Animal sanctuaries

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In the long term, the animals, what of them? What becomes of them? Do we retire all of them? Do we restrict their breeding to prevent their numbers expanding? It would certainly be costly even if there were a decline in meat eating and if animals were no longer being bred into existence.
At first I imagine the move to retire and protect those which still survive would be done in the spirit of atonement. We would need special funding, perhaps a special tax to pay for it all. But how would people respond to such a tax in these economically and ecologically straightened times? It’s hard enough to stir people into agreeing to a carbon tax, to help reduce global warming. An animal tax to save animals from exploitation would need a whole different attitude to our animal charges, who are presently treated with no consideration at all.
Attitudes will change as people no longer have an interest in the farming of animals or the provision of meat and dairy products and then our attention will be more trained on wanting to do something for them.
Perhaps it’s quite hard to imagine this new brand of human being, inspired by a new set of ethics, but perhaps with a solid trend of vegetarian eating, people will naturally come to hate exploitation. They’ll want to disassociate from their primitive forebears, and make a point of saving animals, in much the same way that we do today, with abused cats and dogs.
The setting up of safe houses, or rather animal sanctuaries, might not be such a money-burden after all. Imagine the savings made and all the other advantages of a meatless society. Apart from ending the killing, the advantages to our health would be dramatic. The turning of attitude would coincide with a strong wish for a more intelligent and peaceful world. As ‘refusniks’, who no longer eat meat, no longer ‘do’ war, we would be breaking through into an altered state of consciousness, the results of which we can hardly imagine in our present primitive state of mind. The idea of creating sanctuaries for farm animals may not be as far fetched as it seems.