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The US is normalizing the cruelest mass killing method to stop bird flu (www.vox.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

277 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Last year, I wrote a great deal about the rise of “ventilation shutdown plus” (VSD+), a method being used to mass kill poultry birds on factory farms by sealing off the airflow inside barns and pumping in extreme heat using industrial-scale heaters, so that the animals die of heatstroke over the course of hours. It is one of the worst forms of cruelty being inflicted on animals in the US food system — the equivalent of roasting animals to death — and it’s been used to kill tens of millions of poultry birds during the current avian flu outbreak.

As of this summer, the most recent period for which data is available, more than 49 million birds, or over 80 percent of the depopulated total, were killed in culls that used VSD+ either alone or in combination with other methods, according to an analysis of USDA data by Gwendolen Reyes-Illg, a veterinary adviser to the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), an animal advocacy nonprofit. These mass killings, or “depopulations,” in the industry’s jargon, are paid for with public dollars through a USDA program that compensates livestock farmers for their losses.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I see this sentiment a lot regarding eating meat. I think a lot of people don't realize how much these animals suffer.

Just look at your dog anytime you eat pork. Remember that that animal you're eating is smarter than your dog. That pig used to play with its siblings, have love for its mother, and eventually live in complete terror before it is killed. People love to make fun of Asian societies for eating dogs when it is exactly the same as eating a pig.

That little bit of joy you gained from eating pork came at the cost of unfathomable suffering.
There is no excuse in 2023, I've been building muscle for the first time in my life and doing it on a vegetarian diet.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Vegetarian diet or vegan diet?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Vegetarian, no dairy though because casein intolerance

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There is evidence that plants may be sentient. How should we handle that consideration?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Conjecture isn't evidence. Plants lack both the means to have thoughts and the reason to evolve those means in the first place. They react to stimuli in the same way my phone does. Should I be as worried that I'm hurting my phone by not charging it as I am that I'm hurting my cat by not feeding her?

Or is the entire premise stupid in the first place and we should stop wasting everyone's time with it?

Also, if plant suffering is a concern, you should definitely be vegan, because trophic levels are a thing, and every calorie worth of meat you eat is 10 calories worth of plants that had to die.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Oh my god I've had this conversation more times than I can count.

Robots can react to stimulus too, are they sentient? No

Plants are biological machines devoid of the capacity suffering, as far as we know. There is no evidence that plants grieve the loss of their young or fear for their lives.