the recipe for greed
INGREDIENTS:
VEAL CRATES
SHEEP TRADE
LIVESTOCK MARKETS
FACTORY FARMING
LIVE EXPORTS
2.5 million animals sent each year
recipe for greed
Prior to the BSE scare and Europe's ban on British beef, hundreds
of thousands of baby calves were sent every year on marathon journeys for
Continental veal production - a practice condemned by the majority of people
in this country as barbaric and unacceptable. Sheep still suffer as a result
of a cross-Europe trade that puts a premium on baby lamb meat. They
are taken to transported to have their throats cut with no stunning
for the ritual slaughter demanded by certain religions, and others are
transported far further afield to abbatoirs in Spain and Greece, where
there are no welfare regulations and the methods of slaughter include screwdrivers
being driven into the brains of live conscious sheep.
The meagre regulations that do exist to limit journey times and
to ensure proper feeding and watering are routinely ignored.
the calf trade
The live export of calves for the veal trade has been temporarily banned
because of Europe's ban on British beef due to the BSE crisis. Veal
calves are a waste by-product of the dairy industry. A cow, like like any
other mammal, cannot give milk unless she has offspring. Her life a constant
round of pregnancies with her young wrenched from her when they are just
a day or two old. Within a couple of weeks, the youngsters previoiusly
destined for the crate style veal trade are taken to livestock markets
where they are bartered like cheap jewellery before being transported to
other UK farms to be used for the beef or dairy industry, a fate slightly
more tolerable than the cruel European veal crate trade. We hope
that by the time the UK beef ban is lifted, the new EC rulings
on the ban of veal crates will have come into force.
the sheep trade
Every year up to two million baby and adult sheep are exported to foreign
buyers, mostly in Europe. Increasingly, these animals are subjected to
the heavy burdens of intensive farming. Fattened on an unnatural high-protein
diet they are forced to produce more lambs - twin births are common, triplets
becoming more so - in punishing winter weather. Disease and lameness are
rampant. The trade's own statistics show that between 10 an 15 per cent
of sheep die before they can be slaughtered.
The same greed which drives the trade in live exports also keeps
hundreds of millions of other animals incarcerated in factory farms.
join our campaign
Join us in our campaign to expose the harsh realities of the livestock
industry. Learn about healthy, cruelty-free alternatives to animal products.
Find out how a change in your own lifestyle can help end animal cruelty.
ANIMAL AID The Old Chapel,
Bradford Street, Tonbridge, Kent TN9 1AW
Tel: 01732 364546
HTML by Ben Leamy
(leamy@envirolink.org)