Category: Sheep & Goats
243 Sheep Rescued From Sinking Ship
Three of the rescued sheep. Image courtesy of Four Paws International.
I have resisted posting about this week’s live export tragedy off the coast of Romania, in which more than 14,000 sheep drowned. But thanks to a collaboration between Romania’s ARCA (Animal Rescue and Care Association), Romanian government agencies and Four Paws International, we now know that 243 sheep have been rescued — and by rescued, I mean REALLY rescued: they will not be going to slaughter.
It’s hard to fathom what 14,000 of anything looks like, but I can tell you that those were 14,000 individuals, each with their own personality and preferences. I also know that they were confused and deeply frightened even before the ship began to sink, crammed into the cargo hold, unsteady on their feet, with no way to escape. Their terror as the ship began to tilt and take on water is unimaginable. The sad truth is that the way they died, by drowning, was likely better than the fate that would have awaited them when the ship docked.
Live export is a nightmare, regardless of species. Animals are crammed in the cargo hold of ships, it is dark, there is no room to move, they are standing in one another’s feces and urine, the air so thick with ammonia that it burns their eyes and it’s hard to breathe. As poor as slaughter regulations are in Europe and North America, many of these animals are going to countries where there are NO regulations and slaughter is beyond barbaric. And so few of us care, because it’s all money and the animals are not seen as anything beyond their monetary worth.
But 243 of them have been saved. My thanks to the humans who risked so much to save the lives of these beautiful sheep. They are someone.
Please help stop this.
I just posted something really difficult on These Glass Walls’ Facebook page. It’s a video of sheep-shearing, which most people consider to be quite harmless.
I struggled with posting it, in part because Facebook has a new background feature whereby posted video runs automatically without the need to click on it. I chose to post it anyway because I believe it’s so important for people to know about the brutal animal abuse behind wool. Yes, commercially raised sheep do need to be shorn because they’ve been bred that way — but no one needs to be shorn like this. The sheer brutality of it is breathtaking. The sheep are punched, kicked, dragged, stomped on, poked in the eyes, beaten in the head with a hammer, and more. All because they struggle when they’re shorn, which they find uncomfortable to begin with. I would imagine they struggle more when they see their flockmates — their family — being so violently abused.
What made it doubly difficult for me to see this is the fact that I just returned from three days at Farm Sanctuary, where the sheep barn is my favourite place to hang out and where I have come to know so many of these lovely animals as individuals. Sheep are such sweet, gentle, loving and kind creatures…they are protective of those weaker than they are and are highly intelligent with incredible memories, including great facial recollection, even among other sheep (or humans) they haven’t seen for years. The sheep in the undercover PETA video could be sheep I know; it could be Jeanne or Hershel or Joey or Freckles.
The video I’ve linked to here and posted on Facebook is very hard to watch, but I implore you to try — and then to reconsider how you feel about wool. It’s about as far from harmless as you can possibly get.
**Please note: if you click on the link, you will see a petition you can sign at the bottom of the page that asks Ralph Lauren & J. Crew, two leading sellers of wool in the USA, to drop wool in favour of animal-free alternatives.
A Double Birthday!
Ingrid & Marilyn. Photo: Farm Sanctuary
Today is a special day for two little goats at Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, New York. It’s their first birthday! It will be celebrated in freedom and with love — but that wasn’t the original plan for them.
Their mum and dad, Delilah and Patrick (you can read their amazing rescue story and see photos here), were rescued in a heartbreaking state of neglect. Patrick was going to be shot and it’s safe to assume Delilah would have been kept for milk — milk that would have been denied her twin babies, who likely would have been raised and bred so that they would produce milk as well.
Patrick and Delilah were not rescued from an industrial farm. They were being raised by an individual who could have easily marketed cheese from the girls’ milk as being “artisanal,” from pasture-raised goats on a small organic farm. When you read their story, you’ll see how little it matters what it says on the label of a dairy product.
As for their girls, Marilyn and Ingrid, today they — along with their mum and dad — are happy, carefree, healthy goats. They are intelligent, funny, curious and affectionate, and they love to climb and play. The girls have made good friends with “step-sister” Maxie, a goat who’s just a couple of months older than they are, and charming Nancy, a sweet eight-year-old goat whom they’ve accepted as part of their family.
Happy Birthday, girls — wishing you many, many more.
Kingdom Animalia 