It’s like a cattle holocaust. Those crusties have been smoking too much weed again.

This is udderly ridiculous!!…hehe

Extremists do extreme things

If it isn’t a drum workshop then it isn’t effective.

While I jest and think this is good news for the country. I have to admire the people out protesting in advocacy of their beliefs as well.

They are doing, so well done to them. I’m off to cook a steak.

I am a Vegetarian, though not an activist for animal rights. Does this make me a tree hugger?
I am vegetarian by choice as I don’t trust eating something that had a blood stream once upon a time. I also have sympathy for these animals. I was 13 in 1996 when the BSE scandal ripped through Ireland & The British isles, followed by Foot & Mouth 4 years later, and now the ‘horse-meat’ scandals that all these everyday pet owners see as a joke!
If people watched the programme on Channel 4 last night on Dispatches, they would actually think twice about eating their ‘tasty murder’
We have rogue gamers and traders working in abattoirs here you know!?!

If people want to have a ‘candlelit vigil’ then let them – We all need something to believe in, though not to be stereotyped!

Are these the same activists who released mink into the Irish ecosystem, an invasive species not native to Ireland that have a serious detrimental effect on our own native birds. Good one lads, now back into your holes in the ground and practice your facial hair growing.

@ Mark – interesting reading – I’ve no problem with the Circus and the Hunt club – the rest is a little severe

You’ve no problem with criminal damage?
And the description of the killing of animals as “murder”?

“An unattended jeep had it’s front tyre slashed, and the word ‘s_c_u m’ scratched deep into the paintwork on the bonnet.
These murderers have gotten away with what they’ve done for far too long – and this was just a token gesture to give them a taste of what’s to come.
Until all are free,”

@ Mark Dennehy – that link you posted is downright scary! Liberating mink, so they can die of starvation in the cold, unable to hunt? Vandalising people’s property and threatening to go to their home and do more of the same if they don’t stop? Come across as nasty bullies, hiding behind masks and trying to intimidate people. Thanks for sharing the link!

The mink didn’t die of starvation in the cold Catherine!
Mink are pretty unpleasant little things, being rather vicious and effective predators – they began decimating the local wildlife and every hunter in the area had to try to cull as many of them as was possible, but an enormous amount of damage was still done to local fish and animal populations. It’s always a disruptive idea to introduce a species to an established ecosystem, but this was a particularly bad example. Even today, they’re still cleaning up that mess…

@Mark WOW, thanks for that link, never realised how far these Animal Rights Extremists go to, I presume the Gardai are keeping a close eye on them.

I agree with the above sentiments and think that it shows compassion.
I think that if more people, who eat meat, were to express such feelings it would demonstrate a morally aware humanity. It is refreshing and encouraging to read these views. The commentator, unlike so many dismissive people, does not employ sarcasm to belittle those who are vegetarians/vegans.

Sheez……That Animal Liberation Front is pretty serious.

They’re animals duh

It says they’re young bulls. That pretty much rules out dairy.

Barry have you ever worked in this industry. I dont need to believe it I had to comply with it & it was a pain in the b#ll#x. Its the highest standard in the world.

John, Your confidence would be misplaced at least in relation to ~some~ holocaust survivors. As we see, some such survivors would not be upset by the comparison – and they would make it themselves.

I am not sure whether research has been done on this issue but it is certain that not ~all~ holocaust victims will have the view that you ascribe to them.

Perhaps when one has gone through something terrible oneself it is easier to sympathise with others going through something terrible?

So Dr. Yates, you are assuming that if a Holocaust Victim is also an Animal Rights Extremist they will draw a moral correlation between the killing of animals for food and genocide.

Therefore would I be mistaken that you would advocate life imprisonment for someone who kills an animal or if capital punishment were available, the death penalty for premeditated killing of animal?

John, I am clearly not assuming anything. I have reported on Jewish people who it is claimed make the holocaust comparison themselves – they are obviously not offended by it, or at least think there is some utility in it – they have been through hell and they can see and empathise when others are sent through hell too.

May I remind you of one who still has his concentration camp tattoo, saw his mother and a sister taken off to gas chambers, THEN was experimented on himself (along with another sister – his twin) by Dr. Mengele.

I doubt, however, that he would label himself as extremists – that is your rather impoverished view of them.

I would think he would see himself as someone who can empathise with others who are suffering and make a comparison beyond the species barrier.

Would I advocate imprisonment for the killers of other animals, and endorse the death penalty? My ideal would be to help bring about a societal culture in which all would empathise beyond the species barrier and, therefore, not want to kill another animal (unless in self defence of course).

I am not a great advocate of legislative moves as I believe cultural transformation through education is the key to bringing about a less violent society. However, as with humans who are violent to other humans, and who will not stop being violent to other humans, then something would have to be done.

I am not in favour of the death penalty.

A lot of slaughter houses slaughter to halal standards for export to the middle east.

Doesn’t halal require that the animal not see the knife, not be aware it’s about to be slaughtered, and to be killed quickly and as humanely as possible, with the major blood vessels in the neck cleanly severed in one quick cut? And aren’t the rules for Dhabihah almost exactly the same as for Shechita (the kosher equivalent)?

Yeah mark explain that to an animal suspended from a chain by its back leg beside other animals that have hurt been killed
Wake up

And weren’t there EEG-based studies done in Germany that showed the animals didn’t suffer pain, presumably because the sudden major blood loss and drop in carotid blood pressure starves the brain of oxygen rapidly enough to prevent suffering?

BTW – suspended by a chain surrounded by other animals? Doesn’t sound like you’re talking about dhabihah there. Wikipedia to the rescue….

Roger, you’re making rather defamatory statements there – that’s the professional reputation of Department of Agriculture personnel you’re making implications about, after all. It might be best to contact the Department for an official statement on the matter.

Mark. You would give credence to an official statement?

Roger, you’d give less credence to an official statement from the Department than to hearsay from a third party regarding the professional conduct of an inspector (who won’t, don’t forget, be some elected official, but a trained and qualified professional)?

Hi Mark – I wasn’t really comparing the two to be honest. The third party reference was in relation to Mr. Crabtree, not this. The account of the (British) government laboratory inspectors was first hand. One could say that someone now an opponent of an industry one once was part of might lead to hyperbole and lies – but that is the charge against all whistle-blowers, is it not?

btw – I have now been informed that Sean Crabtree was jailed in the 1980s – but it was unconnected with anything I was involved in.

It would seem Roger, that the link stems from Keith Mann’s book. Factual error from the head of the Animal Liberation Movement. How odd.

As an ethical vegan I do not view other animals as ‘my meat’ and I do not consume other animals or their products.

As has been pointed out, your statements about the causality or correlation of our evolution and our intake of food is far from incontrovertible; evidence is appearing, in increasing amounts, that our intake of carbohydrate is correlated with our development, and that we ate relatively few other animals.

It is far from difficult to eat a healthy vegan diet, or to get adequate protein from plants rather from the killing of other sentient animals. The world dietetics societies do not claim that a vegan diet is healthy at all stages of life from birth through to pregnancy and old age, for nothing. Neither do they state that a vegan diet helps avoid many health problems without empirical evidence to back up those claims (J Am Diet Assoc. 2003 Jun;103(6):748-65 J Am Diet Assoc. Volume 109, Issue 7, Pages 1266-1282 (July 2009)http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/2009_ADA_position_paper.pdf).

There is a plethora of evidence suggesting that the most successful paradigm within which to address climate change is a change to a vegan diet. You will find the relevant scientific data here: http://www.chompingclimatechange.org/read.html

You are greatly mistaken in your analysis of land use and food distribution and justice. Significantly less resources are used to produce plant based foods than animal foods. Significantly more people can be fed using a plant based diet than an omnivorous diet. A plant based diet causes significantly less damage to the planet.

There are vegan groups in almost every county in Ireland. I suggest that readers contact them to find out just how easy, healthy, and enjoyable a compassionate life can be. There is no need for Live Export. There is no need for our use of other sentient animals at all.

Hi Roger.
First off, the claims over consumption of animal protein are as controversial as the claims that birds are modern-day evolutionary descendants of dinosaurs, or that climate change is real. In other words, there are people who disagree, but the rest of the working world has to be getting on with and so figures that 99% consensus is enough.

Secondly, yes, if you instituted a massive shift in food production and consumption on a scale that hasn’t ever been seen in human history or prehistory – and I mean a bigger shift than the invention of agriculture ten thousand years ago or the industrialisation of food production in this century – then you could probably produce enough food to feed everyone in the developed world.

But if you’re not in the developed world, if you don’t have the option of ordering a soy milk latte instead of a cow milk latte, if instead of worrying about animal rights legislation you’re worrying about watching your family starve to death in front of you because you don’t have access to the wide range of seeds and crops you need to maintain health on a vegetarian diet (and I’m not even looking at vegan) — well, then you’re pretty much screwed. Switching an entire planet to vegetarianism, even as a thought experiment, is a pretty heinous example of depraved indifference to human suffering on a scale that dwarfs every war fought in our history put together.

Also, if we did switch over to that kind of food production, you’d drive up your climate change rate because of the extra amount of nitrates you’d need for fertiliser (sorry, but spreading manure from a pet cow is not going to cut it when you’re trying to produce food on the scale needed to feed seven billion humans). And the current climate change rate is pretty much guaranteeing problems for our kids; your proposal would exacerbate that problem. No thanks.

And this idea that we’d just stop breeding more cattle if we switched over to vegetarianism instead of immediately slaughtering all the herds, everywhere – billions of animals in one large, twitching, pile of dead flesh – is rather assuming we as humans can stop eating for the natural lifetime of those herds (btw, herds breed – are you volunteering to go put the condom on the bull every time it decides to breed?) which would be around 30 years given the natural lifespan of cattle.

You know what? I’m going to say no to your proposal, because I don’t think that a choice of either starving the entire human race into extinction or just starving a few billion of them because they were born in the wrong place and then slaughtering every ruminant on the planet in one single period of slaughter the likes of which history has never seen and which would probably poison the land you did it on for a few years with the amount of blood and other waste it would produce.

I really wish you extremist folks would learn a bit more about what you’re taking about…

we ate relatively few other animals.

Hi Mark,

You seem to like throwing this label “extremist” around a fair bit, as well as implying that those who disagree with you are a little, shall we say, dim.

Veganism stands for a less violent world, a more just world, and a world in which there is a lot less human-made suffering. It is a philosophy and not merely a diet, and it does call for a paradigm shift in both our thinking and our behaviour. There are some utopian elements to it, but that’s no bad thing. If that’s “extremism,” then I’ll happily wear the tag.

You suggest that we need to get our facts straight while presenting fanciful ideas that flout conventional knowledge. Veganism would not cause starvation – quite the reverse if humans have the imagination to devise political and economic systems that would distribute goods where it is needed.

Veganic agriculture would also require humans thinking outside of the box – there is certainly a need for the development of new technologies and production systems. Human existence on the planet may depend on it.
However, your dire predictions are way off the mark and I think many will think your apparent defence of human starvation “extreme.”

Human breed more than 50 billion land animals just to use as food every year. That is a massive population and a huge drain on resources. As the numbers of vegans grow, the demand to keep on reproducing this population of other animals will lessen – no-one expects an overnight revolution in this matter. Incremental change will be the key – not least in terms of moving away from the type of thoughts you seem rather locked in by,

Hi Roger,
I don’t use the term lightly. But people who’ll do things like this and then claim credit for them in public *should* be called extremists because that’s what they are:
http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/Actions-Ireland/BitebackReports2008.htm

These people aren’t out to promote animal welfare – they’re just vandals.

Is wikipedia right in saying you were their press officer by the way?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Yates

Mark Dennehy, a vegan diet is considerably cheaper than an omnivorous diet. It would greatly benefit the human and non-human populations of this world if those of us in the Western World who are causing the most suffering ceased causing this suffering by adopting a vegan diet.

Are you seriously suggesting that cows lack sentience?

This is in reply to Mark and others who are in agreement with him:

Please look at our FAQ leaflet on our Cork Vegans website which will help answer your questions about the feasibility and benefits of a vegan diet for animals, for people and for the planet: http://files.meetup.com/1783289/FAQ.pdf

There are other leaflets here also – the ‘Why Vegan’ leaflet: http://files.meetup.com/1783289/why-vegan.pdf

Vegan Recipes: http://files.meetup.com/1783289/why-vegan.pdf

Guide to Cruelty-free in Cork: http://files.meetup.com/1783289/cruelty-free-guide.pdf

More FAQ’s here: http://www.vegansociety.com/resources/tricky-questions.aspx

Bernie Wright sure mixes in nice company, her associate is a convicted fire bomber.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/%27I+tell+children+I%27ve+broken+law+but+did+nothing+morally+wrong+..I%27m…-a0219926546

Gosh, Dr. Rogers of UCD you’ve gone awfly quiet there, a bit embarrasing isn’t it

A delay in replying means only that one has a life beyond the web! There are 4 mistakes in the first paragraph of that report cited, that’s how poor this “journalist” is.

Hi Roger,
That’s a bit worrying that such a report is up there with so many mistakes. How many mistakes are there in your wikipedia entry, is it even worse?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Yates

Yes, a few mistakes there too. Not even sure if there is a Sean Crabtree, for example. One cannot write on one’s own wikientry, so it can be hard to get things corrected.

I was press contact for the ALFSG for 8 months. At that time (and probably now), the “organisation” had a non-violence policy, urging members not to do anything that could or world harm animals, human or nonhuman. There were no “fire bombs” involved in my time.

We are talking early to mid 1980s, so we should move on. The report suggests I am unrepentant – that is not true. I have made it clear in several places, including http://arzone.ning.com/profiles/blogs/transcript-of-roger-yates that there are things I would not do again. Such is life I think you’ll find.

Roger, nothing could be further from the truth, if wikipedia has false information about you on it, that’s legally actionable and you should email them immediately to let them know of the error.

Roger Yates you are another LIAR!!! I suppose “arson around with Auntie Alf” was just a figment of everyones imagination too.
That manual was used by a breakaway group Earth Liberation front to cause maximum damage to property in the USA.THAT RESTS ON YOU AND YOUR followers heads..
You were caught and convicted on evidence produced.Part of that was bomb making materials.
of course thats all lies tooo.You were fitted up went you???Like everyone in jail,everyone is innocent of their crimes arnt they??

No Rodger we should “not just move on” and Leopards dont change their spots.Given half the opportunity you would be proably shoving “animal abusers” into concentration camps if you could.You are a disgusting hyprocrite and coward.Even the Nazis had the conviction to stick with their belifs until the executioners trap dropped under them.Not forgetting that a Vegan led them as well.

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your concern. I should read that thing again, closely obviously! – not done so for several years. Someone with an agenda may have altered the entry after all. I have not seen that Sean Crabtree claim until today, for example.

That’s a bit surprising Roger, I mean there’s a report in [i]The Vegan[/i] from Autumn 1989 on page 23 which lists off Sean Crabtree, Ronnie Lee, Geoff Sheppard and Roger Yates as being “detained in Her Majesty’s prisons” : http://issuu.com/vegan_society/docs/the-vegan-autumn-1989

Thanks Mark – you must have a good search engine. I have just spoken to a third party involved in the Sheffield case and they cannot recall a Sean Crabtree either. If he was an “animal rights prisoner,” he had no connection to me it seems.

On the wider issues, it is worth remembering that some of the most controversial incidents may have been carried out, and claimed to the media, by people wishing to discredit animal activists. A famous case involved a hunter planting a nail bomb on his ~own~ landrover – he was jailed for that.

What a good idea, Mark Dennehy.

Cattle Rescue.

+1

On sentience, higher brain functions, such as abstract thought are known to be performed in the Cerebral Cortex, which envelops the primitive brain like an umbrella.
Only humans have a Cerebral Cortex.

I think we have found an issue which is going to separate those who want to exploit other animals and those who do not.

The “animal rights” usage of “sentient” is limited in relation to some definitions of sentience, especially those that almost use the term sentience and sapience interchangeably. However, the usage is not as restricted as you imply, Mark, and the “animal rights” usage is found in standard dictionary definitions.

Sometimes the term has been used to describe beings who can feel pain AND pleasure – and people like Richard Ryder have concentrated somewhat on the former – hence his concept of “painience.” (His latest work concentrates on speciesism, painism, and happiness). However, as Sandra Higgins stated, even animal welfare legislation suggests that other animals have a wide range of capacities and states associated with being sentient. For example, some welfare legislation allows that other animals can be made anxious, they can be traumatised, psychologically harmed (not just physically harmed), and they can be “terrorised.” Charles Darwin suggested a whole host of emotions in others animals – and the recently emerged scientific disciplines like cognitive ethology are backing him up.

Now that some humans are looking at other animals not solely in order to exploit and use them, we are finding that they are very complex and intelligent beings with lives that appear to matter to them very much.

On the brain – this is a difficult area on which to make any substantive claims based on the fact that we know relatively little about even the primate brain. While there are claims that other animals do not have Cerebral Cortex, there are also claims that it is the size of the Cerebral Cortex that is at issue, not that other animals lack it. Moreover, while the CC is associated with “higher functions” of the brain, some researchers suggest that other parts of the brain – those hitherto associated with “mere motor functions,” for example, have important cognitive functions too, lessening the importance of the CC as it were. Research is suggesting that impairment in some areas of the brain may be “compensated for” in other areas.

However, the bottom line is that there are ~thankfully~ few modern humans who now seem to believe that other animals cannot feel pain and pleasure and other emotions, or deny that they have a subjective awareness relevant to their own kind of being. Other animals can suffer physically and psychologically and that is what the notion of animal rights is built on.

I think we have found an issue which is going to separate those who want to exploit other animals and those who do not.

Something rattling you tree, Mark?

I know you feel the need to justify the eating of someone else tonight but the accusation of intellectual dishonesty is ridiculous. Using the ~second~ meaning of a phrase, what a crime! Is it not convention for people to specify their use of words? We often hear phrases such as, “as I conceive of it” and “in terms of how I have developed this notion,” etc, etc., especially in philosophical literature.

No-one has hidden this use of the term “sentient.” Your accusation is silly.

I appreciate that people routinely must otherise and “lessen” those they wish to exploit but come on now.

Roger, speaking as a scientist specialisisng in electrical impulses and conduction within the body, we know quite a lot about brain function and the location of specific responses to stimuli is a matter of objective scientific record. Everything else is subjective.

Good grief Roger, let’s leave the bedroom out of this, shall we?

And no, it is intellectually dishonest. The intellectually honest word to use is animate, not sentient, as it actively avoids misunderstanding instead of passively accepting the benefit of that misunderstanding.

Mapping Brain Structure to Experience:

Jarvis, E et al (2005) Avian brains and a new understanding of vertebrate brain evolution, Nature Reviews Neuroscience 6, 151-159
Abstract
We believe that names have a powerful influence on the experiments we do and the way in which we think. For this reason, and in the light of new evidence about the function and evolution of the vertebrate brain, an international consortium of neuroscientists has reconsidered the traditional, 100-year-old terminology that is used to describe the avian cerebrum. Our current understanding of the avian brain —in particular the neocortex-like cognitive functions of the avian pallium — requires a new terminology that better reflects these functions and the homologies between avian and mammalian brains.
Merker, B (2007) Consciousness without a cerebral cortex: a challenge for neuroscience and medicine. Journal of Behaviour and Brain Sciences, Feb;30(1):63-81; discussion 81-134.
Abstract
A broad range of evidence regarding the functional organization of the vertebrate brain – spanning from comparative neurology to experimental psychology and neurophysiology to clinical data – is reviewed for its bearing on conceptions of the neural organization of consciousness. A novel principle relating target selection, action selection, and motivation to one another, as a means to optimize integration for action in real time, is introduced. With its help, the principal macrosystems of the vertebrate brain can be seen to form a centralized functional design in which an upper brain stem system organized for conscious function performs a penultimate step in action control. This upper brain stem system retained a key role throughout the evolutionary process by which an expanding forebrain – culminating in the cerebral cortex of mammals – came to serve as a medium for the elaboration of conscious contents. This highly conserved upper brainstem system, which extends from the roof of the midbrain to the basal diencephalon, integrates the massively parallel and distributed information capacity of the cerebral hemispheres into the limited-capacity, sequential mode of operation required for coherent behavior. It maintains special connective relations with cortical territories implicated in attentional and conscious functions, but is not rendered nonfunctional in the absence of cortical input. This helps explain the purposive, goal-directed behavior exhibited by mammals after experimental decortication, as well as the evidence that children born without a cortex are conscious. Taken together these circumstances suggest that brainstem mechanisms are integral to the constitution of the conscious state, and that an adequate account of neural mechanisms of conscious function cannot be confined to the thalamocortical complex alone.

Sandra, Thank you for the 2 papers you quote, it is nice to see an appreciation for science.
However, I do not see the relevance of the first. The second merely states that you can’t have higher brain function without a brain stem, which would seem to make sense and is confining itself to the human animal.