Last weekend, I stood in the main shopping street in Edinburgh
alongside some of the most passionate people I’ve ever met for my first
Earthlings Experience.
If you haven’t heard of the Earthlings Experience, then chances
are you may have already seen us. We’re the people standing in the street,
often in a circle, with white masks on. We don’t shout or preach about
veganism, we just show you footage of animals suffering in slaughterhouses,
farms and hatcheries. The footage we use is happening to animals every single
day in the UK. I wish I could tell you that these were isolated cases, but the
truth is that it’s happening to animals right now as you read this article
My road to veganism began two and a half year ago. I made the
decision to stop eating meat when I was around 12 years old, but I had never
really given much thought to the egg and dairy industries. I have never drunk
cow’s milk or ever understood why people did, and I never really bought or
liked eggs either. That’s not to say that I didn’t buy into these industries
through other products like cakes and ice cream though. I just never really
made the connection that animals in these industries suffer just as much as
ones who are killed for their meat.
Once I started to do my research, I couldn’t quite believe what
was deemed as normal practise in these industries. Did you know that virtually
all male dairy calves are stolen from their mothers within hours of being born?
Since only female cows can produce milk, most of the male calves are
slaughtered for that veal you tuck into in a fancy restaurant. The female
calves might get to live, but they’re not treated as anything other than a milk
producing machine. They’re forcefully impregnated which leads to them producing
much more milk than they naturally would. This unnatural process leads to lots
of dairy cows developing infections and diseases, as well as being kept inside
rather than being able to roam around in fields outside.
The egg industry isn’t much better with millions of newborn male
chicks killed every year. While the female chicks aren’t, millions are turned
into egg producing machines kept in cramp conditions in dark cages. It’s a fate
that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy, yet it seems the majority of people
in the UK are quite happy to sit back and let it happen.
Animal activism is something I’ve never really been involved in
before. I would happily explain why I was vegan if someone asked me, but I
didn’t go out of my way to shout about it. However there comes a point when you
realise than not eating meat or wearing animal products is just not enough, and
you have to do what you can to raise awareness about how much animals suffer
for food and products that we don’t actually need.
I wasn’t really sure what reaction we’d get from people or if
they’d even stop, but people came over as soon as we set up. People seemed
really curious as to what footage we were showing with some watching for a minute
and others for twenty. We saw some parents usher their children away from us,
and others let their kids watch for themselves. I saw people with tears in
their eyes after watching for only a few seconds and some with their mouths
wide open in disbelief at what they were looking at. Of course, there were also
a few people who muttered things as they walked past, and one lovely gentleman
who stuck his fingers up at some of us.
We might not have turned everyone who stopped into a vegan
overnight, but we did something right if people walked away thinking about how
much cruelty and suffering went into the steak dinner they sat down to the
night before.
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