Once again over the past seven day, the most read post has been, Why I’m No Longer Vegan. I have had mixed feedback about it, some understand why I wrote it, whilst others tell me that I shouldn’t have done it.
I wrote it because I wanted to convey to people that the ideal of veganism is bigger than all of us, and that we actually owe it those who are currently vegan, and to those who are thinking about it to no longer shy away from telling people that we are.
Following a close second to that article is this one titled, Is Bullying Alive And Well In Queensland?, where I have drawn a line in the sand, and encouraged others to do the same with regards to bullying and harassment within the vegan community. The longer that we remain silent about this, hoping that if we ignore it, it will go away, the more that it is going to happen, and the harder it will be to do something about when the time comes.
Now, on to other things:
The Greens were in the news once again this week submitting another pro animal bill to the Senate, in what can only be described as another pointless attempt to entice more animal advocates to vote for them at next years election.
This time it is a bill to end the importation of primates for research, I have written a few thoughts about it in the article titled, Another Pointless Bill.
The Kill Stats page has been updated with the latest information from the MLA and figures released by the ABS relating to pig and chicken numbers.
And here is the rest of the disturbing news from animal ag this week.
For the week ending 15 November 2012, 147,910 cattle and calves were killed around the country, along with 495,842 sheep and lambs, bringing the weekly total to 643,752.
Contents
Goats
Live Export
891 goats were exported during the month of September 2012.
Brunei – 645
Malaysia – 246
Cattle
Live Export
Rate for September, compared to last year were down 21% to 66,531 which brings the total exported this year to 506,305
Indonesia – 27,135
Turkey – 16,225
Russia – 10,981
China – 9,200
United States
Week ending 09 November 2012, 645,000 cattle killed.
Uraguay
Week ending 16 November 2012, 46,000 cattle killed.
Argentina
3rd quarter, increase of 4.6% on last year to 2.96 Million
Lamb
Live Export
Rate for September, compared to last year is down 53% to 130,660, bringing the total since January to 1.8 Million
Qatar – 65,000
Jordan – 51,600
Turkey – 14,500
Malaysia – 100
As I mentioned last week, whilst these figures may look depressing and hopeless, they should serve as a reminder as to why we cannot give up in our promotion of veganism.
Flying pig campaigns, baby steps, or happy meat approaches will not bring this number down.
Talking to people about, and getting them to go vegan is the only thing that will.
This article was written by the founder of VeganPolice.com.au, Cameron Blewett.
Cameron is a long term vegan (30+yrs), and is passionate about veganism, and helping people to understand more about it and giving other animals equal consideration.
You can find Cameron’s other rants on his website, CameronBlewett.blog
I would be interested to hear why others told me that I shouldn’t have done it, did it hit home a little too hard for them??
Hi Jessica,
Whilst they haven’t actually admitted it, I am guessing that you are right. The post did hit home, and was maybe a little too confronting for them.