Campaign Humane: Expanding the Circle of Compassion

by Miyun Park

The Animals' Agenda, Mar./Apr. 2002, Volume 22, Number 2, pages 42-45

Compassion Over Killing uses this poster to help publicize its campaign.

Picture this: You're attending a fundraiser for your local humane society The speakers behind the podium tell tales of horrific abuse they've witnessed and the ways in which the humane society helps alleviate the suffering of animals. They even bring on stage some of the rescued dogs and cats who have the humane society to thank for their lives.

As you smile wistfully at those wonderfully lucky companion animals and consider how much money you should donate, a server asks your dinner preference: prime rib or grilled chicken. Is it possible? Could there be some mistake? Any hope you'd had that these were the latest mock-meat products from White Wave or Now & Zen is extinguished when you see the blood dripping out of your neighbor's steak as he slices into it.

The Problem

The U.S. humane movement is made up of thousands of compassionate individuals, all of whom share a common outrage over animal abuse. In fact, the people who compose humane societies, animal shelters and sanctuaries, and rescue groups are so passionate about ending animal cruelty that they volunteer countless hours each year to make a different in the lives of animals.

Unfortunately, the humane community has traditionally ignored the plight of animals who are forced to experience the misery of factory farms and slaughterhouses. This is evidenced by the fact that many humane groups still use money that was donated to help animals to hold functions that directly contribute to—and perpetuate—massive animal cruelty.

Not only does serving the products of factory farms and slaughterhouses promote animal abuse, when it's done by the humane community, it sends the public a message that those entrusted to protect animals don't consider farmed animals worthy of protection, that farmed animals don't deserve ethical treatment or consideration. If animal advocates don't take issue with animal agribusiness why should anyone?

The Public Perception

Although many in the United States feel concern for the animals we consider to be family members, most people are either unaware of or turn a blind eye towards the suffering and systematic abuse of the animals considered to be food. In fact, where many of the cruelties suffered by farmed animals forced upon dogs or cats, the perpetrators would be vilified and charged with animal abuse.

Of course, dogs and cats are not he only animals who both suffer and feel pleasure. Just because most of us may relate more easily to dogs and cats than farmed animals, that doesn't mean the animals who are eaten or whom we aren't as familiar with don't feel pain just as dogs, cats, or even humans do. In fact, farmed animals have very acute pain sensors as well as individual personalities and preferences, just like dogs and cats. All animals, whether loved by humans or not, seek to avoid suffering and want to live more than anything.

Helping the public make the connection between the suffering of the animals we love and the suffering of the animals we eat is crucial to achieving anima liberation. And for better or worse, getting the humane community to make that same connection is vital to helping the public along the way, too, since the public regards humane societies as authorities on animal protection.

The Unbearable Facts

When the public thinks of animals on farms, scenes that typically come to mind include chickens strutting and pecking in the barnyard, pigs cooling themselves in mud baths, and calves nursing from their mothers in spacious green pastures. While the animal agribusiness industry desperately tries to preserve these images, unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

In the United States alone, nearly 10 billion animals (excluding aquatic animals) are slaughtered for human consumption every year—more than 1 million animals every hour. Most are kept on factory farms, where the goal is to raise the greatest number of animals in the least amount of time and space possible. As the agribusiness industry is almost entirely exempt from basic U.S. animal cruelty laws, it is legally allowed to exploit animals. Instead of being treated as the living, feeling beings they are, farmed animals are viewed as mere commodities whose sole purpose in life is to produce flesh, milk, or eggs for humans.

As if spending months or even years of intensive confinement on factory farms wasn't horrific enough with the animals forced to endure psychological torture and routine, abusive treatment, the physical torture of transport and slaughter compounds the egregious cruelties of animal agribusiness. Using electric prods, working cram farmed animals onto trucks so tightly as to prohibit even basic movements. After trips that con sometimes last days—without food, water, or protection from the elements—the frightened and confused animals are roughly unloaded and sent to their demise in a slaughter plant. Many animals are hung upside down and have their throats slit, often while still fully conscious.

Needless to say, this type of institutional violence and bloodshed creates incomprehensible misery and terror for the billions of animals unlucky enough to be born as cows, chickens, pigs, or other animals whose flesh our society enjoys.

A Modest Solution

With recent publicity focusing on the plight of farmed animals, we at Compassion Over Killing (COK) felt the timing was perfect to contact humane organizations about our desire to work with them in keeping the humane movement on the cutting edge of animal advocacy. Consequently, COK recently launched Campaign Humane.

COK's campaign—like similar efforts on the past—is intended to help the humane community adopt a more consistent ethic of compassion and respect for nonhuman animals. COK initially sent a Campaign Humane package to nearly 100 humane societies, rescue groups, and animal sanctuaries in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area. The letter explained the need for a dialog within the humane community regarding the horrors of factory farming, and asked the organizations to endorse Campaign Humane by pledging to serve only vegetarian meals at their functions.

While we weren't sure what type of response to expect, 14 of the groups we solicited officially endorsed Campaign Humane! By only serving vegetarian meals at their functions, these 14 groups are paving the way for a more compassionate and consistent humane movement in the country.

The 14 organizations include Alley Cat Allies, Alley Cat Rescue, Animal Allies, Companion Animal Rescue & Education, Friends of Rabbits, the Humane Society of Baltimore County, MetroPets Online, Mini-Pigs, The National Humane Education Society, Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary, The Shiloh Project, the SPCA of Northern Virginia, The Washington Humane Society, and Rescue Me, an Avian Sanctuary. (Click here to see the current list of Campaign Humane supporters.)

Although COK is currently limiting Campaign Humane only to the D.C. area, the importance of these 14 groups' pledges should be overlooked. Even though this is admittedly a modest start toward fixing a significant problem, we are finally seeing the connection being made among our colleagues in the humane community. More and more people are realizing that if they wouldn't support the torture and killing of dogs and cats to feed people, they shouldn't support the same treatment of pigs, chickens, and other animals either. They are extending their circle of compassion to include animals not fortunate enough to be considered "pets."

Back to the Scene

Now let's go back to that scene at the humane society fundraiser. It may not be that far in the future when humane societies wouldn't even consider serving products of animal exploitation. It isn't unreasonable to think that many humane societies will soon be serving delicious, cruelty-free meals in an effort to raise money for the protection of all animals. Indeed, many in the Washington, D.C., area already are.

Miyun Park is President of Compassion Over Killing.