Sanctuary

If the next logical step is to provide animals with sanctuary, this would be a departure from reality in most people’s eyes. It’s an entry into the world of idealism – the move away from animal foods, the closure of animal farms and the building of sanctuaries for farm animals. This might be an ambitious plane but it wouldn’t happen overnight. It would happen gradually with a drop in meat sales, a consequent reduction in breeding, a retirement plan for ‘working’ animals, leading towards an ultimate human/animal relationship based upon non-violent coexistence. The ‘realists’ would consider this goal both unattainable and impracticable, and not even open to serious consideration. But the idea must be considered, since veganism is growing rapidly and ‘farm sanctuaries’ are already being set up. Some in USA have been in operation for two decades.
The idea of granting sanctuary to captive animals would be unpopular because it would be costly but also, with collapsing animal industries due to people swapping over to non-animal eating, something disturbing to the whole economy. For most people the idea is a non starter and wouldn’t even be considered seriously. But what if we don’t consider it?
We might continue to support the animal industry with our dollars, voting in leaders who will maintain the legality of animal farming. But as individuals, if we follow what everyone else does and follow our leaders, we’ll be caught up in all sorts of polluting and wasteful activities, the result of which is the destruction of everything we hold dear. By maintaining the status quo we guarantee some level of personal comfort but we hand on big problems down the line, to others, to future generations and of course to the exploited animals themselves.
So to turn this around, to think about the future, to think how we can make things right for the animals and for ourselves, we surely have to consider what it would mean to establish animal sanctuaries. They would be expensive to set up because there are still so many animals alive who need taking care of, but as the ‘domestic’ animal population decreases by operating a deliberate non-breeding programme, so the expense will become lower with the reduction in numbers of animals. Sanctuaries may be the only way to provide safety for animals, but it presupposes a great input of altruistic energy.
Those who are not going to be altruistic about this will continue in the same old way, with things getting ever more seriously out of hand, with consumers becoming more exploited themselves and the meat/animal-product industry becoming ever more desperate in their struggle to stay in business. Advertising in the form of misinformation will tell us to “Eat more meat because it’s good for you” and when people realise it’s all lies the industries should in theory collapse more quickly. At present they are holding their own, simply by ever increasing the range of products using animal products, to tempt us with new taste sensations along with false promises of the benefits to our health or the safety of their products. Never is there a mention of the ‘exploitation of animals’. The customer spends blindly without it ever occurring to them what they are participating in - leading the animal to their terrible deaths at the abattoir. Their conscience is soothed by the collective conscience which okays the killing, so all is justified. We believe that the human is more important than the animal and deserves the perks of being the superior species.
Those who choose to become more altruistic will adopt a non-speciesist attitude to animals, moving their support from farming to sanctuary and from killing to caring.