Farm Animals

SLAAM believes animals are not ours to eat, and therefore advocates a vegan lifestyle.  Animals raised for food suffer tremendously in factory farms.  Farmed chickens and turkeys spend their short lives in cramped warehouses, often so much that they cannot even lift a wing.  Sows are unable to turn around in their small cages and are never able to fully contact their piglets.  Male pigs and cows are castrated without any painkillers.  Producers drug farm animals so they grow as quickly as possible, which often causes the animals to become crippled under their own unnatural weight.  When farm animals reach a marketable weight, they receive even more inhumane treatment in transport to and at the slaughterhouse.

Not only does the meat industry thrive from suffering animals, but it also thrives by polluting the planet.  According the a 2006 United Nations report, the meat industry is “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.”  The meat industry is responsible for consuming one-third of all fossil fuels consumed in the United States, causing 90% of the land already cleared in the Amazon rainforest, polluting our lakes and rivers more than all other industries combined, and emitting more greenhouse gases than all transportation vehicles combined.

SLAAM advocates a vegan diet by tabling at events, organizing vegan potlucks, and handing out leaflets.  We also support the Ching Animal Rescue and Sanctuary, a non-profit organization that provides a safe home to abandoned and rescued farm animals.  SLAAM assists the sanctuary by organizing exciting fundraisers and frequently volunteering at the sanctuary.  Volunteering at the sanctuary provides the unique experience of interacting with farm animals and the satisfaction of building better lives for the more than 200 animals at the Sanctuary.

For more information about the Ching Sanctuary, please visit www.chingsanctuary.org.