31.03.2026
Mary Had a Little Lamb
In the run up to Easter, days lengthen and become brighter and warmer. Flowers begin to bloom and there is a general lightness in the air. There is little brightness, warmth and lightness for the animals we continue to exploit in ever increasing numbers. Whenever there is cause for humans to celebrate or take a break, our consumption of them increases.
Go Vegan World’s Spring campaign launches today, 31st March 2026 in an effort to help people consider the consequences of not being vegan for the animals we use.
Our ad, which has run many times in Ireland, the UK and on social media, was created in collaboration with Jo Frederiks. It depicts the innocent young lamb in the nursery rhyme Mary Had a Little Lamb, as she follows the person she trusts most in the world into the slaughterhouse where her throat will be cut and her life will be ended.
Other animals imprint on us and regard us as one of them, especially when they are bottle fed by us in place of their mothers. They implicitly trust us because every young animal needs to trust and stay close to their caregiver to survive.
We betray their trust, utterly, when we view them as food. Every time someone goes into a supermarket, butcher or restaurant, and orders lamb flesh, or into a shop and buys wool, they are paying for a trusting young animal, like Mrs Annie, to be slaughtered.
The term ‘spring lamb’ that is bandied about on television cookery shows, in supermarkets and restaurants, sounds innocuous to most people. But what could be more obnoxious than the true meaning of ‘spring lamb’: killing a baby of about three months old who wanted nothing more from life than to play with their friends, and stay close to their mothers. The ‘tenderness’ that producers of their flesh boast about is because they were so recently born and were still drinking their mothers’ milk just hours before they were slaughtered. Isn’t it strange that we use these symbols of life to celebrate our right to life, our enjoyment of our lives, by taking the lives of the most innocent, vulnerable, young animals we can think of.
The consequences of non-veganism, for other animals, are the stuff of nightmares. It is not easy to face our immoral actions but the only way to be fair to other animals is to stop using them and be vegan.
