Episode 6 Live Export

Episode 6 Live Export



Hello and welcome to episode 6 of Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals. Just before the intro, I played the first "bumper" I've received, from Sam Tucker. I've asked other vegans, from around the world to send me a recording as they mention who they are, where they can be found, and "youre listening to coexisting with nonhuman animals", as if my podcast were on tv. If you would like to make a bumper for me to play before each episode, you can go to my blog, coexisting with nonhuman animals.blogspot.com and see the post about Bumpers there. I'd like them all to follow the same format and to be about 15 seconds or less.



This episode, Live Export.

Live Export is when animals are sent overseas while alive. I have some audio from the Sunday television program, about New Zealand considering sending our sheep to the middle east, on gigantic boats, a journey that takes weeks, and suffers many casualties. Even the sheep who make it to the other side of the world, they are always in a pretty poor state. When they arrive, they are stereotypically thrown about, their legs tied together, and thrown into car boots. Why does all of this happen? So that they can be killed in the middle east as part of a religious ceremony.

Reading from Wikipedia

"Over a billion living farm animals around the world are exported to different countries or states every week, travelling hundreds of miles from farms to slaughterhouses, a practice referred to as "live export."[1]
Animal charities say that thousands of animals die en route from disease, heat exhaustion, thirst, suffocation, and crush injuries.[1] The National Hog Farmer reports that 420,000 pigs are crippled and 170,000 die each year in the U.S. on the way to the slaughterhouse.[2]

Australia is the world’s largest exporter of sheep and cattle. According to a report by Meat and Livestock Australia, 4.2 million sheep and 572,799 cattle were exported to markets in Asia, the Middle East and other countries in 2005.[8] Most of the livestock are for meat but there is also an active trade in breeding stock, including dairy cattle.

In 2005, New Zealand exported NZ$217 million worth of live animals, mainly for breeding purposes. Exports included cattle, sheep, horses, deer, goats and day-old chicks. Because New Zealand is free of most exotic diseases most livestock shipments are for breeding or finishing purposes. Cattle are not exported for slaughter and the last export of sheep for slaughter was in 2003."

Here are the clips from the Sunday show.



What do I think of all this? Well, if the New Zealand government wont rule out live export, I think thats a bad thing. I think that the sheep farmer must have really gotten misleading emails from our government, and that this probably means they are seriously considering resuming live export of New Zealand Animals. I think a big issue here is how some people think of sheep, and other farm animals that are "live exported". If these were cats or dogs, people would be outraged. I just have to play back this clip about eating dogs in New Zealand.



A massive fuss was built up over that one dog being cooked, after being hit on the head, which was considered a quote "humane" way to kill an animal. I wish we could consider farm animals to be as valuable as we feel that one dog was. I think all animals are pretty much equal, I have my favourites like Damselflies and Blackbirds, but really, all animals are fairly equal, are they not? Why would we assume that a dog is more valuable than a sheep? That one dog being killed is more important than the literally BILLIONS of other animals killed for us to eat every year?

David Carter, the governments Agriculture minister was also shown in a bad light during the NZ Pork Scandal, my term for the SAFE expose with Mike King. Carter claimed he didnt know how pigs were treated in New Zealand, with this live export issue, hes shown claiming to never have promised that live export would resume again.

Until we treat all animals as having a reasonably equal right to live, we will have issues like Live Export. Lives are precious, they shouldnt be degraded with long journeys before cruel slaughter. We really shouldnt be using animals as stock, a way to make profit. I like bringing up singular issues such as Live Export, but I dont believe in welfare reforms to make it "quote" humane, I instead focus on Animal Rights, and that means Veganism.

Thank you for listening.

You can find the script for this episode, as well as downloads for every episode of Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals at coexisting with nonhuman animals . blogspot.com

If you want to contact me, even just to say you listened, send an email to jaywontdart@gmail.com, j a y w o n t d a r t @ gmail.com, I'd appreciate it.

Thank you for listening.





Sources
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Sunday Show, August 16th
http://tvnz.co.nz/sunday-news/sunday-august-16-eternal-demand-2906486

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_export