The Only Humans Most Animals Will Ever Know

Gary over at Animal Writings gets frequent responses to his rodeo posts, from apparent rodeo workers attempting to defend the treatment of the rodeo animals as being "humane" and "better than most people's pets". While it's obviously ludicrous that you could ever call jolting animals with high voltage, roping babies around their necks in order to drag them through mud and then slam them to the ground, subjecting them to flank straps and spurs, scaring them, jumping on them, leaving them to suffer when they break necks and bones and then killing them when they can no longer be exploited - "humane" - these people continue attempting to justify this heartless, cruel and unnecessary "sport". If this is what some people think is "humane", what does that mean for the animals?

Which got me thinking ... about the only humans most animals will ever know.

For instance, chickens at birth have their first introduction to our species when they get their beaks burned off. Then they are either confined in a battery cage where the only human contact for a year might be the occasional employee who comes around to pull out their dead cage-mates; or they are crammed into football-field sized sheds to live in their own excrement, where in a few weeks their next human interaction is being grabbed by their feet and slammed into cages (resulting in painful injuries and broken bones) while being rounded up for slaughter.

Both the egg-laying hens and the "broiler" chickens (free-range and organic included) will have their last human interactions at the slaughterhouse - after being trucked without protection from the elements or any food and water for hundreds of miles - where they will be killed with little consideration for their suffering, since chickens aren't protected under the Humane Slaughter Act (not that this act does much for any other animals included, since it is rarely enforced and there is never anything "humane" about killing animals bred for exploitation).

Now, the chickens could have other human interactions in their brief and tortured lives - humans screaming at them, stomping on them, kicking them, raping them, slamming them against walls, pulling off their heads, putting explosive devices in their mouths and rectums for entertainment, etc. These are all documented abuses of chickens by the humans paid to provide the public with eggs and "chicken".

These workers are the only humans these innocent, sentient beings will ever know. (For reference, approximately 14,000 chickens are slaughtered per minute in the US.) They will never know that humans can give them kind and comforting words. That humans can provide them with sunshine and grass and space to roam freely. That humans can help to heal their wounds and treat their illnesses. That there are humans who know exploiting them for their flesh is wrong. All they know is that humans exist to inflict pain and suffering.

If you support animal industries, you are complicit. If you are willing to spend your money on animal products or animal "entertainment", you are paying others to mistreat and kill animals on your behalf. As far the animals are concerned, you are just another one of these humans. Is that how you want to be known?