Memorial Day BBQ: No Picnic for Pigs
This weekend being the mother of all BBQ weekends, I seriously pondered the plight of pigs. This is not a good thing, the pig plight - it's the story of horrible abuse. When I think of the lifetime of abuse pigs suffer to land on our plates (or rather your plates - I've been a non-meat eater since the 70's), I just can't see the humor in images of pigs in chefs attire serving up pig-meat or Rock and Rolling Pigs enjoying a BBQ (I'm referring to the Red, Hot, and Blue and Carolina Brothers logos).
Here's what started me on this pig thing. A business associate alerted me to the sport of pig-hunting with dogs. Fortunately, I've been blissfully unaware of this so-called sport all of my life until now. But thanks to the readily available resources on the Internet (don't go to Google and search on Pig hunting or slaughter and definitely don't go to YouTube and do the same), I know way too much.
And as for pigs in general, I've learned alot about them in the last week. First, I learned that pigs are very intelligent and sensitive beings. Imagine this - -they are MORE intelligent than dogs. Second, pigs are amongst the most inhumanely treated of all the animals in the human food chain. No animal should be abused for any reason - but why would the pig be the most abused?
I just don't get it. A terrified dog living in a filthy kennel pulls at our heartstrings, yet a squealing pig living in the same condition is somehow acceptable. Did you know that by nature pigs are clean? The filth they live in is human-induced.
As a side note, have you ever noticed that anything humans determine to be "Pests": pigs, cockroaches, prostitutes, bees, geese, are more seriously abused and it's "OK". As a species, we have no compassion for the "pests" in the world. So it goes for the pig's wild cousin, the Boars, who in the southern US, Australia, and Hawaii (to name a few places) have been classified as pests. The Fish and Wildlife Commission actually invites hunters to "eradicate" the species from certain areas. Eradicate?! If you viewed a dog-driven Boar hunt on YouTube, you'd be disgusted. The real pigs are the hunters who find some sort of thrill in this slaughter. There is no quick kill here - it's horrible and shocking.
But what I'm saying is this: most pigs are abused. One's destined for slaughter are kept in cages so small they can't move. Many go insane from boredom and when finally released for slaughter, can't walk to the slaughter truck because their weak legs won't support their hormone injected weight. In slaughter, they are stunned, have their throat sliced, and while still alive, attached upside down to a moving chain where they are dunked in boiling water. Wild pigs are hunted without regard to size, age, whether they have suckling pigs, or not or what gender they are and often hunted for the trophy, not the meat. Male pigs aren't even editable unless they're castrated days before being killed. Few if any are eaten, and those that are suffer a painful castration at the hands of amateurs. Pigs are commonly used in ceremonial slaughter, usually by amateurs, who bind, cut, rip, tear pigs without regard to the pain and agony these poor creatures endure. How can any compassionate human eat or use pig products?
And what does it say about us as a species that we can endure the cries of another species without helping them?
