at the "Animal Rights 2004" conference this summer, he argued:

It won't ruin our movement if someone gets killed in an animal rights action. It's going to happen sooner or later. The Animal Liberation Front, the Earth Liberation Front -- sooner or later there's going to be someone getting hurt. And we have to accept that fact. It's going to happen. It's not going to hurt our movement. Our movement will go on.
That's precisely the insanity that responsible public officials in Britain are trying to prevent from spreading. The Guardian reports today:

In her letter banning her from the UK [Ferdin] was told her "presence is undesirable because of your conduct (in particular your willingness to engage in confrontational activities in support of the animal rights movement) and your associations (in particular your role in and with the Animal Defence League-LA and support for Dr Vlasak's activities in the animal rights movement)."
Correspondence from the Home Office to Ferdin -- who, like her husband, has had a clear affiliation with PCRM -- emphasized that the UK has no interest in playing host to those who put animal liberation before human lives:

The secretary of state has now reached a final decision and has given a personal direction for you not to be given entry to the United Kingdom on the ground that your exclusion is conducive to the public good. I am instructed to inform you that you are hereby excluded from the United Kingdom.

very welcome news to hear that at least one country has its priorities correct....people before animals is the way for it to be.A tired old line but why is it that these peta`s etc dont channel their minds and their money into the less fortunate peoples of the world instead of animals.Does this mean that they think less of the unfortunates,do i sense that peta`s think far less of their fellow beings of different colours ?

Excerpts from Article in West Australian - Saturday 3/02/07

"Farmers are braced for a landmark trial involving animal cruelty charges against Australia's biggest livestock exporter which begins in Perth on Monday, warning the outcome could determine the future of the controversial live export trade.

"Emanuel Exports and two of its directors are charged with breaching the Animal Welfare Act 2002, relating to a shipment of 100,000 sheep from Fremantle to the Middle East three years ago.

"In February last year, Ag. Minister, Peter McGauran suspended trade to Egypt after footage, shot by Animals Australia, was aired allegedly showing cattle being mistreated at an Egyptian abattoir where Australian cattle were also delivered.

WA Livestock Exporters Association chairman John Edwards said farmers' response has been disappointing. "We haven't seen producers rallying on the steps of Parliament. Imagine if this was France, Italy or the UK, I would have liked to see the reaction from farmers," he said.

Any comment on animal cruelty, Mr Edwards?

Inciting public unrest, Mr Edwards? Been caught out and now objecting to the legal procedures in this country and the subsequent outcomes?

Civilised citizens generally allow for due processes, Mr Edwards.

Actually Dickie, I think you'll find that farmers are very much
behind live exporters, thats why I gather the farmers fighting fund
is bankrolling the legal costs. The way I understand it, this case
is more about interpretations of new welfare laws, then anything else.

The WA Govt is very much in support of the live trade, as they
understand the realities. Its economically vital for a start.
There are also no alternatives, apart from shooting 3 million
sheep a year.

Our present meatworks in WA simply cannot find staff and cannot
bring in more staff from China and other places, to even cope with
their present workload, to cope with the 4 million or so slaughtered
here. City slicker politics prevents it from happening. So vital
export contracts are lost, through lack of staff.

If you want to see animals starving, dying in the paddocks, ban
the live trade. If farmers ever thought that the live trade was
seriously threatened, you'd soon have thousands on the steps of
parliament house very quickly.

Yabby thank you for the rational, succinct explanation, you are too kind to Dickie.

Ditzie Dickie slam Dunks another Deplorably Obtuse comment.

Comparing a peaceful demonstration to public unrest, what a limp wristed attempt to paint Mr Edwards as a radical.

By contrast Animal Libbers would be likely to dig up some dead relatives of the politicians and then attempt to ransom the cadavers, as was done in England a couple of years ago.

Or is this a vain attempt at humour Dickie?

No wonder he is mad at the world -- he never gets anything right. Or is that write, Dickie?

So, as anticipated, the pastoralists and graziers flourishing placards of protest and without respect for due processes, rallied outside the Central Law Courts yesterday, objecting to the legal pursuit for justice in this country.

Emanuel Exports are defending animal cruelty charges where 1340 sheep died on their way to the Middle East.

Prosecutor, Barry King said "the exporter put sheep at risk by failing to provide proper food on board or allow adequate checks of animal health."

And of course those with vested interests, rallying outside the courts, have remained silent on the issue of animal welfare.

In the meantime, in Britain, 159,000 turkeys have been gassed and incinerated where the deadliest strain of bird flu is believed to be present.

Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt said "the Government was preparing very very seriously for the possiblity of a pandemic."

World Health Organisation spokesman Gregory Hartl stressed that a European country such as Britain could just as easily be the source of a mutation triggering a human pandemic, such as Asia or Africa.

And with the poor sanitation, inhumane treatment and overcrowding of these hapless creatures, can we see in the near future, the karmic experience of breeders in first world countries, succumbing to the diseases they have perpetrated in other species?

Karmic experiences are a wonderful thing for Maharishi & the true believers. We have more than enough religious zeal and homicide in the world at present, consequently, we do not need a Church of Animal Worshipers.

Isn't it great to live in such an enlightened country (comparatively speaking not idealistically)where everyone gets their day in court. Animal welfare legislation is being enforced, but that is not enough for the Dickies -- will the death penalty make you happy Dick?

The farmed fowl were infected by wild birds -- what is Dickies point? 70% of all human diseases originate in animals, historically speaking. Peter Singer isn't concerned about transmitting disease when he advocates consensual sex with animals. Or does he obtain blood tests first. Do we have legislation covering such depraved activity? Maybe animal libbers (real lovers) started the spread of AIDS.

Dickie has Selective Paranoia.

Unlike Dickie volunteer hunters have done something concrete and have provided the Federal Government over 2,000 samples of duck excrement so that monitoring of Australian waterfowl for avian influenza can occur. They funded the costs themselves and in some cases paid the postage.

It is interesting to note how Dickie tries to put out a derogatory connotation by painting certain organisations and groups with derision. Labeling a group with specific characteristics may be regarded as bigotry. 30 years ago bigotry was a commonly used word just before racism was redefined as any negative comment directed against a minority group.

My grandmother was a farmer and used to filled with remorse and cry when one of her milk cows died. The concept that farmers are vile individuals is more delusional claptrap from a pathetic individual with serious psychological issues. Surely he was an abused child.

Prosecutor, Barry King said "the exporter put sheep at risk by failing to provide proper food on board or allow adequate checks of animal health."

And don’t people die on cruise ships too,its suprising that you havent mentioned anything about the lack of lifejackets for those sheep to.

And of course those with vested interests, rallying outside the courts, have remained silent on the issue of animal welfare.

In the meantime, in Britain, 159,000 turkeys have been gassed and incinerated where the deadliest strain of bird flu is believed to be present.

more than likely the b/flu was spread by animal activists,bit like the placement of pork/ham in the feed downunder.

ANYWAY ON A GOOD NOTE WE HAVE A CELEBRATION TO SHARE WITH OUR KIWI COUSINS OVER THE DITCH.

National Lamb Day will be celebrated in NZ on Feb 15 to coincide with the 125th anniversary of the nations first frozen meat export.

I suggest that you put pen to paper dickle and get those letters off to the Kiwi papers,of course they will do as we do here...laugh and a bit more at your feeble attempts to dissuade us people living in the real world.

Hey watcha feed your cat this morning Dickle,just an honest q`s as i noticed an article in one of the papers about cats being put down due to their physical condition attributed to their VEGETARIAN DIET...

Is that what vegans do? Feed their animals like so? They should be run up the race and be put down themselves.

Something is definately wrong! - and that's not a new opinion contributable to modern animals rights movements. That's a universal truth! Our inherent culture directs us to be at one with the universe. The rightful, inherent way for humans to deal with ALL animals is to to follow the edict of our inherent impulse; to engage in 'an empathetic stewardship over ALL animals'. But, just as all imposed cultures distort 'the inherent' to some extent, so has ours .. but to the nth degree and then some! Our ultra-pragmatic culture has distorted our inherent impulse, to empathise with other creatures, beyond breaking point! It has imposed a distorted edict which tells us to 'have dominion over ALL animals' which Man reads as 'have (unbridled)dominATION over ALL animals'. We have broken peace with the animals and peace with ourselves and the universe!

If you think meat-eating is O.K., read "The Animals' Lawsuit Against Humanity" originally written in the 10th Century in Mesopotamia and recently revamped for publication (Fons Vitae publishers)
and also
look at
http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/04-4om/Jones.html

Then conclude who are the crazy ones! Peaceful, empathetic, humane, human vegans?
OR
those who, by eating animal flesh and consuming other factory farm products (eggs & dairy), are, effectively supporting and therefore, responsible for a robotic, emotionless monstrous cruelty of an extreme degree, TO SELECTED ANIMALS? All this because we CAN'T find a way of ending our simultaneous obedience to two diametrically opposed cultural (spiritual) edicts!

The wrongness of cruelty to animals is simply INHERENTLY wrong and this IS universally known (even amongst those who won't overtly acknowledge that animals are better suited to being our spiritual teachers-of-humility than they are to being our food!)

No amount of accusing peaceful people of being 'wacko vegans', a contrived term intended to imply that our distorted Imposed Culture is, by comparison, 'normal' will ever alter the the fact that there is a world of difference between that which is inherently right and that which is inherently wrong. In our hearts we ALL know it, even those who PRETEND to not know this!

taken from the link http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/04-4om/Jones.html which I already posted above, but which, sadly was unread by some:

"Most Americans,...assume these animals met a painless end, if they think about it at all...what happens to animals at slaughter. But every now and then that reality flashes briefly across the public consciousness..."
&
"Mohandas Gandhi said that a nation's moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals. Animal behavior scientists have proven unequivocally that animals are not machines but sentient beings that experience feelings of pain, fear, anxiety, and despair. These feelings matter to the animal and they should matter to us. If Gandhi is right, we have an obligation to know what happens to animals when they are killed to feed us, and to let that knowledge inform our actions..."
&
Upton Sinclair's classic novel The Jungle, published in 1906, exposed the brutal conditions for both animals and humans in Chicago slaughter plants at the turn of the twentieth century. He likened the slaughterhouse to a dungeon where horrible crimes were committed, "all unseen and unheeded." The uproar over the disclosure of what people were really eating prompted passage of the nation's first food-safety law. There was to be no relief, however, for the workers who toiled long hours under dangerous conditions for little pay, or for the animals who were mercilessly bludgeoned to death with sledgehammers. Sinclair was disappointed. "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach, he lamented."
&
"From 1989 through the mid-1990s, Eisnitz, a determined woman in her forties with a background in natural resources management, crisscrossed the U.S. documenting slaughterhouse abuses. She learned about cattle slaughter plants where cattle were hoisted upside down, the lower part of their legs snipped off, their thighs and bellies cut open, and their skin stripped from their legs up to their necks, all while the animals were still conscious. She investigated pig slaughter plants where inadequately stunned and fully alert animals were dragged through tanks of scalding water, kicking and struggling until they drowned."

Hello Heather

we CAN'T find a way of ending our simultaneous obedience to two diametrically opposed cultural (spiritual) edicts!

Please elaborate on the TWO opposite edicts.

Thank you for confirming that Animal Liberation is nothing more than an attempt to promulgate a new religion. The Church of Latter Day Animal Worshippers.

After researching aboriginal hunters I now offer a prayer to the animals I am about to hunt and make an offering (sliced apple or carrot) to their spirits facing the morning breeze. It seems effective --I'm finding more feral goats. It is possible to be spiritual and a hunter gatherer. The harvested organic meat nourishes my soul and body. Every mouthful reminds me of the fleeting existence we have on earth.

While the birds chirped on a clear autumn morning, my first deer instantly & humanely died from a head shot. The .270 Winchester's roar silenced the birds for about 10 seconds. Life continued unfazed, clouds rolled on, wind wafted across the grass, rabbits frolicked and the birds flitted from branch to branch. A noticeable wave of emotion and respect (realisation) for the natural order passed through my body -- truly a religious experience.

40 years later I can still see the flick of his left ear as the cross hairs momentarily settled between his eyes, just before I gently squeezed the trigger ending his life. As a consequence I would never be a completely modern man or a metro sexual. I connected to my inner self, the inner voice evolved over eons that talks to me every time I set off hunting at sunrise with senses alert and my nostrils full of the aroma of the bush. Movingly silently, observing anything and everything that moves, patiently waiting for the 5 seconds or so after many hours of stalking. The life of the modern passionate hunter -- who respects wildlife knowing that Happiness is in the Pursuit.

A truly spiritual person would be more interested in their own ethics instead of the ethics of others.

Heather, at some point you have to stop worrying about what others
think and learn to reason, based on your own abilities. Frankly
I don't care what Gandhi thought, I care what I think and why.

You might be emotionally engulfed or philosophically challenged,
but at the end of the day, you cannot deny the laws of nature.

Fact is that we all get recycled, no matter which species.
When your time is up and you fall off the proverbial perch,
the worms will chew up your carcass, thats the reality. :(

I love animals too and I try to look after those in my care.
I try to avoid any of them suffering, unlike humans, which we
torture to their last breath, in the name of religion.

But I accept that they will die, just like I will, and they don't
really care about what happens after that, just like I don't.

One species eating another is all part of nature itself. Deny that
and you fooling nobody but yourself. It might feel good, but
then reality does not go away, when you close your eyes and wish it
would.

If populations were not kept in check, the net result would be far
more beings dying of starvation, as resources run out, which is not
a pretty sight.

So I have long ago learnt to accept the laws of nature. To me death
is not an issue, its part of the journey of life. Best to just avoid
suffering, of ourselves and of other species.

Gahndi clearly never thought through that one...

Think about it.

For anyone within tuning-in range of the current affairs show called "Today Tonight" on Australian TV, there will be a follow up program, EARLY THIS WEEK (not sure which day so you would have to watch each day from today, to not miss it) about further investigations that have been made into the live animal export trade from Australia to Egypt.

No 'reverential participatory hunters' there .. unless of course the Egyptian Slaughterhouse workers have been on a crash course called something like "Participatory, Reverential Hunting - as it applies to factory farmed animals shipped live to Egypt from Australia in the 21st Century!"

It is heartbreaking to say that unfortunately it is REALISTIC to expect that there will be something that rageful-sadists may well 'slaver' over in the 'meaty pics' that may be shown - if the last investigation was anything to go by. When that investigation went to air there was footage of an Egytian worker using a stick, which he had stabbed through a cow's eye, as 'the handle' by which to lead the cow around at his will!

FACTORY FARMING is NOT about 'quick death', 'skillfully placed bullets from the Winchester' nor 'reverence for the animal killed'. There may well be sub-cultures within current Western Society where these 'lesser evils' apply DO apply .. just as there have been major indigenous cultures around the world where there were truely justifiable and reverential hunting practices.

If modern day proponents of 'reverential, cruelty-free killing of animals for human consumption' want to be TRUELY participatory in the century in which they live .. then THE NEEDED PARTICIPATION is for you to GET INVOLVED IN STOPPING THE CRUEL & COWARDLY PRACTICES INFLICTED UPON FACTORY FARMED ANIMALS! No? I thought not! It's so much easier for the would-be John Waynes on this forum to NOT simply argue their case, but rather, to be insulting and/or make veiled threats to those of us who take an opposing view!

Wow Dickie, all that name calling! Perhaps its the
orange hair that did it :)

You clearly missed the point of my last post completely,
it was about eating meat.

I remind you that plenty of meat is produced to give
consumers choices. Free range eggs, free range chucks,
free range lamb and beef. Free range pork if you look
for it. Consumers are free to choose and they vote
with their wallets every day. Its all happening at
your nearest Coles or Woolies store every day.

As to the condition of animals on live ships, I will
let qualified vets determine if those animals are
treated humanely or not, not fanatical or hysterical
vegans. Last time I checked up, Australia had the
world's highest standards when it came to shipping
live animals.

If there is a problem in the ME, they have been
eating meat since time began. Lets do something to
change it, as farmers are doing, being the only
ones. Can you say the same Dickie? How much money
have you spent on improving animal welfare in the
middle East? Fact is that a place like Saudi Arabia
imports around 12 million live sheep a year, with
or without Australian sheep. I've put forward useful
suggestions as to what people like you could do
to make a difference, but no, better to just continue
with the hysteria, rather then much rational thought.

This thread has got completely out of hand and I have suspended one user. It is not acceptable on this forum to question people's sexuality, taunt them, call them names, shout by using capitals etc.

We are fairly tolerant, but there are limits. I will be keeping an eye on the thread, and any further infringements will be dealt with more severely in light of this warning.

Heather

As incorrectly advised by another poster, free range pork, lamb or beef is not available at "your nearest Coles or Woolies store everyday." I can assure you I have made many enquiries throughout my village of some 30,000 residents and no-one has ever seen anything free-range with the exception of eggs and a few chickens (if your quick enough.)

However, back to the subject "Taking a stand for all animals."

I have endeavoured to send this thread to all addresses on my computer so that they too may see for themselves, the views and attitudes of proponents for animal cruelty and the zealotry they display for the status quo to continue.

I shall approach my local MP's and any candidates as soon they put their hand up prior to the next state and federal election.

I shall present them with graphic printed details and written information on the legalalised, heinous treatment of factory farmed animals in Australia and I shall scrutinise the recipients' responses very carefully. Many friends (who perhaps are not as passionate) have agreed to this proposal.

I have already resigned from a political party and that's just the start of it. Political parties are very reluctant to lose any members and I do believe I have more than adequately assisted my political party in the past.

These planned actions are just a few of which I intend to implement.

I trust all fair-minded people will consider doing the same thing.

Dickie, I remind you that virtually the whole lamb and most of
the beef industry, are in fact free range industries by nature.

Sheep and lambs are not run in factories, but out in paddocks.
pastures etc, where they spend most of their lives. Perhaps
the lamb industry should put little stickers on those packets
with "free range" in bright letters on there, so that you
become aware of it.

Most of those cattle feedlots in Queensland, where animals
are finished, are for specific markets such as Japan and
Korea, where premiums are paid for these animals. It costs
a great deal of money to feedlot ruminants, so nobody does
it unless its specifically demanded by consumers.

The chicken and pork industries are a little different.
But once again those industries are driven by consumer demand.
Supermarkets will stock what consumers request. I always
buy free range chicken and since I've asked a few times
specifically for it, when it was not available, its now
available at my local Coles store, 90% of the time. If
its not there, I don't buy chicken. All very simple.

The same applies to battery eggs, its up to consumers to
choose.

As to pork, free range pigs are in fact produced in WA,
they are simply not labelled as such. Clearly those producers
should start to differentiate their products and label them
accordingly. You as a consumer should have no hesitation
to pay a premium, for the extra labour involved. If enough
people ask for free range, thats what supermarkets will carry
and thats what farmers will produce. All very simple.

Puzzling. When I state that I found the Live Animal trade exposed on 60 minutes disturbing and outrageous my comment is chucked in the sin bin.

Dear Graham while keeping an eye on things be sure to cast your balanced assessment across some of the earlier posts from Dickie & supporters. Plainly offensive comments were not limited to one individual. You are a bit late and appear to be somewhat biased.

Be sure and show this reference material to the politicians Dickie. Peter Singer the guru of Animal Lib. No shouting, it is a headline, get it? Will this be a profitable genre for Animal Rights lawyers?

NO HEAVY PETTING
Author(s): CATHY YOUNG Date: April 11, 2001 Page: A19 Section: Op-Ed
THE LATEST ANIMAL RIGHTS CONTROVERSY IS NOT ABOUT ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION, FUR COATS, OR THE SLAUGHTER OF FARM ANIMALS IN EUROPE TO PREVENT THE SPREAD OF FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE. IT'S ABOUT THE MORALITY OF SEX BETWEEN PEOPLE AND ANIMALS.
Admittedly, bestiality is hardly a burning issue. But it's being discussed in editorials in the Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard and The New Republic, thanks to an essay by controversial philosopher Peter Singer in the online magazine Nerve, titled "Heavy Petting."
Singer, author of the 1979 book "Animal Liberation," argues that our revulsion at human-animal coupling is as irrational as the old prohibitions on homosexuality and that the persistence of this taboo attests to "our desire to differentiate ourselves . . . from animals.
Singer scoffs at the belief that humans have a unique spiritual nature or moral stature. To him, "we are animals," which means that inter-species sex "ceases to be an offense to our status and dignity as human beings" and is not wrong unless it involves violence to the animal.
Singer's essay has been roundly denounced. Interestingly, however, many of his critics suggest that what makes sexual activity with animals immoral is not that it degrades humans but that it exploits animals: Since animals cannot give meaningful consent to sex, bestiality is akin to pedophilia

Dickie, I know you will loath to admit it, but Yabby is absolutely right. As long as demand for humanely produced meat is low, factory farming will continue. Politicians are'nt the answer, educating consumers is.

It is my business, dealing with this issue, and the majority of australians are still oblivious to how much of their food is produced.

The answer seems pretty simple to me, if we are able to make informed decisions, and that results in not buying factory farmed meat, change will be inevitable.

Such an argument, however persuasive, raises inevitable questions about other human uses of animals (isn't being butchered worse than being sexually abused?)
It also poses problems for animal rights advocates: If animals can have sex with each other but not with people, that means drawing a clear line between humanity and other species and denying the moral autonomy of animals.
Surprisingly few commentators have challenged Singer's dubious basic premise: that human beings have no special status or worth and that "species ism" is a prejudice not much different from racism. This premise is shared by the animal rights movement, even if Singer's endorsement of bestiality generally is not. But the notion of moral equality between humans and animals is pernicious even if it's not extended to the bedroom.
As philosopher Tibor Machan argues in a 1991 essay on animal rights, human beings have rights because they are "moral agents," capable of distinguishing and choosing between right and wrong. There is, writes Machan, "no valid intellectual place for rights in the nonhuman world . . . in which moral responsibility is for all practical purposes absent."
Yes, some animals can exhibit caring behaviors, such as helping an injured fellow beast, that animal rights activists invoke as evidence of morality; but no one really expects animals to respect the rights of other living things.
I'd like to see Singer persuading wolves not to mistreat sheep. Gary Francione, an animal-rights legal theorist, does feed his dogs a vegan diet, free of all animal products; but it's rather ironic that a champion of animal rights would use his human power to coerce animals into something so unnatural.
Indeed, Machan points out, most animal rights advocates "never urge animals to behave morally" or propose that animals be held responsible for moral wrongs. This is evident in Singer's discussion of an incident in which a woman visiting an orangutan rehabilitation camp was forcibly grabbed by an aroused male ape, and the female primatologist who ran the camp told her not to worry since it wouldn't hurt her. (The animal lost interest before anything serious happened.

Hi Dickie,
Yes, the denials of what is occurring must end! Barbaric practices endured during transport, in saleyards & in slaughterhouses are, provably, beyond dipute! Moreover, one only has to ask any butcher how 'free range' animals are killed to know that 'free range' has no meaning re what an animal endured at 'the end' of his or her life.

It's no quick end! Some stop at saleyards after a long truck journey deprived of even water, to prevent urinating & slipping in that on the rough journey, so I'm told. I have heard from reliable sources that some slow animals are simply thrown off the trucks! Some suffer broken legs in the gaps between the slats on the ramps. There may be another long truck journey ahead of them and for some a terrible sea journey & more cruelty at slaughter. Even the more local slaughterhouses are still shocking. There is reported evdience that some animals are skinned while alive and conscious and strung upside down, when the compulsory 'stunning' has been 'inadequate'!

On your point about approaching politicians, I actually did write to Julia Guillard after I heard her say that her new portfolio would encompass "fairness" in Australian Society generally, not only, the narrower, "fairness for workers" interpretation of her portfolio. I thought it would be great if she could do something about the "unfairness" (gross understatement there!) to animals in our society. I received no reply I am sad to say!

The right political force could address the totality of unfairness in the "animal who are factory farmed, transported & slaughtered" industry. This encompasses de-humanised workers, drivers and farmers who are not (financially or otherwise) rewarded for humane behaviour, including a, proved, environmentally-friendliness associated with that. There's a whole new industry (& employement opportunity) waiting to be intensively developed in vegan 'meat' substitutes. The right advertising/public re-educating campaign would be a start!

I would be very interested to further exchange ideas re 'how we ordinary citizens might (try to) wake up the political consiousness' in these matters. I can be contacted via my care2 website http://my.care2.com/sentient_being

Ah PF

Thank you for your revelationary information.

Do tell PF, are your free range pigs exempt from castration, tail chopping and teeth filing without anaesthetic?

Are your free range lambs exempt from mulesing without anaesthetic?

Are your free range cows exempt from being jammed in a crush where rouseabouts perform laparotomies and rip out their ovaries without the benefit of anaesthetic?

Are your free range chickens exempt from debeaking without the aid of anaesthetic?

The issue, to phase out mulesing was met with a vociferous protest from the WA pastoralists and graziers association who described the recommendation as "unfeasible", "unworkable" and "unacceptable".

Of course, these pastoralists and graziers who protest, like to drive their Mercedes and BMWs to their meetings. Acquaintances of mine (a sheep farmer) flies his own plane when attending meetings in the CBD. He's the one who ties his sheep dogs up at the entrance to his property in 45 degree heat with 44 gallon drums as kennels and not a tree in sight.

The objections by these farmers is to be expected from humans who torture animals for a living and who frantically continue to change the subject when challenged - that of the barbaric treatment of other species for profit.

"There is reported evdience that some animals are skinned while alive and conscious and strung upside down, when the compulsory 'stunning' has been 'inadequate'!"

Umm Heather, if you have evidence of such practises in Australia,
I suggest that you immediately report the meatworks concerned to the
RSPCA. They would be closed down in a flash!

Do you actually have any knowledge about the industry? Judging
by your comments, I doubt it. Are you aware that around 80% of
animals never see a saleyard? Today its all weight and grade or
on farm sales. Are you aware that troughs are installed at all
meatworks I have seen anyhow, so all animals have access to water
upon arrival, its a win-win situation.

Dickie, mulesing is about merino lambs, not prime lambs, which are
crossbreds and arn't mulesed. Do you have nobody with some expertise
that you could turn to, to educate you?

Heather and Dickie, I suggest that you pop in and visit the old people's home near you, to see what happens to old humans. Many die
slow deaths, in agony, as we wait until nature takes its course.
Religions insist that euthanasia is evil, no matter what. So that
is the fate that awaits you!

Quite frankly I think animals are far better off. When the time
comes, as it does to all of us, its quick as swift. As a human,
sadly I am denied that option. Time for you to do some soul searching perhaps..

dosent anybody know that the real and true free range meat is the one taken by HUNTING,that can be duck,pork,venison,rabbit,hare,pigeon,donkey and horse(yes both) etc etc

Its amazing (not really) to read all of the animal rights experts and their garbage that they do promote so ignorantly on this forum,i suggest that they (AL) get out and work on a property that is farming animals so as to see the real and truthful side of things instead of quoting Peta type garbage.

Farmers that i know do everything possible for their animals so as to maximise their income..simple as that it is and when XXXXXX is quoted the crime of animal cruelty is usually committed by an absentee owner that resides in the city and hasnt really got a clue..you know new chums from town that want to be "a farmer"

The issue isn't "does hunting=freerange?"

The issue isn't "what occurs in nursing homes for the aged?"

The issue isn't "whether or not one person on this forum who may or may not be from my local region, failed to see that the saleyards in MY local region do NOT consistently provide accessable water to all animals"

The issue isn't "Do I personally need to do some soul searching?"

The issue IS,
GIVEN that there is 'overwhelming documentary evidence of the fact that widespread and extreme cruelty to certain animals' IS a presence in our society and that there is enough of a consensus of opinion of those who want to eliminate such cruelty,
is there a new force in society, which may be the way to achieve this outcome, & is it in the form of a new branch of law called Animal Law?'

So it would be nice if this discussion could dispense with the bogging down and sidetracking attempts and keep on track with the actual issue raised by the article's author!

As Dickie indicated, a possible Force for Healing Change, in the acknowledged problem of Humanity's Barbaric treatment of many and certain groups of animals, might be 'sufficient people influencing the political momentum'.

Gary Francione has said that there ARE limits to what Animal Law can achieve.

My own belief and obervation is that the solution to this issue is as follows: there is a more SOPHISTICATED inter-relating of The Public, The Judiciary, The Legislature and The Executive 'waiting in the wings' (which CAN occur without upsetting the Separation of Powers ideal) which has the greatest untapped potential to be The Societal Force which will be able to resolve this matter of society's barbaric (where 'barbaric = a gross form of un-sophistication) treatment of animals.

Well Mrs Twist "things around",more untruths online from a vocal opponent of free choice in Australia eh,well i have to inform you that if there are any cases of non provision of water to animals in saleyards for extended periods, that good old "save the whaler" himself Dr Hugh Wirth" AKA as "Spew Worthless" would certainly seek some more publicity for himself and his org by jumping on the bandwagon and running another of his animal rights campaign`s. Hmm he always seems to do this when he`s coffers are running low.

I really cannot understand where you and your lot get off,i do what i want to do in legally Australia as it is my choice to do so,i dont care what you do yourself girl and thus dont rant and dribble on in trying to dissuade you from doing anything of your choice.Why dont you just give as you have absolutely no chance of changing the status quo re: this matter.

(where 'barbaric = a gross form of un-sophistication) treatment of animals.

BARBARIC...hmm according to Cambridge Dictionary it actually is ...."extremely cruel and unpleasant"

And so we get to your desperate choice of "un-sophistication " ...well it just aint so heather,it is certainly not on in saleyards to be barbaric as it is in the best interest of all concerned to have the animals in q`s to be at their best,forget the rhetoric and drive from AR`s that l you have unfortunately been unable to digest on your own and come up with the real truth of the saleyard system in Oz.

This weeks "weekly times" and also "the land" newspapers have all the details of the latest sales,i`m off to one sale to look over the Angus steers on offer and i do suggest that you do the same and have a good look at the saleyard system firsthand for yourself ...go on girl and then send us a report about your findings of "extremely cruel and unpleasant" behaviour!

un-sophistication was not found in the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary

Heather – you’ve never been caught behind a stock truck on the highway have you! That’s not green rain on your windows. No water?? Even the abattoirs provide water in their yards. Have you ever been to see any of this yourself? Don’t bother asking your local butcher – he wouldn’t have a clue. He just places his order and the carcass arrives on his doorstep and is almost as out of touch with the whole process as you are. Come down out of your ivory tower and take a walk in the real world. Find out the facts for yourself instead of ‘documented’ evidence or ‘so I have been told’.

Dickie – I think its interesting that you always attack me when I am one of the farmers that puts into practice everything you supposedly want. So whats your problem? Its just the whole meat eating thing isn’t it. Are you another like Heather that just wont be happy unless the world turns vegan?
To answer your questions – I do not castrate, tail dock or teeth clip pigs. I do not mules lambs. As for ripping out ovaries of cows?? Were does that come from? Can you enlighten me about this procedure?

I've been reading these posts and this is some of the most entertaining back and fourth I've ever read. Ever seen Abbott and Costello's 'Who's on First' sketch?

Yabby, The Gryphon, Col Rouge, Cowboy Joe, etc.. = Abbott

Dickie, MOS, Heather, etc.. = Costello

It is funny on stage, but the fact that there are real life people like Costello is even funnier!

Heather your post on Sunday, 11 February 2007 1:42:33 AM where you said "animals are better suited to being our spiritual teachers-of-humility than they are to being our food" I fell off my chair laughing. Fair dinkum, what animals do you take spiritual lessons from? Even you'd have to admit that the overwhelmingly vast majority of people would rather have a steak on their plate than receive spiritual advice from a cow. Come on, be serious and you'll find more people take you serious. Do you really believe that everyone is wrong and that the .00001% of true vegans are right?

MOS, You need to admit that you're for the eating of farmed animals after your comment posted Sunday, 24 December 2006 7:12:50 AM where you say "In years gone by, a cow kept by a village family which had its milk gently taken and was finally killed and eaten after a fairly long life had a vastly better life than today’s factory farmed animals. We’ve lost touch with the animals and have let producers think they can do pretty much what they like in order to reduce the price to us and their profits. We need to tell them now that what they are doing is completely unacceptable."

You're point was that if farmers did it like they used to, it would be okay right?

cont...

Dickie, mate you've an argumentative style of a teenager. Packed with emotion and containing no substance. When logically confronted with an argument, change the subject and avoid facing reality. Some friendly advice: Answer the questions posed to you, stay focused on the issue at hand and you may get some result albeit not the result you want. Here's an example of what I mean from your post:

-
Cowboy Joe asks: "Dickie please define cruelty to us so we can focus."

I'm completely at a loss as to how to explain the definition of cruelty to a gentleman who seemingly is of mature age and asks a question befitting of one's two year old child.

Posted by dickie, Sunday, 24 December 2006 12:28:57 PM
-

"Cruelty" is a relative term. what is cruel to one may not be to another and Cowboy Joe (and the rest of us) simply would like you to draw a line in the sand so we can debate that on it's merits. Are you not answering the question because you can't or are you simply afraid to?

The thing is, it doesn't matter now as you've already proven yourself the liar that you are. Not a liar, you say? My favourite of your posts to this thread reads "End of posts for Dickie" - Posted by dickie, Friday, 5 January 2007 11:10:18 PM" yet three short weeks later we get "Posted by dickie, Friday, 26 January 2007 11:32:25 AM". Point proven, and if you lie about something as simple as that, well how can we believe one word you type in the future? Easy question to answer, we can't and won't so your opinions are deemed moot from hence forward.

So can someone else who thinks there is such a thing as 'animal cruelty' please define it so this discussion can continue? I'll start: "It is cruel to starve a feral animal to death but it is not cruel to shoot one in the head and use it as food." Agree/Disagree, but tell us why, draw your line and stick with the subject.

PF

You have interpreted my post incorrectly. I am not attacking you and you should not presume that my questions (unanswered) are personal.

I do believe you are sincere in your endeavours to practise farming methods humanely.

Though I am surprised that you appear unaware of flank spaying since it is you who is the farmer.

www.brahman.com.au will assist with this information for starters where they advise that flank spaying is the traditional method of which I have explained in a previous post. Perhaps those who make a living by torturing animals would be interested in the state of the art Willis dropped ovary technique?

This method is where the "skilled" operator shoves his hand up the back end of a heifer or cow and cuts the animal's ovaries off. I presume they are left inside the cow, hence the description "dropped."

And anaesthetic is not mandatory, as anticipated.

And I see we have more of the chattering classes joining this debate. Thank you Radrage for your polite words. They are certainly less offensive then the abusive language you have placed on your website titled "Peta Sucks."

I notice that your many fans have failed to sign off -not a signature anywhere. I do believe that you are the author of everyone of them.

Your website is sponsored by Plaza Suites Griffith (or is that Gryphon?)Street Coolangatta.

I trust all those of a more delicate disposition will contact Plaza Suites and object to this company sponsoring such a foul website and one would certainly think twice before holidaying in their apartments.

And Radrage, welcome to OLO. I notice you have only two posts - both of them on this thread. I do believe we've met before.

Dickie, I thought I did answer your questions. As for the Wills dropped ovary technique – seems to only be a requirement of cattle shipped for live export out of Northern Australia. While I agree that it should not happen, a majority of cows and heifer in this country are used as breeders so therefore this procedure would hardly make sense would it? I have never heard of cattle being flank spayed here, there is absolutely no need. You make it sound like a standard procedure performed on all farms.

Sorry, there was one question I didn’t answer. Yes, I do have debeaked chickens.
I usually buy a bunch from a caged operation and they live out the rest of their lives as happy free range, albeit beakless, chooks

Yabby
Below are three separate date excerpts, during 2005, from my local newspaper on cruelty at the local saleyards: (just a portion of available information, but there’s too little space here).

1.”…Council CEO…admitted that the council did not comply with the code of practice for saleyards, "… nearly every other saleyards doesn't comply with the code either," he said...”

2."… 50,000 sheep are at the saleyards I can't look at them all…”[the salesyard manager said]…[he] said meetings had been held with stakeholders to try and change their "culture of indifference"…"This has been going on for many years and it is difficult to change the mind-set…" he said…[The RSPCA Chief Inspector] said, "It is also very difficult to prosecute stakeholders under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act," …”

3.”…Saleyards manager… who checked the sheep Saturday night after being contacted by police, denied the sheep were distressed…He said the lack of water was due to troughs being turned off on weekends in case they leaked… The RSPCA was unavailable to comment.”

# And, in 2006, this excerpt from ABC News Online (on the saleyards in my local area):
“…The RSPCA's chief inspector … says he has recently been handed a videotape, allegedly depicting new cases of animal cruelty at the yards."… very disturbing footage on that video that we are investigating," he said."We get a lot of complaints about saleyards recently in general, not just [this local area]… and … it's coming from the general public."…”

+, incidentally, there’s also been more footage on the news, tonight, about (Victorian) Sheep being cruelly treated in the Middle East.

So, let’s all have the humanity and the humility, here, (and, to those who think otherwise, yes, you CAN learn this ‘humility=an aspect of spirituality’ from the animals themselves if only you will realize it) to acknowledge that (institutionalized) CRUELTY to animals EXISTS.

To those who, genuinely, debate ‘whether cruelty exists” start a thread for that issue! The issue raised by the original article in THIS thread, is: "is the solution to an acknowledged cruelty to certain animals to be found in Animal Law?"

Heather, if there is a problem in one particular saleyard, in
one particular State, thats a long way from being a problem in
a whole industry. In the saleyards which I occasionally visit,
a sheep only has to show the slightest limp, its immediately
condemned as NCV, due to animal welfare laws. In fact the WA
Govt has just appointed another 6 inspectors, to police saleyards
and other places where stock are handled.

But as I have pointed out, only a small % of livestock ever see
saleyards. Overall, if you look at the big picture, it is in the
interest of both farmers and processors to look after animals.

Most farmers that I know, actually care about their animals. But
exceptions will be found in every facet of human behaviour.
Some people get married, then beat their spouse etc. That does
not make marriage per se evil, some humans just get it wrong.

Thats why we have laws, as we in WA have animal welfare laws.
Those laws are enforced to various degrees. But that applies to
any laws. I see animal welfare laws as no different to any others.

Perhaps that is not the case in your saleyards or your State.

I'm just getting slightly peed off by a heap of vegans, trying
to promote the concept that farmers are evil creatures and that
the only solution is veganism. I think thats utter nonsense and
if I look at the big picture around me, and I'm right in the middle
of it, not living in some city, most animals are well cared for
and treated humanely. Yes there are exceptions, as with anything
in life.

The original article’s author Katrina Sharman asserts that although “it’s not a great day to be an animal in Australia ...there’s hope in the wings - a new social justice movement is emerging. Animal law is now a cutting edge legal discipline..”

On this issue, I think that Animal Law may be subsumed into an already flawed societal system, turning into a toothless tiger!

A broader solution:
#the development of a more mature inter-relatedness between 4 societal powers – Judiciary, Legislature, Executive & PUBLIC!#
(which development can be modeled as I have attempted to do, but haven’t the space to post here.)

This personal ‘thesis’ of mine is premised on my own real-life observation (having spent sufficient years in menial jobs to understand such disempowering cultures) that there's a strong correlation between:-
‘the too-often barbaric nature of modern man’s accepted way of inter-relating with any selected (vulnerable) others, specifically, here, selected-animals’
AND
’the too-often barbaric nature of the 3 constitutionally recognized powers – The (combined)Judiciary, Legislature & Executive’s way of inter-relating with one other societal Power, The Public’.

In other words, a disempowered Public (Power) is too-often ‘accepting’ of what is done to Animals (& certain dis-empowered groups of humans too!) by humans BECAUSE it mirrors what is too-often done to the themselves by the more powerful societal powers! This is where the deepest, deliberately chosen, change needs to happen and it can!

Veganism is (sub-consciously, like any other groundswell social revolution) now pioneering this far-ranging Public-driven empowerment of widespread & SUFFICIENT Empathy and Kindness to ALL (no matter who the ‘other’ is) with ultimately practical benefits for society itself!

If this isn’t what is happening WHY is there so much aggro towards 'an insignificant force' - of, one-by-one, ordinary people choosing to eat, at very least, delicious vegan ‘meat’ substitutes & non-dairy icecreams, cheeses, yoghurts, chocolates .. The vegans I know are ordinary people enjoying delicious foods that haven't involved any more suffering to another sentient being than we could tolerate enduring ourselves!

(For the validity of the way the word ‘barbaric’ is interpreted here, see www.dictionary.com )

So, let’s all have the humanity and the humility, here, (and, to those who think otherwise, yes, you CAN learn this ‘humility=an aspect of spirituality’ from the animals themselves if only you will realize it) to acknowledge that (institutionalized) CRUELTY to animals EXISTS. quote heather.

I wonder how much the many hundreds (yes 100`s) of Indians that are eaten by leopards and tigers in India know about humility,i wonder how much they have learned over the years.Or the 20 thou,(yes 20,000) that die there from snakebite alone,humility? Learning from the animals that kill you?C`mon heather tell us about learning " an aspect of spirituality" from a cobra or a krait.Is this where Ghandi learned his humility? Perhaps he learned more from his hashish bhong instead.
I ask these q`s as animals are animals aren`t they heather,surely you cant differentiate between the different species..under your rules they surely all must be lumped together as Noah did himself.

And while you are formulating an answer for that one please let me know about how to learn that same "aspect" from the bottle reared bull that killed my father in law.

Hmm and yes i do see that that dikie has made another reference to the gryphon,another personal attack perhaps? Dikie "a protected species" allowed to use his choice of abuse and personal attacks? cretins,morons?

Heather

Your post reveals an excellent assessment of the society in which we live. The current WA Corruption and Crime Commission's expose of state and local government's senior officials yielding to improper influences gives one an idea of how those consumed with power and greed are able to exploit the current system and abuse public gullibility.

Happily, more ordinary folk are now on to them, however, they are not yet aware, that only people power can alter the status quo and society must become more vocal in their objections to the abuse of power.

PF, you have again misinterpreted my post. At no point, have I suggested that flank spaying is conducted on "all farms."

The Cattle Council of Australia, in its 2005 policy document requested:

"that the CCA support the NTGA position of cattle spaying viz. that the standard technique of flank spaying on adult cattle be considered for exemption as a veterinary service."

They have also requested that the "electric immobilisation as a restraining device for livestock" be maintained.

Now, I must also welcome Freerangemeat to OLO. I note that he, like Radrage is also a newcomer, having written a mere 3 posts - all on this thread.

Freerangemeat's website is "Aushunt" which encourages the use of the best gun types, ammunition, bow hunting etc for use in taking out other species and it appears that no animal type is spared from this radical sect's lust to kill.

Unfortunately, in the 21st century, we in a democracy, must still endure groups in some communities which have poor intellects (though well-fed), who are obsessed with a gluttonous, lascivious and wanton mentality to kill for no other reason but to pump up their own self-importance.

Heather, you are free to try to use semantics, to make yourself
feel better and justify your philosphical beliefs, by using terms
like "barbaric" and "sophisticated" for your own ends. Quite
frankly, when I see how many city slickers treat their pets,
the word "neurotic" comes to mind :)

I don't have a problem with vegans being vegans, althought IMHO
their opinions are based on flawed philosophy. I tend to see
them more as yet another cult, some with fanatical fervour much
like religious cults. Where I have a problem is when they try to
enforce their beliefs on others, sometimes trying to use the
rule of law. Like I always say " You are free to swing by
your testicles, from your chandelier, as long as neither the
testicles or chandelier are mine" :)

There is an interesting article in this week's Weekly Times,
a Victorian farming paper. A farmer points out that whilst
various animal libber groups protest loudly about mulesing and
similar, they say very little about the packs of wild dogs roaming
Victoria, ripping sheep to bits, which sound like they are out
of control. Its a very good point! Anyone who has seen what
dog attacks can do to sheep, the suffering etc, would know what
I mean. Instead, many badly informed animal libber groups focus
on mulesing, a procedure which actually saves a huge amount of
suffering, if you know the first thing about the merino industry
in Australia. All emotion and lack of reason is dangerous!

Would the world be a better place, if miraculously everyone became
vegans? Well for a start, many animals that now enjoy a life, would
never experience it and enjoy it, and many do, just like humans.

But of course, that will never happen, despite the religious type
of fervour involved. After all, one species consuming another is the
most natural thing in the world. Sophistication IMHO, is about
understanding the laws of nature, not about religious fervour, as
so many vegans tend to display.

Heather, my apologies, I read this entire thread but didn't see the link to the article so I didn't read it. I have now and agree the discussion should centre around the question you pose: "is the solution to an acknowledged cruelty to certain animals to be found in Animal Law?"

Assuming there is such a thing as 'animal cruelty' (discussion on different thread pending) then, YES I would agree that the solution would be partially found in Animal Law if "Animal Law" is clearly defined as "laws that protect animals from cruelty" and the enforcing agencies are equipped to enforce it.

This is already the case in Australia under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.

If, however, there are those that believe the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act isn't broad enough, then a discussion must be had relating to (and defining) "animal cruelty", which questions the limitations of the current law and compares them to the ability to enforce the current law. In the examples you cited, the law was broken, was it not? So adding additional laws wouldn't have solved anything as the perpetrators were already breaking "the law", am I right? So no additional laws are needed, yeah? I mean why make new laws when we can't enforce the ones we've got!

It looks to me like the problem is in the inability to enforce the law and those of you donating your hard earned money to terrorist organisations like PETA and the like might find that your money is better spent by donating it to your local RSPCA.

Dickie, no mate, I can assure you, we've never met before. That website isn't mine, OLO asked for a URL so I typed "Peta Sucks" in Google. I'm not responsible for it's content nor have I read through it. I did relate to the front page that reads "There's plenty of room for all God's creatures. Right next to the mashed potatoes" , so I used it when I registered. Well, that and PETA does actually suck but that's for yet another thread.

Maximum impact was surely gained by publishing the photo`s of the mates sheep,some with entrails hanging out,in the Weekly Times 14.2.07 page 17.These were wild dog victims BTW.

What pray tell should we do about this matter,these are free range sheep you know enjoying the comforts of the run,maybe we should have them shedded for their protection as in the case of sharlea fine wool sheep..OOP`S NO! THATS INTENSIVE FARMING! We cant do that,,hmm ok what we have to do is take up the idea`s from animal libs and catch those offending dogs and sterilise the lot of them,just like the `roo`s that are causing problems with their excess numbers...hang on! I have a bright idea lets poison them, that will be better wont it...(AL oftens advocates use of poison) nah bugger it i will shoot them instead...

Bring back The Gryphon,he`s entertaining and not so morose and boring like some of the meat hungry vegans on this forum.

The D Grade Dullards' pathetic attempts at duping Graham Young and breaching the moderator's rules will not go unnoticed.

PETA SUCKS (radrage), AUSHUNT (freerangemeat AKA the gryphon) and SAMBAR HUNTING (the gryphon AKA freerangemeat).

And the anticipatory graphics on Sambar Hunting, displaying the dullards straddling their prey of bloodied stags and deer in Victoria, whilst bragging about the ".7mm mag to put him down for the count."

Mmmmm........0.7mm - now I get it!

Dickie seemed to have an innate affinity to things that are sized at 7/10 of a mm. So confusing, both metric & imperial bullet diameters. His solar powered calculator gathers more dust while sitting next to the good as new Roget's pocket thesaurus.

And the definition of cruelty spins in the ether while the AL intellects shout MORE oops, more legislation now, more legislation now, more legislation now, define it later, define it later.

Warm fuzzy feelings resonate throughout Paddington and Glebe.

Feelings of superiority are enhanced. The CV looks better than ever; which is great since the RSPCA is hiring more inspectors.

Cruelty, what about this as a possibility -- cruelty exists when an event causing physical and/or emotional harm to an animal occurs if said harm is worse than what happens in a natural environment (wild).

If animals are our equals then why should they be able to eat their meals alive when we can't? Absolutely discriminatory. It has to be healthier. Equality, when do we want it? Now! Equality, when do we want it? Now! Equality, when ..........

some more outstanding posts from CJoe..

Yes i do wonder if the dickie is not connected to the hierachy of this forum the way that he openly accuses and abuses other members that surely have right of reply.

And when that right of reply is offered Mr Venom goes into top gear...no mention of the savaged sheep in the Weekly Times though......hmm nothing offered there at all.

Ah a little digressing required for now. I dont eat them but our central Australian Aboriginal friends do and "them"? feral cats....what would an AL person such as dickie suggest we do with this scourge...i`ll bet it wouldnt agree with Dr.John Warmsleys proposals of ridding Australia of cats period..hear hear.

That rat making a meal of Tom Kitten all those years ago seems to have the right idea and of course the Chinese have been eating them for aeons.

Radrage,
Here's an example of something other than 'Animal Law' being called on , by the RSPCA, to address cruelty to animals. They're asking for diplomatic and trade sanctions,as opposed to 'new laws' as the solution to this particular instance of cruelty.
http://blog1.rspcasa.asn.au/

Another thing that I think might be useful, re Cruelty to Animals in general, would be to hold a PUBLIC summit..or series of summits. Things to discuss might include:-
*Workable Standards of 'just kindness' (including defn.s of 'cruelty')
*The breakdown of communication between the different interested parties
*..what else?

The result of a recent Young Lawyers essay competition is troubling for the direction in which Animal Law is being encouraged to go.

A disempowered Public (which SHOULD be an equal societal power) seems always at the mercy of the other 3 powers, specifically here The Judiciary. The essay competition's result exemplifies this. In reality, it is The Public which is the societal power which holds the best (but still dormant) power to change the lot of animals, Thus, a disempowered Public power = a lack of empowerment of any SUFFICIENT voice for animals!

The essay does raise the 'the sentience' vs. 'the property value' debate. That debate IS needed but the manner of it's debate, ie, in case law, wasn't challenged .. and that's an indication of the trouble with this essay's win!

ALL animals are entitled to the benefits which The Judiciary can potentially help provide them with. This is why the 'animal sentience' issue & Animal Law itself must find how to have an input when STATUTORY laws are made/ammended! For this to happen, there must be a tweaking of the system such that law-making/ammending (including ammendments making it easier to enforce exisitng Animal Protection Laws) is done in conjunction with Public consultation and input (at the micro-decision making level, not JUST the macro-democratic level of 'a vote every 4 yrs'!) because The Public is a valid stakeholder in the issue of a Just Kindness being extended to ALL animals, not just those animals whose human stakeholders can afford to help, albeit inadvertently, Animal Law be subsumed into the existing system that ensures that justice follows the money trail only!

The 'winning' essay is at
http://www.lawsociety.com.au/page.asp?partID=18277
This essay's win indicates a likely road for animals outside the 'chersihed by someone' category .. where they loose out on human kindness being extended to ALL animals. The Judiciary shouldn't take case law's convoluted steps when billions of 'other animals' are suffering NOW .. in rodeos, crammed stow stalls, un-monitored saleyards, live animal processing lines! They deserve The Public's help (aided by The Judiciary, The legislature, The Executive) right now.

Here are some people that have got a good day to enjoy soon,in fact it amazed me as to how many people in Aus have subscribed to this day and plans.

http://peta.isfullofcrap.com/

Interesting that peta dosent rule the world (and never will)

Heather's notion that we should all be kind to animals,
is one that I basically agree with, but also see some
problems on the horizon.

Lets say farmers stopped selling surplus livestock
to abattoirs.Numbers would soon build up to unsustainable
carrying capacities. With no money to buy grain to
feed them, they would die by their millions, of starvation.

So lets look beyond the philosophy, at the reality. What
is Heather proposing? That farmers be kind to animals
by selling the surplus, to pay for food for the remainder,
or to let the remainder starve to death through lack of
funds to pay for food?

Philosophy is all very noble, but reality hits us, even
if we try to deny it.

Excerpt from West Australian 12/02/07

"With so many cruel and repugnant practices going on in many Middle Eastern Islamic countries, including the way they slaughter animals, why don't we join the rest of the civilised world and ban live sheep exports to these countries?

"Or our famers' bank balances and their votes more important than our consciences, in which case do we have the right to consider ourselves "civilised"? (Stan Yeaman, City Beach).

No Stan. Profits are the only priority here to fatten farmers' bank balances which prevents this country from joining any "civilised" nation.

all good and well girl,BUT what do we do with the wethers if they dont go overseas...hmmm just what do we do with the 100`s of thousands of them. Do we simply leave them out in the paddocks or do we rely on AL and peta groups to buy land for the purpose of giving these wethers a home to retire to.Put your money where your mouth is and donate a few acres and get the ball rolling seeing as you are so dedicated girl and enlist the so called many other thousands that protest these exports to your cause.

Clearly Dickie and her cohorts don't have the foggiest about
farming!

Last I looked, farmers owed a combined 40 billion $ and those
pesky banks actually charge interest and want their loans repaid.
Those who don't pay, are shut down and sent broke, suprise surprise.

This drought has shown what happens when supply exceeds demand in
mutton supply. Sheep selling for 50c-10$, by their tens of thousands
around Australia. Live sheep ships came to the rescue of both
farmers and sheep, by offering 60$. That let farmers buy food for
their remaining livestock and actually feed their families.

If the "civilised" world cared a hoot about sheep, they are free
to remove trade barriers in places like Germany, so that our
mutton can be exported there and not be forced into the third world,
at third world prices. That is after its processed here at first
world cost, with all the taxes and charges, leaving farmers once
again with the rough end of the pineapple, so to speak.

Meantime Aussie farmers are still the only ones spending money to
assist in the gradual improvement of animal welfare in the Middle
East. Only that will slowly bring change in the Middle East.

Meantime many city armchair critics, who know nothing about
farming, criticise farmers. Nothing changes it seems!

Yabby,

You said, "Meantime Aussie farmers are still the only ones spending money to assist in the gradual improvement of animal welfare in the Middle East. Only that will slowly bring change in the Middle East."

I've been google searching trying to find the details of what that might refer to. So far I have not been able to find anything on any schemes, projects etc, that are being financially assisted by Aust. farmers, to bring about improvements in Animal Welfare in the Middle East.

Can you tell me what you were referring to, please?

REPOSTED QUESTIONS,all good and well girl,BUT what do we do with the wethers if they dont go overseas...hmmm just what do we do with the 100`s of thousands of them. Do we simply leave them out in the paddocks or do we rely on AL and peta groups to buy land for the purpose of giving these wethers a home to retire to.Put your money where your mouth is and donate a few acres and get the ball rolling seeing as you are so dedicated girl and enlist the so called many other thousands that protest these exports to your cause.
Posted by freerangemeat, Sunday, 18 February 2007 4:02:45 PM

Reposted especially for you Heather just in case the original slipped by your eyes,whats your answer to this problem as it seems that you consider yourself one of the "experts" re: live sheep exports.

Just what do we do with these "date expired" wethers Heather, Dickle?

Freerangemeat AKA the Gryphon asks:

"Just what do we do with these date expired wethers".

It's called forward planning Gryphon - it's what all efficient industries do.

Uncontrolled breeding is irresponsible when you state that there are "100's of thousands of sheep left to die in paddocks from starvation".

Or are excessive numbers bred, resulting in acid soils and a degraded biodiversity, to intentionally hand these animals over to the barbarians in other countries who also like to torture their livestock?

Which way will you paint the picture this time, Gryphon?

Heather,
So we're in agreement, "no new Australian laws are needed to stop animal cruelty as if the current laws were followed by everyone, there would be no animal cruelty in Australia", right?

I don't know how I feel about endorsing your idea of a public summit without seeing the agenda of the summit and a list of attendees. I have a sneaking suspicion that if such a summit were held, 99.99% of the attendees would be members of PETA, AL, etc. and it would be a "rally" for their causes opposed to a fair and balanced discussion on the questions at hand.

Alternatively, I would advocate a panel be assembled with an equal number of calm and collected representatives from both sides to come to agreement on the level of acceptable perceived animal cruelty in Australia given the restraints of the national economy and global food supply.

Education of the representatives (and the public) is the key to be able to come to an agreement as even you must admit there is a whole pile of dis-information (on both sides of the argument) which isn't helping anyone. If both sides were forced to "walk a mile in their neighbour's shoes", I truly believe that there would be a greater understanding of ALL the inputs into the debate from everyone involved and therefore a positive outcome would be more likely.

Until then, seriously, if you've never lived on a farm or raised a family on a farmer's income you cannot know more than 50% of the 'big picture' and therefore your (and this is not an attack on Heather) opinion isn't worth a thing.

It is like a man commenting on a woman in childbirth, he may have read all the online articles but he doesn't have a clue.

Dickie,

Forward planning? When you put 1,000 sheep into a paddock, it is a simple fact that they breed regardless of how big the paddock is.

On Thursday, 4 January 2007 8:14:31 PM you threatened Mimosa with "I could incarcerate you in a cage for most of your life" so you obviously don't believe that caging each animal individually to prevent them from breeding is the answer.

On Friday, 5 January 2007 1:49:31 PM you stated that de-sexing livestock is cruel.

So exactly how should Freerangemeat responsibly forward plan given that he can't restrict their movement or their sex drive?

Dickie, livestock breed all by themselves, no need for humans to
interfere or do anything. All very natural too, just like in
the wild. I thought you were for letting animals live natural
lives? Seems not.

Heather, all MLA members receive an annual report, in which
is stated how money is spent. I gather its around 3.6 million
a year, on various animal welfare programmes, both in Aus,
in the ME and in SE Asia.

The MLA website should give you more information, although
some stuff on there is restricted to us members.

They have a team, which includes a vet in the ME, who trains
locals in animal handling, assists with abattoir design, some
have now installed stun guns. Also in feedlot or holding
lot designs, some of those even have chilled water on tap
for the sheep. If you are really interested, you could
ring MLA and ask for a list of stuff which they have
achieved with the programme.

The thing is, you won't get far trying to boss Arabs around,
as George Bush is finding out. But you can encourage them.
One thing that they care about is religion and the Koran says
that they should be kind to animals. I have already suggested on
here that if AA cared about animals, they could organise a simple,
cheap campaign, to hang signs in every animal handling facility in
the ME, to remind people what the Koran says about handling
animals. Perhaps MLA would even help fund it. So far no takers,
city Aussies would rather just sit behind their computers and try to boss
Aussie farmers around, despite their lack of understanding of
the complex problems involved.

Hmm the silence is deafening re: what do we do with end of use by date wethers and broken mouthed ewes.... no answers once again? oh forward planning is it.

The ignoramous AKA the baitlayer AKA the dickle has had a pathetic attempt,however once again he clearly shows his ignorance with his miserable answers..his ignorance of the sheep/live transport industry shows how he/she has been clearly conned by the AL/Peta groups that swallow his miserable token donations like a hen picking up wheat.

I can tell you quite clearly that the baitlayer has never stood in a yard race with drench gun in hand and pack on back and drenched a few thousand wethers/ewe`s etc..hmm for days on end too.

Hmm drenching? For you Mr/Mrs ignoramous, that means to relieve the animals of possible worm infestation, now come to think of it how long since you have been wormed dickle? You know you do exhibit signs that you might just have a ten foot tapeworm residing in your bowel..cruelty to any of mother nature`s species? god! fancy feeding a tapeworm on tofu and soy milk (milk?)...bit like Lynda Stoner feeding her three dogs on a pure vegetarian diet eh.

I can tell members now that the closest the baitlayer has ever come to being on the kill floor of an abbatoir is when he passes the meat section in Coles on his way to the lumps of tofu and vegie burgers,just near the soy milk. (milk?)

It is obvious that the baitlayer and it is easily construed from his previous posts has absolutely no idea of how the real world operates re farming and allied industries, he/she great ignorance and living on a diatribe of lies from his friends at AL...

Back to basics,what do we do with these end of use by date sheep?

Solve the problem for us all,do the world of farmers some good ,come up with THE answer,hurry now,we await your solution.

I do have to ask the BL "do you sponsor a child in one of the poorer countries"? Now if you dont why not

Maybe the words of someone who DOES know what they're talking about will be listened to:

"As a fourth-generation family farmer in Montana for almost 40 years, I speak from a background of personal experience when I say that chemically based agricultural production methods today are unsustainable, and therefore ecologically disastrous.

My experiences range from...large organic dairy to...beef cattle to owning a large factory feedlot. I have farmed thousands of acres of grain and reproduced a herd of over one thousand commercial beef cows...I have raised chickens, pigs, and turkeys...[and] grown crops such as wheat, barley, oats, corn, alfalfa, and grass.

In 1979, a tumor...paralyzed [me] from the waist down. That changed my life forever. I promised myself that...I would dedicate the rest of my life to doing what I believed to be right -- no matter what changes that necessitated.

"The question we must ask ourselves as a culture is whether we want to embrace the change that must come, or resist it. Are we so attached to the dietary fallacies with which we were raised, so afraid to counter the arbitrary laws of eating taught to us in childhood by our misinformed parents, that we cannot alter the course they set us on, even if it leads to our own ruin? Does the prospect of standing apart or encounttering ridicule scare us even from saving ourselves? ...

I would love to see feedlots close and factory farming end. I would love to see more families return to the land, grow crops for our own species, and raise them organically. I would love to see farm communities revive. I would love to know that I've wandered into my nation's heartland by the sweet smell of grain and not the forbidding smell of excrement..."

Howard F. Lyman, LL.D
President & Founder, Voice for a Viable Future
http://www.madcowboy.com

Relevant information is also at
http://www.new-harvest.org/aboutus.htm

And, freerangemeat, what to do with the 'leftover' animals?
For guidance, see http://www.aswa.org.uk/Articles/lovingourfellowc.html Read it well!
Evolve your attitude towards all God's creatures. The RIGHT answer will not reveal itself to you until you do so!

Evolve your attitude towards all God's creatures. The RIGHT answer will not reveal itself to you until you do so!

I myself am not far off the age of 60 and by gee i have spent more years than i care to remember on and around the land.

You are quite happy to glean information from wherever it suits you lady and it all conveniently falls 'your way" and thats part of the huge problem of all Al`s..its "your way " or nothing,when are you going to listen that it dosent work..

Try and spend your energies on something far more important to the world as in feeding the poor or addressing the polluting countries...oh you do drive a car dont you? So you too are a polluter?
Or do you use a polluting tram/train/ or bus/? electric public transport vehicles use brown coal burns to provide the power you know hmm more pollution for one so dedicated to making the world "right" .

Use electricity at home? Of course you do,hell a girls gotta have a hairdryer eh? Blondes luv their own hair.

Does your boss know that you are using his time,computer,power etc to address your silly ideas on a public forum? Hmm thats cheating you know!

Thats rather rude of you Heather, assuming no one on this thread nows what they are talking about. Yes, get some yank doing the hard sell on himself to boost his own book, video, whatever, sales to tell us all how to do it. Sounds like hes farming gullible humans now instead. Bet you've bought havent you Heather?

Get out there and get some experience of what farming in THIS country is all about then you may have some credibility. You dont learn that stuff in books or on websites.

Strewth

I thought this thread was on cruelty to animals.

All we have here from cowboy clowns, who clearly lack a basic ability to comprehend the subject matter on "Taking a stand for all animals" are inane bleatings, now degenerated to matters on:

"blondes, pollution, hairdryers, tofu, buses, trams, trains, Linda Stoner, brown coal etc etc".

Where's the relevance to the subject?

This poster clearly requires treatment for his mental disorders.

Farmers and dippers exposed to organophosphate pesticides can develop chronic peripheral neuropath and neurophysical abnormalities.

Now those symptons couldn't be evident than on this thread.

And that's just one of the dangerous practices these "evolved" and "knowledgeable" farmers perpetrates on himself, his animals, other humans and the environment.

So who are the "ignoramuses" freerangemeat/gryphon?

Strewth

I thought this thread was on cruelty to animals.

All we have here from cowboy clowns, clearly who lack the ability to comprehend the subject matter on "Taking a stand for all animals" since bleatings have now degenerated to matters on:

"blondes, pollution, hairdryers, tofu, buses, trams, trains, Linda Stoner, brown coal etc etc".

Where's the relevance to the subject?

This poster clearly requires treatment for his mental disorders.

Farmers and dippers exposed to organophosphate pesticides can develop chronic peripheral neuropath and neurophysical abnormalities.

Now those symptons couldn't be evident than on this thread.

And that's just one of the dangerous practices these "evolved" and "knowledgeable" farmers perpetrates on himself, his animals, other humans and the environment.

So who are the "ignoramuses" freerangemeat/gryphon?

PF,
No, not rudeness, but irritation at the rudeness of constant references, by the pro-'meat' community here, to my, & likeminded other's, assumed lack of knowledge/logic!

It is CONSTANTLY touted as a valid argument; to say, what amounts to, "Your not living like us makes your opinion worth nothing!" Constant attempts at highjacking The Debate, so as to reconstruct it as A Right to Ridicule &/or Dismiss, is what is rude!

So given the constant pseudo-argument; "your side of the debate is wrong because YOU ..." it WAS reasonable of me to quote someone who HAS had 40+ years success in the farming sector AND who DID evolve into believing that 'meat alternatives' ARE the future of farming!

We live in a global community, nowadays, not just an Australian one, so there should be some credit given to the opinion of a long-term farmer, EVEN from another country!

Climate Change & Health Concerns are just two among the several globally relevant issues, let alone other issues, which are driving the push to farm differently, everywhere in the world!

So I think 'the problem', with my opinions, for the pro-'meaters', ISN'T that I'm a (presumed blonde, employed, hairdrier-user, etc etc) City Slicker NOR that Howard Lyman is an Amercian (& for that reason alone presumed, apparently, to know nothing relevant to GLOBAL ISSUES which ARE relevant to farming everywhere - even Australia!)

No, the pro-'meaters' just find it easier to attack the validity of The Other Side of The Debate's entitlement to contribute to a reasonable debate! My putting forward the opinion of someone else, of much farming experience, was a logical response, I thought, given that MY opinion was repeatedly classed as 'dismissable'! I'm called the rude one!? I'm glad the direction of my evolving is not the same as those who are trying to evolve The Awareness of Basic Cruelty 101 beyond the limits it has already been stretched to. That's WHY I jumped ahead to a point in the debate that is about 'farming alternatives' .. when some are still way back there on 'defn's of cruelty'!

“We live in a global community, nowadays, not just an Australian one, so there should be some credit given to the opinion of a long-term farmer, EVEN from another country!”

Heather, the discussion at the time was about sheep and I believe the question was being asked, what do we do with the wethers and broken mouthed ewes if they don’t go on the ships. I don’t know if you realize it or not, but the US are not big on sheep farming so I think, in this instance, that your ‘long term farmer’ would have little to contribute. Why is it necessary to consult someone overseas any way? They are not living with these issues. What point is there to protesting about these problems if you have no solutions yourself. No, vegan is not the answer. There are people that can survive a veggie diet, but if you took a look at the bigger picture, there are those that could not, they need to eat meat. I believe we were designed that way , sorry.

Your argument "your side of the debate is wrong because YOU ..." ….. guilty of that very thing yourself I feel. I doubt that you would be happy with any other result than a world of vegans.

I believe cropping and chemical farming has caused far greater environmental problems than farming animals ever could. That would only increase under vegan rule.

Dickie, answer the question. This isn't your personal space to blog on about 100 different things, attack everyone that doesn't agree with you, etc.., if you want to participate please do so appropriately. Ignoring me is (IMO) ruder than calling me every name in the book.

"So exactly how should Freerangemeat responsibly forward plan given that he can't restrict their movement or their sex drive?"

Don't change the subject, don't go off on a tangent or attack me personally, just answer the question.

"So exactly how should Freerangemeat responsibly forward plan given that he can't restrict their movement or their sex drive?"

Heather,

When I start a thread about what vegans should do with their lives and why, then you can suggest that I become a vegan for a while to learn about it and understand what it is about.

But you are the one making suggestions to people about the lives they lead and the actions they take while you yourself don't know how or why they do the things they do.

If I told you to quit being a vegan because I read an article about what it does to you, never being a vegan myself, how would you judge my opinion?

Well that shut'em up.

Heather and Dickie have obviously scurried off with their tails between their legs. Off to another thread on another website where they probably found more of their own. There they can blog on and on about the evils of farmers and meat-eaters, trade recipes for tofu dishes and live blissfully in an imaginary world where 2 million years of human dietary evolution are tossed to the wind. Best of luck to them.

OH! Hell and I was really waiting for an answer as to what to do with 100`s of thousands of "boat wethers" and the alternative according to the AL`s bible Dillick is? waiting waiting waiting? HMM and tis only a small hurdle too,whoa why not give healthier a call...your answer girl...waiting waiting...........................................

STILL WAITING FRIEND!

I'm back.

Maybe Dickie and Heather have been suspended.

hhaa that would be a turn around then wouldnt it....they are both rabid AL er`s but i have a soft spot for both of them as its really hard to condemn people that live on a vegie diet and cant think straight.

hello All

I sat back and watched this thread without comment to see where it would go.

It went the same way these debates have gone for decades.

I have a suggestion- and a Question.

The suggestion first.

How about we all rally together and find two people in each suburb of Australia to letter box drop this in their immediate neighbourhood.

http://www.rspcaqld.org.au/media/Live_Export_Update_14Feb07.pdf

Ok now the suggestion.

Lets stop fighting over veggie verses main stream and just help the animals.

I am going to be honest with you all.

I cant make my mind up if this is politically motivated to narrow the argument regarding cruelty to animals by saying everybody should go veggie or its just incredibly bad leadership.

I also dont know if its true what some people say about PETA being fund raisers. Neither does anybody else.

I "do know" that any animal welfare organisation that argues we should all go veggie is with or without their knowledge or intention working 'against the animals".

This only gives fuel to the Government to pass onto the media that feeds the public ALL Animal Welfare groups are extreme.

So the question is - is this just a clever political ploy? or are these people so misguided with good intentions they cant see clearly.

Animals Australia who have done some fantstic work especially since Lyn White has been there are allowing all their efforts to be written off by the media to the public branding them as veggie extreme.

Free Rangefarms are of great interest to overseas people.
I keep telling you that but your not listening and not interested.

So the old question remains in 'my head' are they blind or is this political.

Are PETA for real or just as is rumoured- fund raisers.?


Recently the word hypocrite came up.

Well what is a hypocrite really when you think about it.
I just cant see donations to Veggie vegan Groups really helping to bring this to an end.
Wish I could.
After saying that Animals Australia and PETA have done far more than anybody

After saying that Animals Australia and PETA have done far more than anybody

Ha Ha I seriously doubt that ...ask an honest farmer!

Gryphon.

I know I cant have my foot in both camps but Animals Australia and PETA have done by large the farmers job already in a sense.

Farmers have a duty of care to the animals they breed.

Please dont say they are Ok until they are put on the boats because thats hypocritical.'

What have Animals Australia done really to the farmers?

Informed them about the way their animals are treated.

Farmers have been having hard times but all that is because you have been lied to.

They never asked the right questions. Got caught up with political the greedy middle men trickery and the trade Ministers.

Are you a farmer? If so I would like your help please.

We need the farmers to push the Governments to dropp red tape levies and councils to assist with new plants.

I need your help. I am asking farmers to meet with Muslim leaders and delagates.

They are interested in co joint vetures in abattoirs and they will pay a good price for stock supply.

Stop listening to the lies of the Government and agents that they have no electrity for god sake and the other furthy that -they require animals alive for religious purposes. Its all bull!

Each Premier of States are also Ministers of Trade for their own states.

They could quite easily over ride the Federal Government and open their own states to invite overseas buyers to co join with Australian partners- Easily!

Did you know the duties of the port folio for Trades Minister.

Mark Vaile wrote this to me>

To help assist NEW business ventures and `encourage overseas` interest to Australia.

Not send our raw material off in their most valuable form and our jobs with it destroying country towns.


We need REAL farmers to take control and stop relying on the so called representives with their vetted interests in the Live Animal trade.

I need your help. I am asking farmers to meet with Muslim leaders and delagates.

When i worked as a slaught i saw muslim halal killing many times....the cruelest way to dispatch a sheep is performed by them.....does AA know about that...throats cut without breaking the spinal column and without being stunned.

Gryphon is right. I visited a poultry abattoir last week that were thinking of converting to halal. They will have to remove the stunner from the slaughter line to be able to comply. How 'kind' is that?

Gryphon and PF

Thanks for your comments.

Your both talking about domestic abattoirs which come under State Governments.

All export abattoir animals are pre stunned under stick guidelines by AQIS

To slaughter any animal without pre stunning is an act of barbaric cruelty and gross indecency.


There is a method in my maddess.

The more domestic abattoirs we can divert to export standard results in less live exports and better standards for domestic.

This can be acheieved by upgrading the all slaughtering to AQIS standard. That way all animals going through that plant be it domestic or export are pre stunned.

Small abattoir owner who agree to have their plants updated to export standards at 'no cost' to them become a exporters as well as producers. That flows on to the farmers.
Once farmers see this working and better prices for their stock its hoped they will get involed too.
You have a flow off system. The domestic supplier also an expoter.
Farmers becoming farmers, producers, and exporters. Local Councils assisting and power to fix the levies.
We will add some value adding for small goods.
If you like its a direct hit back at the middle men in the industry.
Australian Farmers once opended to the world of exports wont worry too much about listening to the middle men.
You me asked about Animals Australia. Can you just imagine if they got onboard with this.
I have letters here from every Premier in Australia claiming yes they would encourage more plants in their states and overseas funding would be welcome.
Can you imagine also the way the farmers attitude would change towards AA
It would be a big step towards helping the animals both domestic and fazing out live exports.
I cant make them however. I can only keep asking Animals Australia to re think it.