We advocate on all animal protection and exploitation issues, including experimentation, factory farming, rodeos, breeders and traveling animal acts.
FROM
On Their Own Terms: Animal Liberation for the 21st Century
2016
Excerpted from On Their Own Terms: Animal Liberation for the 21st Century, Lee Hall and Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, available for purchase on GoodReads.com
Our use of aquatic animals is taken for granted and has repeatedly led to
collapses of bio-communities.
Vegan leaflets need to get really serious about this. Especially as many
self-identified vegetarians still see nothing deal-breakingly wrong with
eating sea animals.
Because shoppers believe the humane and sustainable seafood myths, a
leaflet's readers need to rethink the industry that takes living beings out
of their waters and packages them as groceries, and the charity-industrial
complex that keeps these animals moving from their habitat to dinner tables
worldwide.
Nothing has presented more confusion than “sustainable seafood” marketing
concepts
And these promotions keep spreading.
WWF (formerly the World Wildlife Fund) tells us we need to buy sea animals
to save them, and advertises approved fishmongers on a website for shoppers.
Greenpeace gives people an interactive shopping list for buying sea animals
at the customers' preferred chain of grocery stores.
Aquaculture is projected to double by the middle of the century, so fish
are, for all practical purposes, factory-farmed. Often displayed as
sustainable, tilapia are fed corn and soy—the same stuff moving through the
global chicken feed market. The beings then defecate, in mass quantities,
directly into the waters.
Divestment needs to happen
We need to get out of the oceans, and the vegan principle will see to this.
The large “green” non-profits could facilitate an opting-out in affluent
societies in which they have the most influence. What they’ve produced so
far is a good bit of malarkey.
And worse.
Before the pressure to adopt standards like those of WWF’s Aquaculture
Stewardship Council, Vietnam’s catfish farmers used home-made feeds that
included farm by-products. But now, they import huge amounts of soy meal, to
pass European and U.S. retail food safety regulations.
“Wild-caught” is no moral bargain
“Certified sustainable” swordfish might come from long-line boats that snag
sharks and endangered turtles. Add in the bogus claims from exploitive
corporations with human rights violations in their supply chain. Their
so-called "Sea to Table" marketing lies have fooled celebrity chefs and
university policy wonks alike.
Collectively, U.S. residents eat more than 100 billion fish and shellfish
each year. Opt out, and we can individually spare more than 225 fish each
year—the number is so high because fish farming uses large number of fish to
feed to other fish—and more than 150 shrimp and other shellfish each year.
Encourage respect for the natural lives of the beings who inhabit seas,
lakes and rivers. Their life experiences and evolution belong to them.
Return to: Articles and Media Coverage
Read more at: Go Vegan Campaign
WESTCHESTER4GEESE is an adjunct of ANIMAL DEFENDERS OF WESTCHESTER. We advocate against all forms of animal abuse and exploitation, including hunting, experimentation, fur, circuses and rodeos - https://www.facebook.com/Westchester4Geese