Animals
Showing compassion to Earth's inhabitants
Billions of animals are farmed and killed for meat and dairy each year
Most farmed animals are raised in intensive factory farms, in cramped, overcrowded cages, sheds and pens. With no room to stretch limbs or wings and no access to daylight or fresh air, intensively reared animals are often diseased, injured and dying due to the unnatural conditions they are kept in.
70% of all birds on Earth are farmed chickens and other poultry, and 60% of all mammals are farmed animals
Farmed animals are subjected to mutilations such as having their beaks clipped, their teeth pulled out and their tails docked to stop them from pecking and wounding each other through boredom and frustration. All farmed animals end their lives with a brutal death at the slaughterhouse.
Fish feel pain like other animals
Fish have nervous systems which allow them to feel what is happening around them. The change in pressure when they are hoisted from the water into the air causes them huge suffering, as does their suffocation – they gasp and flail about for as long as an hour, or even more – which creates extreme stress. Fish also experience pain when they are caught on hooks.
8 thought-provoking documentaries you need to watch
Featured film
Cow
“Our view of nature is a very romantic one—it’s very sort of pastoral. We engage with the romance of it as opposed to the reality of it. I’ve always felt this real sadness about our disconnect from nature, and to connect with it means hard truths because it’s got some brutality. I feel like we should connect and be part of it because we are part of it. So I thought: instead of the romance, what about the reality? Not like some of the real intensive reality, but just a consciousness, to show a consciousness. To connect with one animal.”
– Andrea Arnold, interview with The Film Stage
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– Andrea Arnold, interview with The Film Stage
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