Save Rats!
Victoria University will be putting down up to 80 rats and mice!
If you can help out, get in contact with them about adopting some so that they aren’t killed!
(Source: veganpope, via chronicallyvegan)
Honey is not vegan. If it comes from an animal, it’s not vegan.
Bees are a part of the animal kingdom. Therefore, any byproduct from a bee is not vegan. Raw honey, organic honey, free range honey, whatever you want to call it, it’s still not vegan. To say it is a waste not to use their byproducts contributes to the objectification of animals, and perpetuates the myth that’s it is okay to use them for ourselves. They exist for their own reasons.
If it comes from an animal = not vegan. By definition, animal products that are not flesh are considered “vegetarian.”
I’m not the vegan messiah. Yes, this is my blog, but what I’m saying isn’t anything new. You may not like what I have to say all the time, but I will not alter facts to make a point. I’m going to use Stephen Colbert’s “truthiness” to describe what’s going on here. “The quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts.”
The arguments in favor of honey as somehow being vegan, sounds a lot like the arguments I hear omnivores justifying the consumption of animal products. For example, take the sentence, “I eat the eggs from my chicken farm. We treat our chickens with kindness and their eggs are organic.” Not vegan, right? Right. Okay, now replace the word “eggs” with “honey” and “chicken” with “bee.” Does that scenario change because the species of animal changed? No. Still not vegan.
Bees are an essential part of life. We need to leave bees alone and let them pollinate as they would naturally. However, this fact does not somehow make the consumption of bee byproducts as “vegan.” Bees produce honey by swallowing nectar into their crop, regurgitate it, add enzymes (spit), chew, swallow and repeat many times.
Eating their honey is not “supporting the bees.” Now, I’m not going to go around pointing fingered saying “you’re not vegan enough!” However, I will not go along with the idea that honey is somehow vegan. It’s not. All I’m saying is that honey is not vegan. #vegansofIG
Dilgo Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche, a 17 year old Tibetan lama, puts over one thousand lobsters who were going to be boiled alive and eaten, back into the ocean.
The same lama, while visiting eastern Tibet, similarly saved over 2000 yaks from being slaughtered.
(Source: fatvegangoddess, via chronicallyvegan)
Dear Vegetarians #1
This is a friendly public service announcement from me, a vegan, because I know how you feel.
You feel like vegans don’t respect you because they don’t think you’re doing enough for the animals. You feel like vegans go about it all the wrong way and give you a bad name. You feel confused because, shouldn’t vegans be on your side? You don’t understand why vegans think that you’re hypocritical, and you don’t know why vegans say you’re not really an animal lover. You think that vegans just think they’re better than you because they can cut more things out of their diet. You dismiss vegans. You tell people that you’re vegetarian, that you love the animals, but you can’t respect vegans because they don’t respect you.
I think, somehow, we have our wires crossed.
The majority of vegans don’t go out of their way to make your life miserable, or anybody’s life miserable. They just find it difficult to stay quiet when somebody is hurting their loved ones. That’s all. Vegans often get angry, but only because others start spouting their hypocritical bullshit and refuse to budge on their opinion even when they’re shown cold, hard, facts.
But that’s another story. I’m here to tell you why vegans have a problem with vegetarians. I’m here to tell you why you’re not on our side. Listen closely.
If you’re vegetarian, it’s probably for one of a few reasons. One of those reasons might be a moral one. Something like “Killing animals is wrong!” or “Using animals for our personal gain is wrong!”. If it is, here’s why being a vegetarian isn’t helping:
- Dairy. In order to produce milk, a cow has to have given birth. They aren’t miracle machines. There has to be a baby cow in order for the milk to be produced. So, by drinking milk, you’re making the following happen: The cow is forcefully impregnated, in a way which is indistinguishable from rape except, as you may point out, that it’s a cow not a human. Does that matter? I think cows shouldn’t have to have a human arm shoved in their arse and then a bull’s semen forced into their vagina just so you can have milk, whether you want to call that rape or not isn’t the question - the question is, is that ok? But, obviously, that isn’t the worst part of it. The worst part is what happens after the cow is born. The calf is taken away from its mother. Sometimes immediately. Sometimes after a couple of days. The mother will lament its lost calf for weeks, while the calf is either tied down and unable to move until it is killed for veal, or it is killed to go in dog meat, or it is reared for a year or two (this rarely happens) to be used as human meat. The calf is killed. I’ll repeat that. The. Calf. Is. Killed. If you’re a vegetarian because you don’t want to contribute to the deaths of animals, by drinking milk and eating dairy you are doing just that. You are paying for milk stolen from an innocent animal, which is then taken off and killed, leaving the mother distraught, only to have to go through the whole thing again and again.
- Eggs. Ok, this one you have to understand. It’s pretty simple. In order to produce eggs, a chicken has to be female. Right? Because an egg is a chicken period. Got that? Ok. So, male chicks are useless. Got it? They have no use. It doesn’t matter if the eggs are free range, organic, or factory farmed. In order to produce the laying hens, male chicks are born too. Guess what happens to them. The male chicks are killed. Not for meat, not for dog food, nothing even remotely close to that. They’re either stuffed into plastic bags and left to suffocate, or they’re ground into a pulp. They are not used elsewhere in the industry. They are just senselessly killed. By buying eggs, you are paying money into an industry which breeds chicks only to kill half of them. You are paying for male chicks to be killed in the most gruesome ways.
I’m not telling you this because I think I’m better than you for not contributing to these industries. I’m not telling you this because I think you’re a horrible person for not thinking about this before. I’m telling you this because I was once a vegetarian who thought I was doing everything for the animals. I even avoided fur, leather, silk, wool. I even refused to buy cosmetics which weren’t vegan. I even refused to buy from companies like Unilever and Procter & Gamble because they tested their products on animals. But I never asked whether anything died because of my eggs, or my milk. I thought; they’re byproducts. That’s ok. It’s all produced naturally anyway. That’s fine, nothing dies.Well guess what. Animals do die to produce your milk, and your eggs. Animals suffer to produce your milk and your eggs. And if you’re a vegetarian for ethical reasons, this shouldn’t be OK with you.Please do some research. Please make the change to vegan, because if you really love animals, vegan is the only way to avoid harming them.
(Source: exploitationiscontagious)
Liberate Your Language
Language is a powerful tool. The words we choose do more than name or describe things; they assign status and value. Be careful, then, how you choose words that refer to non-human animals, for you may be using expressions that maintain prejudices against them.
Referring to a non-human animal as an “it” strips him or her of dignity and perpetuates the view that other animals are objects, inferior things or property.
Referring to people who share their homes and lives with non-human animals as “owners” or “masters” connotes slavery, and we should be uncomfortable with the connotation. Friends, companions or protectors is preferable.
Avoid calling other animals “living things.” They are living beings.
Refer to non-domestic animals as free or free-roaming, not “wild” or “wildlife.”
When referring to animal suffering and death caused by human action, use painfully explicit words that reveal the true facts. “Euthanize,” “put to sleep,” “sacrifice” and “destroy” are favorites of animal researchers (and some animal control people) while “cull,” “harvest,” “manage” and “thin the herd” are favorites of hunters, trappers, and their ilk. These words mean kill, so say kill.
Guilty people try to cover up their horrifying cruelties against, and backward exploitation of, non-human animals with deceptive euphemisms like the ones above. Say it like it is, and correct others when they don’t, so that people will realize the true nature and full extent of the suffering we inflict on other living beings.
Watch out, too, for expressions that convey contempt for animals. “Son-of-a-bitch,” “bird-brain,” and “hare-brain” are insults at the expense of animals. Think of alternatives to calling a person a “snake,” “turkey,” “ass,” “weasel,” “chicken,” “dog” or the like.
Liberate your language, for it’s an important step in liberating all animals!
—By Noreen Mola and The Blacker Family Animals’ Agenda, 6, no. 8, October 1986, p. 18, Quoted in The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol J. Adams
"Donald Watson, the founder of veganism, in 1944 defined veganism as an “anti-oppression politics”. It is against the oppression of nonhuman animals, of human animals, of all oppressions. He defined it in the broadest possible political terms, what I call “total liberation”. Yet, we have reduced veganism from a politics of total liberation to a lifestyle."
— Dr. Steve Best on why the vegan community has difficulty gaining membership and taking action.
We Cannot Bear the Facts of Reality - Dr. Steve Best
It’s a fiery speech, and he makes some very good points about the complacency of the vegan movement. There are some holes in his logic, but in general it’s a good call to arms.
We need to do more than what we’re doing. We need to do outreach to diverse communities, we need to make noise, we need to change the system that we are living in. It’s not enough to abstain from the consumption of animals, we need to act against the system that continues to allow the consumption of animals.
Thanks to onlytheharmfulisugly for the original post.
Front page of Saturday’s Toronto Star newspaper.
“NIAGARA FALLS, ONT.—Larry lies behind bars in a pen, his eyes red and swollen. The harbour seal with “an amazing little personality” who arrived at Marineland about eight years ago is now a shadow of his former self. After repeate
d exposure to unhealthy water, he has gone blind.
Larry isn’t the only sea mammal living in distress at Marineland, the sprawling attraction in Niagara Falls.
“John Holer, owner of the Niagara institution for 51 years, denies there are problems with water quality at the park and that unhealthy water has harmed marine mammals. He says there is more than sufficient staff to look after the animals. “All our facilities are legal,” he said.
There are no government regulations for sea mammal captivity in Canada. The Canadian Association of Zoos and Aquariums, a self-regulating industry association, first licensed Marineland in 2007 and national director Bill Peters says there have been no complaints. Its licence was renewed for five years at the end of September 2011, after a summer inspection by a CAZA team of experts.
Among several troubling incidents at the park between last fall and this spring:
Sea lions Baker and Sandy had to be pulled repeatedly from the water and confined in dry cages, in one case for more than two months, to limit further harm to their already damaged eyes. Videos shot in 2011 and 2012 shows them writhing in pain or plunging their heads into a single bucket of clean water. Sandy often sits like a statue, dry as a bone. There’s no lens in Baker’s left eye. When a trainer put him back in the water in April, he barked and it flew out.
On May 28, baby beluga Skoot died after a two-hour assault by two adult male belugas in an incident former trainers say points to understaffing at the park. The evening attack unfolded in front of a guide untrained and helpless to intervene. The males bit Skoot’s head and body, spun her around by the tail and bashed her into a rock wall where she stuck. After two trainers finally arrived to pull Skoot out of the pool, she convulsed and died in their arms.”
“Five female dolphins — Sonar, Lida, Marina, Echo and Tsu — swam almost continuously in bad water in a concrete pool in a facility called the barn. Former employees say they lay at the bottom in murky green water or breeched and thrashed wildly, their reactions changing with the chemicals. Their skin fell off in chunks, their colour darkened and they refused to eat. This lasted intermittently for eight months, from October 2011 until just before show season began in May 2012 when their water was changed.
There are other problems at the facility. Walruses, which crave attention in captivity, are confined sporadically in cramped, waterless pens. Since November 2011, the park has kept a lone orca (killer whale), a practice banned in the United States because the complex, highly social mammals require the company of their own species. Six of the park’s seven seals are blind, have impaired vision or have had serious eye problems because of exposure to unhealthy water, former trainers say.
One trainer recalls how animals often squinted at trainers and struggled to perform after chlorine spikes in the stadium pool.
Poor conditions drove some of the eight former employees to leave and were a major factor in the departure of others.”
“The worst water was at the Aquarium, a dank, foul-smelling place with an underwater viewing area for sea lions and seals, and the barn and connecting stadium pools, according to the supervisor and former trainers. Off limits to the public, the barn is a converted factory made of concrete with pens and small pools for walruses, sea lions and seals and a dolphin pool. A small skylight provides the only natural light and photos show rusting on pools with crumbling, grime-encased sides. Dolphins that depend most critically on sonar live in a concrete world.
It was in the Aquarium facility that sea lions Baker and Sandy, both about 20, were kept out of the water for weeks at a time last winter and spring with their eyes screwed tightly shut. The sea lions have been trained to open their eyes so staff can apply ointment. (Sandy died in mid-July.)
Larry, about 12 years old, was pulled from the water for days or weeks at a time and kept in either a waterless pen or a metal box on wheels.
Aging animals may suffer from cataracts, trainers said. But their eyes “are not red, swollen, bulbous and inflamed from age. That is from water quality,” one trainer said.”
“The situation was particularly acute for the five dolphins, which, unlike sea lions, seals and walruses, are unable to pull themselves from the water. The supervisor recalls many times when the dolphins were so dark and the water so green, they were barely visible. Photos show dolphins with eyes squeezed shut.”
“In a 2010 memo, Demers blamed poor water quality for ill health among walruses, as well as sea lions and seals. “Health issues arise in every instance, ranging from eye damage, fur loss, weight loss, stress, skin lesions (and more).”
In his May 4, 2012, exit interview, Demers confronted Holer about problems with the water. “The health of the animals is terrible,” he tells his boss in the recorded conversation. “The water is destroying these animals, it really is.””
“Bentivegna says the final straw was seeing Zeus, a powerhouse walrus who knew his own strength, disintegrate into the shell of a once intimidating creature. Recent videos and photos show him sitting behind bars in a waterless space barely big enough to turn around in and looking broken-down and miserable. He was being treated for regurgitation issues — exacerbated by bad water — and the lack of trainers meant he often lay unattended in his own excrement.”“
“”Baker is a big guy, the only male sea lion swimming mindless laps during our two recent visits to the Aquarium. He used to be the clown, the funny fellow with the clear eyes, still featured in “Attractions Niagara.”
Now his body is scarred and itchy with patches of missing fur. Every time he passes he rubs his head hard against the side, trying to scratch himself over and over. His eyes are squeezed so tightly shut it looks like he doesn’t have any. For all intents and purposes, he doesn’t.”“BOYCOTT ALL MARINE ANIMALS PARKS!! GO VEGAN
(Source: chronicallyvegan)
Welcome to Kale and Nooch, a blog dedicated to promoting ethical veganism through recipes, news regarding animal rights, environmentalism, and health, as well as other tid-bits that we find informative or entertaining. Our main focus will be on food, but we hope that we can share a more complete view of the vegan lifestyle with you along with delicious meals and baked goods—our propaganda against a non-vegan world.
Our names are Heather and Connor. We live in Ann Arbor, Michigan and we’ve both been vegan for a little over a year. Heather is a recent English/Creative Writing (poetry) grad, and Connor’s in school for Computer Science Engineering with a minor in Mathematics.
