A new year has arrived, and with it our usual wishes and wishful thinking. Many people nurture high expectations when a new year arrives, and that is good as a motivational asset. However, that often boils down to nothing or even leads to disappointment when the new year reveals itself as more of the old stuff.
It is widely believed that the first humanoids were mostly collectors who survived on a plant based diet. Then they evolved the art of hunting and started eating increasingly larger amounts of meat. While this is not a consensual theory, it is possibly undisputed that our ancestors lived much closer to nature than modern humans. And this should b true to possibly all civilizations in known human history. They respected the natural landscapes, the natural cycles of the sun and the moon, the water streams and cycles, and life in general.
Most animal lovers give the best food that they can find for their companion animals. That is understandable because of the love that they share with their companions. They do not think about the number of animal lives that it takes to feed the pets for their entire life, if fed animal-based food. As far as the best food that we can find, here is something that most people do not know. Did you know that cheap so called pet food is really bad? Commercial dog and cat food is usually made with the wasted animal parts cut from animals that were sold for human consumption. That food is often poorly balanced with too much fat and not enough vitamins and other important nutrients.
Some people do not understand why a person in one country would help animals in another country. It is simple: Animals do not see borders.
They can easily go from Spain to Portugal or vice versa and they have no idea that they crossed the border. In the USA animals can go from Mexico into the USA and again they have no idea that they crossed the border. Animals just see more land with maybe a fence or a river.
The Internet, as a resource for information, has exploded. Millions of people, every day, turn to online services for information, conversation, and entertainment.
Some of the greatest Animal rights activists used to be hunters. Then they woke up. Some of the most powerful members of our movement used to work in the meat industry. Most of us used to eat meat. We changed our ways because we saw the light, not because someone insulted us. This must be top of mind as we write letters. If we insult and alienate someone who may have eventually, even years down the line, become a supporter, then we are venting our anger at the expense of the animals.
Perhaps like many of you, I have a deep regard for animals and a desire to give something back for all the joy they bring me. This led to becoming a volunteer at the Pat Brody Shelter for Cats in Lunenberg, Massachusetts. Volunteering at the shelter is highly rewarding, and has shown me how gentle and loving these - down on their luck - animals can be. These beautiful cats can be seen at http://www.catsontheweb.org
It is hard to give the exact number of animals that are killed throughout the world each year but it is estimated that it is about 45 billion. That means about 5,137,000 animals are killed every hour throughout the world. It takes slightly over one hour to equal the numbers of innocent Jews that were killed in the Jewish Holocaust. Would you believe that there has been about 2,600,000,000,000 animals killed in the world since the end of WWII? The 2.6 trillion animals killed for food and experimentation since WWII is an educated guess. That is a little less then a half million times as many Jews that were killed in the Jewish Holocaust. The word "holocaust" can apply to both the animal holocaust and the Jewish Holocaust and does not take away from the Jewish Holocaust. The comparison is valid since both get rounded up and placed into cages (concentration camps). They both are tortured and sometimes starved in the case of laying hens. They are both eventually slaughtered.
