CRUELTY INVOLVED IN CATTLE TRANSPORT AND SLAUGHTER HINDUS MUST JOIN TO SAVE THEM

 CRUELTY INVOLVED IN CATTLE TRANSPORT AND SLAUGHTER

In general, animal agriculture, which involves the rearing and maintenance of large numbers of animals, leads to environmental degradation.  Mechanised means of cramped and cruel housing, as well as mechanised mass slaughter, severely damages the earth and its resources.

In India, in particular, cattle are walked unconscionable distances without food or water, in all kinds of weather, to slaughterhouses; if they collapse along the way, they are further maltreated and tortured in the most brutal manner, such as having chilli powder rubbed into their eyes to make them get up, and so on. 

Their tails are broken, segment by segment, to force them to move out of sheer pain.  If they are transported by lorry, they are packed close to one another without any room to move at all.  Their necks are jerked tightly upward and tethered to the roof of the lorry at a painful angle.  The weak amongst them are trampled by those able to stand up. Calves and sick cows are often crushed to death or gored by the horns of other animals.

When the survivors arrive at the slaughterhouses confused, exhausted, terrified and in dreadful pain, they are killed in full view of one another. More often than not, because of time constraints, cattle which have had their throats slit are skinned alive in most Indian slaughterhouses, where the practice of stunning is either not used at all or else is used incorrectly so that the poor animal remains conscious and live during the entire process of slaughter and skinning.

Beef production further depletes the earth's precious and dwindling aquifers, leads to topsoil erosion and the systematic destruction of the earth's vitally important rainforests.  In order to produce just one pound of beef, it takes approximately 2500 gallons of water.  To produce just one hamburger, animals are raised on rainforest land.

Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the U.N. Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, has declared that people around the globe must reduce or give up eating meat in order to combat climate change.  Thus, educated and responsible persons holding high office have pointed out an unmistakable connection between climate change and the consumption of meat.  Thus, there can be little doubt among right-thinking persons that beef production contributes directly to the depletion of the planet’s aquifers at a time when water shortage is already a major global problem. Meat production progressively results in the desertification of our planet. It is equally clear that beef-eating contributes to disease and hastens a person’s death.