Recently a horrible video was going around, sent originally by PETA, of an angora rabbit screaming while its fur was being pulled out by the handful by a worker in a Chinese production facility. I'm not that squeamish but I couldn't watch it through. It turns out that the angora that you see in some garments is not, as I thought, shorn from angora goats, but from rabbits who are generally plucked every few months for several years before being killed and skinned. After the torture, they are tossed into their small cages to recover. Sometimes they are shorn, by cruel and clumsy workers from the look of the pictures, but apparently the plucking method results in better quality fur.
I'm not a big fan of PETA and some of the more extreme activism which it advocates, but this left me in shock. We have seen so much evidence in recent years of cruel and careless handling of animals destined for slaughter, whether sheep in live exports, or cattle in Indonesian abattoirs. I'm also not a fan of the anti-shechita brigade, not because I relish the death of an animal for my plate, but because anti-shechita is usually tied up more with an anti-Semitic agenda than true concern about ethical handling of animals. There is no doubt that shechita, while in theory being a humane way to slaughter animals, is in reality often not done in a careful, mindful way. The shochet may be trained to have clean and fast technique and a holy mental outlook, but meanwhile the poor beast is hoisted and chained and flipped upside down; the coup de grace might be quick and painless, but the preparations are usually not. Ditto the handling of chickens.
Seeing the mass handling of meat poultry is also appalling. The first time I saw a kosher shechita line, in Israel at Mifalei HaEmek where the local kibbutzim send their poultry for processing, I was affected enough to become vegetarian for a few years; but I've seen a lot worse since then. (I even had a thing about fish for a while because, while working in the kibbutz kitchen, I had to cut the heads off fish that had been freshly netted out of the ponds; when I severed the spinal cord, the fish jerked in my hand. Very off-putting to an 18 year old, even if I was a medical student at the time.) And the non kosher lines are even worse because despite the stunning that is supposed to render the bird or beast insensate, it doesn't always work; and then the bird is plunged into boiling water so that the feathers are easy to remove.
But, despite all of the above, the rabbit thing was far worse to see. The animal screams and screams, then goes into shock. Then has to endure this time and time again. And for what? A fluffy sweater. At least the poor cows and sheep and chickens only have to go through it once. (Caged chickens might not have the best lives, but nobody is ripping out their feathers while they are alive. But wait! They do that to ducks and geese for their down, it turns out.) I can almost condone poor animal handling for food, but for fancy clothing, not so much.
I confess to be conflicted re meat-eating and I find myself eating less meat than I used to, choosing fish instead, because I have tried vegetarianism and I just feel like crap and tend to get bloated on the legumes. But I enjoy meat. Especially the offal. Which I guess means that I feel better not wasting the non-muscle part of the animal. I also take great pains not to waste meat; it's bad enough to kill the creature for our nourishment and pleasure, but then to throw it away?
But what goes through the mind of the worker, usually in China as that's where these industries are based, as he straddles the screaming rabbit and tears out its fur, or the struggling goose as he rips the down off its breast? Or the worker that stuffs the corn mush down the funnel forced down the neck of the goose, so that we can eat foie gras? Just another day, another dollar.
One of the 7 Noahide Laws relates to avoiding cruelty to animals. Jewish law also says not to take 'Ever min haChai', a limb from a living animal. And this is why. We have to be TOLD not to do it. If we don't get told we just do it without a thought. What an indictment of humanity.
There's no end to this and there's no clean and easy answer. We can't all be canvas-shoe-wearing vegans, and vegetarian self-righteousness is just so irksome to me. All I know is I'm not buying anything with angora in it. I can still hear the screaming.
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