A comment by Kelsey Neilson:<\/p>\n
Why we send the cattle we grow and love to slaughter?<\/p>\n
Everything that lives someday dies.<\/p>\n
Animals, plants, people.<\/p>\n
What we do as beef producers is care for our cattle whilst they are alive as they are grown for food and yes they will die.<\/p>\n
You know that your grandparents are going to die but that doesn\u2019t stop you from loving them does it?<\/p>\n
The same as a beautiful crop of sunflowers is grown and cut down for harvest,\u00a0 as a lion may prey on infant antelope. The crop, the lion and the antelope are all beautiful living things but life involves death, we cannot pretend that it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
We know that one day our cattle are going to die, even if they were not slaughtered for beef.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s how we manage that loss of life that is at issue.<\/p>\n
If the cattle were left to die \u201cnaturally\u201d in the paddock, that would often be a far worse death than being culled for slaughter where it should be quick and clean.<\/p>\n
As cattlemen and women, we are demanding that the killing of our cattle is done in the most humane way possible because of the love and respect we have for our animals.”<\/p>\n
Kelsey Neilson, Boulia<\/p>\n
I would also add – it is an absolute dream to believe that a human being will have no impact on the world’s animals by being a vegetarian or vegan or having any other very specific diet.\u00a0\u00a0Due to the disproportionate number of people living in urban areas, the only way for farmers to be able to produce enough food to feed everyone is via monocultures of imported plants.\u00a0\u00a0 Few Australian native animals are able to live amongst these imported crops or survive on them.\u00a0 Of the few that do, most multiply into such huge numbers that eviction or even culling \u00a0is necessary for the preservation of the crop.\u00a0 Cockatoos and corellas are prime examples of bird species that proliferate by feeding on grain crops, but the\u00a0vast majority of native birds, reptiles, mammals and other\u00a0species\u00a0can only survive in natural bushland (where\u00a0no food for human beings is being grown).\u00a0\u00a0 It’s either food and shelter for native animals or it’s food being grown for humans.\u00a0 There’s virtually no dual purpose land.<\/p>\n
It’s time for everyone to realise that just by existing, there is an impact on the natural world.\u00a0 Don’t kid yourself that because you recycle your wine bottles and broadsheet newspapers, walk to the organic farmer’s markets on the weekend, tick the ‘carbon offset’ box when you fly around the world, have a corflute sign in the front yard saying ‘vote green’\u00a0and don’t eat red meat, that you’re saving the planet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The best way to minimise\u00a0your impact on the planet (i.e. negative impact on native plants and animals and the environment generally) is by having a balanced diet of Australian-grown food where high environmental standards and animal welfare standards are enforced.\u00a0 And reduce consumption – by buying less consumer goods (from clothing to whitegoods), keeping your old car, television etc\u00a0rather than trading it in for a shiny new\u00a0replacement until absolutely necessary, recycling within your house (eg the classic example of using the backs of envelopes for notepads,\u00a0reusing packing material, and not renovating\/renewing what doesn’t need to be done), dressing for the climate\u00a0to reduce power squandered on heating and cooling (eg wear wool in winter), and ensuring as little as possible of\u00a0the food bought by your household is wasted.<\/p>\n
How many of the people who voted to ban live exports, eat seafood caught in dubious circumstances?\u00a0 Is it one rule for fish and one rule for cows?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A comment by Kelsey Neilson: Why we send the cattle we grow and love to slaughter? Everything that lives someday dies. Animals, plants, people. What we do as beef producers is care for our cattle whilst they are alive as they are grown for food and yes they will die. You know that your grandparents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,7,11],"tags":[158,160,176,179],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1504"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1506,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504\/revisions\/1506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}