We read it in the newspapers, we hear it on the radio
every day, every hour, that hundreds of thousands, nay, millions of
chickens, geese, ducks and turkeys are being pitilessly exterminated all
over the world. We see them on television running for life, desperately
flapping their wings, we hear their cries of terror as they are brutally
grasped by men in masks and overalls, piled on top of each other in
containers and either gassed or burned alive or thrown into pits and
buried alive. And we accept it.
There is no outcry, no protest, no scream of indignation.
Even the World Federation for the Protection of Animals (WFPA) is keeping
quiet. Nobody dares to accuse the administrations who are responsible for
this and raise their voices to say out loud that this is not a way to
treat sensitive, living beings, and that this is a crime and a heavy
collective guilt for which we unfailingly will have to pay.
The price may be the loss of our migratory birds, along
with the devastating and unimaginable consequences for the environment and
for our own survival. Migratory birds with their potential to spread avian
flue have suddenly become the mortal enemies of man. �Killerenten� �
killer ducks � is the name given by a popular Swiss newspaper to the
innocent wild ducks and geese that are flying into our lands at this time,
day after day, to pass the winter on our lakes. And in certain eastern
European countries we can already see hoards of humans roaming about
destroying birds nests in panic-stricken fear of some hypothetic virus. In
blind and furious determination they are demolishing and burning down
nesting areas and barricading all openings to cow sheds with netting and
meshing to stop swallows from building their nests under the roofs and
beams � a clear death sentence for that already heavily threatened species
of birds. What in heaven�s name has yet to happen before we recognize in
our unrestrained consumption of meat and our abject and highly dangerous
methods of factory farming the very source of our misery? How much more
hardship, suffering and catastrophes still need to occur before we
understand that the vile and stupid maxim of �mankind before all else� is
leading us to ruin?
Fondation Franz Weber
1820 Montreux
Switzerland
Go on to Pound
Seizure: Betrayal Beyond Belief
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