November is World Vegan Month. During that time, we are reminded of our obligation to other animals to respect them as fellow beings who share our capacity to feel and value life.
Like most forms of injustice and exploitation, our use of other animals continues because it is normalised. When something is normalised, we tend not to think about it too deeply so business as usual carries on. In the case of animal use, we mistakenly believe that using their lives and bodies is natural, necessary and normal when, in fact, we can live very well without using them at all. As a consequence of our belief, tens of billions of animals are killed every year to cater for our demand for eggs, dairy, fish, flesh, skin, and their use in labour, research, entertainment and education. Prior to their deaths which are brutal and inflicted when they are a mere fraction of their natural lifespans, they are completely under the control of those who profit from them. They are deprived of the freedom to move and act as they wish, their right to bodily integrity is violated repeatedly, and their bonds with each other are broken. Everything about animal use is unjust.
We often care for newly born animals on our sanctuary, Eden Farmed Animal Sanctuary. It never fails to astonish us how closely they bond with us in the absence of their own mothers. Those bonds are reciprocated and they last throughout their lifetimes. Mrs Annie, who features in this year’s World Vegan Month campaign, was one of the lambs who arrived at our sanctuary when she was still young enough to require bottle feeding. She has appeared in several other campaigns over the years.
Mrs Annie was stolen from her mother and kept in an apartment in Dublin with the intention of killing her for her flesh. Fortunately, she was spotted and rescued and came to us at Eden Farmed Animal Sanctuary Ireland where her name was changed from ‘Lamb Chops’ to Annie, later to be nicknamed Mrs Annie. Most people were appalled when they heard her history and attributed the terrible act of stealing her with the intention of killing her, to the nationality of the people who took her. The irony is that in their racist condemnation, they failed to recognise that there is no difference between the intentions of those who stole Mrs Annie, and the vast majority of non-vegans who wear wool and buy ‘lamb’ flesh at their local store. Every time we buy a non-vegan product, we pay someone to take an innocent animal from their mother so that they can be slaughtered to meet the demands we create for their lives and their bodies. This is true whether we use them as clothing, dairy or flesh or any other use.
Many farmers bottle feed orphaned lambs. Like Mrs Annie, those lambs form an emotional attachment to farmers in the absence of their own mothers. Like humans, they trust that their primary carers are safe and will consistently meet their needs. How great the betrayal of them when they are subsequently loaded onto a truck and sent to be slaughtered. How great our betrayal of every animal we exploit and kill, every animal we deprive of their right to liberty.
World Vegan Month is an opportunity to highlight information that contradicts the status quo that regards other animals as inferior beings or resources for us to use. It is everyone’s right to access that information and be fully informed about the consequences of the normalisation of animal use. It is everyone’s obligation to be vegan.
Our World Vegan Month 2026 campaign is on over 100 buses throughout Ireland. We hope it will prompt people to rethink our use of other animals and come to view them in a more accurate light as beings who matter. Because they matter, we need to live vegan.
