Anne has given me this quote from the lovely National Farmer Union …
An NFU brief for Report Stage included that “As at least 17 million lambs are born every year in England and Wales, farmers can be forgiven for finding it hard to agree that the loss of some 340,000 of them to foxes at a cost to the industry of over £13.6million should be regarded as not significant.”
The National Farmers Union (NFU)
Britain’s biggest farming union
My farmer pals tell me that in reality, most of the lambs eaten by foxes have been stillborn (a scandal in itself … where is the care?) But even if that were not the case, and all these lambs were eaten by the wicked foxes – who ate the other sixteen and a half MILLION animals ? OH, yes, humans … and I guess that’s OK, is it ? Eating lambs does not qualify US as pests that need to be destroyed by despicably cruel methods ?
Well, let’s just remember that those farmers who are complaining about their animals being killed by our wildlife will kill EVERY ONE of those lambs to feed meat eaters, and to make a profit. Does that put things in perspective ?
Personally you couldn’t pay me enough to eat a rubbery piece of a lamb’s body. I used to be forced to eat it as a child, and it made me physically sick. It would still choke me now.
Isn’t it time we started realising animals have feelings too, and rights – the right to a decent life and a decent death ?
One of my ambitions in 2014 is to reclaim the epithet ‘Animal Rights’. I have realised in the last 3 years that most of the accusations against animal advocates have been trumped up … part of the incessant propaganda pumped out by the likes of the pro-cruelty Daily Telegraph. So we have all been cautiously talking about animal welfare, almost tacitly complying with the view that animal rights people are violent. I believe that all the violence is actually on the other side.
I believe animals DO have rights, just like the human animal, and on New Years day, I’ll be restating that as a proposed foundation for our future work to banish cruelty from our country.
Animals DO have rights, and its time we recognised them.
Cheers
Brian
PLEASE OBSERVE COPYRIGHT
© brianmay.com