It is easy for ‘animal cruelty’ cases to make headlines and gain sympathy from members of the public who subsequently feel good about themselves, regarding themselves as ‘animal lovers’.

This is the case with today’s newspaper headlines which were the subject of discussion on The Morning Show, East Coast FM with host Declan Meehan who invited Sandra Higgins, Director of Go Vegan World and Eden Farmed Animal Sanctuary, to contribute to the discussion of the increasing numbers of animals dying at Belfast Zoo and the capture of a cat in Monaghan.

Human use of other animals is always for the benefit of one species (humans) and detrimental to the rights of other species. Furthermore, all human use of other animals is for trite reasons of taste, tradition, entertainment or convenience.

Why Vegans Do Not Use Other Animals for Entertainment

Most people think that a visit to the zoo is a harmless activity. In fact, many people believe that the reason they visit a zoo is because they ‘love animals’ or want to ‘educate’ their children. Animals living in zoos are living in captivity, in conditions that are detrimental to their wellbeing and completely unnatural to their species, for two purposes: human entertainment and the profit of zoo owners. It is a myth that the goal of zoos is conservation of endangered species and public education. How can anyone be educated about free-living animals by observing them in such exploitative and unnatural conditions? No one needs to encroach on the personal space of other animals to learn about them. If the goal of zoos was conservation, then most of the animals in zoos would be members of endangered species. That is not the case. Furthermore, if the goal is conservation of the species, then they would be released back into the wild so they could live naturally as free living animals. The fact is that most of the animals exploited by zoos are not endangered and most of them are bred in captivity. The main goal of zoos is human entertainment for profit on the backs of exploited animals. Little surprise that they suffer and die as they are doing in Belfast zoos.

The solution to the problem of endangered free-living animals and species extinction lies in exploring the root cause, not in improving welfare standards for animals being bred into captivity for human entertainment and profit. Human encroachment on the habitats of free-living animals is caused by converting land for agriculture causing deforestation and the usurpation of habitats for human activities. The human demand for animal products means that half the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture, with three quarters of that land used for animal agriculture. This is the most significant driver of biodiversity loss and reduces free living mammal biomass (the total weight of all animals of a given species) by 85% (https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture). If we stopped using other animals for food, clothing and byproducts, we would vastly reduce the amount of land and other resources required to meet our needs, and restore biodiversity, ensuring that the habitat and needs of free-living animals could meet their needs.

The Case Against Using Other Animals as Companions

The second heading getting media attention now is that of a cat who was trapped in a bag for encroaching on a couple’s garden and left close to a lake for three days before being found. Trapping unwanted cats and kittens in bags and drowning them is a method used by people to control the population of cats caused by failure to neuter. Companion cats and dogs are often sourced by breeders who exploit them in a horrendous manner. Abandoned or neglected companion animals face severe deprivation and the shelters that rescue them are usually at full capacity. Vegans do not use other animals as companions and do not regard it as our right to ‘domesticate’ or own other animals. Many vegans are guardians of rescued animals, but this is quite different to buying an animal and supporting breeders.

On the topic of this particular case we would like to state that while Go Vegan World is an animal rights organisation, and we are appalled at the events that led to the couple in question being imprisoned on the grounds of animal cruelty, we are against the use of prisons for human problems.

As outlined in conversation with Declan Meehan, most people are moved by the story of the cat and how they must have suffered, and by the increasing number of deaths of animals held in captivity at Belfast Zoo. The reason they are appalled is because they know that the individual animals are sentient beings who can feel, who value their lives, and who suffered and died. The problem other animals face is not discrete cases of ‘animal cruelty’; the answer is not improvements in ‘animal welfare’. The problem is speciesism: the idea that humans are superior to other animals and have the right to use them for entertainment, companionship and profit, because they are not human. The solution is to respect the sentience and rights of other animals. We cannot respect other animals if we are not vegan.

A tiny fraction of the animals used by humans every year are used in zoos, aquariums, and as companion animals. Most of the animals we exploit and kill are farmed to be used as food. Between 80 and 100 billion land animals are slaughtered for food every year. When we included farmed fish, the number of animals we slaughter for food every year amounts to over one trillion (https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-animals-are-factory-farmed). By way of example, it is estimated that a few million birds and mammals are used in captivity by zoos. That accounts for less than 1% of human use of other animals. While it is difficult to estimate the number of animals in existence who are kept as companion animals or have been born because of human use of other animals for companionships, it pales in comparison to the numbers we farm for food.

Every individual farmed animal faces death by electrocution, gassing, or having their throat cut. These violent methods are just as bad as the deaths of animals in zoos or the suffering of the cat trapped in Monaghan. Taking someone’s life away is unconscionable whatever the reason. Killing other animals for human use whether in a slaughterhouse, a zoo or an individual act of animal cruelty, is a violation of the rights of someone who shared our human capacity to feel and our human right to life.

It is useful to highlight cases of crimes against other animals but the greatest crime of all is caused by non-vegan humans whose everyday lives cause the misery and death of countless animals whose stories are never highlighted in the media. Veganism is the solution, not only to individual cases of cruelty and neglect, but to the problems that all animals face at our human hands: being bred, harmed and killed despite the fact that humans do not need to use the lives or bodies of other animals for food, clothing, entertainment, education, labour or research. Being vegan means rejecting the speciesist notion that members of one species have rights over members of other species simply because they are not human.