With heartbreaking new footage from a British dairy farm, today we’re shining a light on the cycle of cruelty that exists in every glass of milk.
Filmed by one of Animal Equality’s investigators, this short non-graphic video is a moving reminder of how the bond between mother and calf is cruelly and routinely broken on dairy farms.
Shortly after a cow gives birth, her baby is taken away from her. Usually, they’ll never see each other again. Much like humans, cows have strong maternal instincts. They will call out for their calf for days or even weeks after they’ve been separated.
The milk this cow produces for her calf will instead be taken from her to be sold. She’ll be forcibly impregnated every year, putting her and her calves through a cycle of cruelty that ends with their slaughter.
We know how much suffering takes place in the dairy industry, but so many people are still unaware. Please, share this video with your friends and on social media, and help us spread the word about the torment cows endure for every pint of their milk sold.
Don’t forget that we also have a ‘Serbian Animals Voice’ Facebook site, which has over 1,250 members and which is a real talk shop for Serbian animal welfare campaigners; many of whom run small shelters and who have rescued animals who are looking for forever homes.
Note that each post has a ‘translation’ option where you can translate into English if you are not proficient at other languages.
There are many animals needing help – see if there is anything you can do for them.
On the right side you can select a ‘Category’ to allow you further investigation into the situation for strays, and the work we have done in the past.
On the left side you can backtrack over many years of Archives to see the work we have done for EU stray animals in the past.
So, we hope that with SAV, SAV Facebook and now with WAV, we are gradually keeping the world informed about the global suffering of animals.
We are attempting to be their voice, to follow on from Ella in London who wrote this fantastic poem in 1910; yes 1910.
THE VOICE OF THE VOICELESS
I am the voice of the voiceless; Through me the dumb shall speak; Till the deaf world’s ear be made to hear The cry of the wordless weak. From street, from cage, and from kennel, From jungle and stall, the wail Of my tortured kin proclaims the sin Of the mighty against the frail.
I am a ray from the centre; And I will feed God’s spark, Till a great light glows in the night and shows The dark deeds done in the dark. And full on the thoughtless sleeper Shall flash its glaring flame, Till he wakens to see what crimes may be Cloaked under an honoured name.
The same Force formed the sparrow That fashioned man, the king; The God of the Whole gave a spark of soul To furred and to feathered thing. And I am my brother’s keeper, And I will fight his fight, And speak the word for beast and bird, Till the world shall set things right.
Let no voice cavil at Science– The strong torch-bearer of God; For brave are his deeds, though dying creeds, Must fall where his feet have trod. But he who would trample kindness And mercy into the dust– He has missed the trail, and his quest will fail: He is not the guide to trust.
For love is the true religion, And love is the law sublime; And all that is wrought, where love is not, Will die at the touch of time. And Science, the great revealer, Must flame his torch at the Source; And keep it bright with that holy light, Or his feet shall fail on the course.
Oh, never a brute in the forest, And never a snake in the fen, Or ravening bird, starvation stirred, Has hunted its prey like men. For hunger, and fear, and passion Alone drive beasts to slay, But wonderful man, the crown of the plan, Tortures, and kills, for play.
He goes well fed from his table; He kisses his child and wife; Then he haunts a wood, till he orphans a brood, Or robs a deer of its life. He aims at a speck in the azure; Winged love, that has flown at a call; It reels down to die, and he lets it lie; His pleasure was seeing it fall.
And one there was, weary of laurels, Of burdens and troubles of State; So the jungle he sought, with the beautiful thought Of shooting a she lion’s mate. And one came down from the pulpit, In the pride of a duty done, And his cloth sufficed, as his emblem of Christ, While murder smoked out of his gun.
One strays from the haunts of fashion With an indolent, unused brain; But his sluggish heart feels a sudden start In the purpose of giving pain. And the fluttering flock of pigeons, As they rise on eager wings, From prison to death, bring a catch in his breath: Oh, the rapture of killing things!
Now, this is the race as we find it, Where love, in the creed, spells hate; And where bird and beast meet a foe in the priest And in rulers of fashion and State. But up to the Kingdom of Thinkers Has risen the cry of our kin; And the weapons of thought are burnished and brought To clash with the bludgeons of sin.
Far Christ, of a million churches, Come near to the earth again; Be more than a Name; be a living Flame; ‘Make Good’ in the hearts of men. Shine full on the path of Science, And show it the heights above, Where vast truths lie for the searching eye That shall follow the torch of love.
Poems of experience.By Ella Wheeler Wilcox. London : Gay and Hancock, Ltd. 1910.
“Over 150 million animals are killed for food around the world every day—just on land. That comes out to 56 billion land animals killed per year. Including wild-caught and farmed fish, we get a total closer to 3 billion animals killed.” (Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals)
There is no other cause or struggle that comes even close in numbers.
Most victims of the Animal Holocaust do not even have legal means to be defended in courts around the globe. Their voices are not acknowledged. This is the only cause in which the victims are not even recognized as victims by the majority of the human population.
How can we trivialize the magnitude of the massacre and abuse that thousands of millions of non-human animals are subjected to every week by somehow equating any other tragedy with theirs?
Just trying to include any other cause in the spaces dedicated to animal rights is an anthropocentric gesture—one which only shows selfishness and a false sense of human supremacy.
Attempts to overshadow the animal rights struggle, to not let it exist on its own, and to hide the scale of non-human annihilation at a single species’ hands are just reflections of the internalized speciesism in our society.
The need to create a movement with a unique and specific cause focused on defending the rights of voiceless victims—victims who cannot make use of the human language or legally defend their own lives—originated from that void among justice movements. The goal was to have a movement specifically dedicated to shedding light on the most ignored victims, the most oppressed on the planet, and the most numerous above all: non-human animals.
“I want to make it clear: All around us there is a system of degradation, cruelty and killing that can compete with anything the Third Reich was capable of; indeed it can overshadow it, because our system knows no end, it regenerats itself, incessantly giving birth to rabbits, rats, poultry, livestock, just to kill them.”