Yesterday I finished reading Jeffrey Masson’s book The Secret World of Farm Animals (first edition was called The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals), and it really rocked my emotional world.
I have been living vegan since 2009, but I am still shocked every time I learn new information about the suffering of animals. The chapter that hit me the hardest was about ducks and geese….
It was horrifying to read about humans “live plucking” geese for their feathers. The pain involved is so intense. And clearly the feathers and the down (the insulating layer under their feathers) grow naturally on aquatic birds to keep them warm in cold water — they do not grow for humans to rip mercilessly out of the birds’ bodies.
Over the holidays some family members gave me a microfiber bed comforter with a note saying “No ducks were de-feathered in the making of this gift.” At the time, I was filled with gratitude that they made the effort to give me such a thoughtful vegan gift. And now, after reading about the incredible suffering that goes into making down comforters, I am even more grateful for that vegan gift.
Still more overwhelming for me emotionally was the part about how they produce foie gras, which is fattened goose or duck liver. The birds are force-fed to cause their livers to swell up to ten times the normal size. Masson quoted the writing of one American veterinarian: “Foie gras, touted as a gourmet delicacy to entice the palate, is really only the diseased tissue of a tortured sick animal.”
Fortunately many European countries have prohibited the force-feeding of birds, and according to Wikipedia, India banned the import of foie gras in 2014…. But this cruel practice still exists in some places.
In New Zealand, Masson visited a couple who had a large duck pond on their property, where ducks from the surrounding areas arrive each year, just before duck hunting season. The man said, “I don’t know how, but they know. It’s the strangest thing, but every year, the night before duck season starts, our pond fills up.”
Well, ducks and geese are smart, so that doesn’t surprise me. What surprises me is that humans are so endlessly cruel to the other animals, who are intelligent beings, and who just want to be safe like we do.
Reading that chapter filled me with an overwhelming sadness…. And then the next day, Russia attacked Ukraine, and I burst out crying and crying. Next week I will write a post about violence and war. Today I will just share this excerpt from my post on New Year’s Day, 2022:
“In 2021, I reached a place of really embracing how seeming opposites can exist simultaneously. Like how I have no hope for the human species surviving, *and* yet, I have incredible hope for individuals changing, in terms of becoming more compassionate and thus caring about reducing the suffering of others — all others, including the humans and the non-human animals.”
That is how I am feeling about Peace today. I have no hope in “prayers for peace” as it does not seem like there will ever be world peace, *and* yet, I have incredible hope for individual humans becoming more peaceful within themselves and thus desiring to live more peacefully with all others — the human others and the non-human others.
✨🦆❤️🦆✨🦆❤️🦆✨
Ducks: Mabel Amber on Pixabay.
