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266- The vegans aren't angry...they're just disappointed
104 Plays8 days ago
The Labour Party's U-Turn on banning fur & foie gras has reduced Paul to...disappointment. Ouch! He is joined by Julie & Dominic this week for a critical and analytical eye on the last seven days of animal rights and vegan news.
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Enough of the Falafel is a community of people who love keeping on top of the latest news in the world of veganism & animal rights. With the Vegan Week podcast, we aim to keep listeners (& ourselves) informed & up-to-date with the latest developments that affect vegans & non-human animals; giving insight, whilst staying balanced; remaining true to our vegan ethics, whilst constantly seeking to grow & develop.
Each week we look through news stories from the past 7 days in the world of veganism & animal rights.
If you spot any news stories that might catch our fancy, or have an idea for a discussion topic, get in touch via enoughofthefalafel@gmail.com.
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This week's stories:
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/animal-charity-overwhelmed-rabbits-pets-33764579.amp
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15732079/amp/animal-rights-activist-frees-lobster.html
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/38762583/vegan-prisoners-religion-rights-prison-diet-shake-up/v
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/colombia-to-euthanize-cocaine-hippos-pablo-escobar/
https://www.fwi.co.uk/livestock/health-welfare/livestock-diseases/bovine-tb/defra-awards-15m-badger-vaccination-contract
https://www.theanimalreader.com/2026/04/14/us-authorities-seize-50000-shark-fins-worth-over-one-million-dollars/
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/apr/07/peter-greste-court-finding-animal-cruelty-footage-grave-consequences-press-freedom-ntwnfb?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/02/maryland-20-year-sentence-pet-crematorium-scam?CMP=share_btn_url
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/05/labour-back-down-foie-gras-fur-bans-eu-trade-deal?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
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Thanks everyone for listening; give us a rating and drop us a message to say "hi"; it'll make our day!
Dominic, Paul & Kate
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Transcript
Introduction and Vegan Stereotypes
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello everybody! We are here in the place to come for vegan and animal rights news. My name is Dominic and joining me for this episode of Enough of the Falafel are Kate and Paul. But that's enough of the falafel because it is time for Vegan Week!
00:00:18
Speaker
I think vegans go looking for trouble even when they're not looking for trouble. That's not what butter's used for! Brrr! Brody! Take your lab-grown meat elsewhere. We're not doing that in the state of Florida.
00:00:30
Speaker
Should I call the media and say, hi, sorry? True education. younger generation are getting to know how brutal these practices are. That leaves a lot of pizza delivery companies in problems or things, you know.
00:00:42
Speaker
What is this? What kind of movie is this? It's comedy gold, maybe. Any form of social injustice has
00:00:52
Speaker
As long as you don't get the wee brunions with the horns you'll be alright. Does veganism give him superpowers?
00:01:01
Speaker
cannot fly around the city. I don't have laser vision. Hello everyone, this is Paul. Welcome to everyone listening to the show for the first time or maybe you're a regular listener and thank you for being here. Hi everybody, it's Kate here with you. This is our news show we where we look through the latest vegan and animal rights news from the last week or so. So I really hope you enjoy it. But that's enough of the falafel. Let's hear what's been going on this week.
00:01:33
Speaker
For more details on the upcoming news stories, including links to our original source material, check out our show notes for this episode, available on your podcast player.
00:01:45
Speaker
Thank
Abandoned Rabbits at Easter
00:01:46
Speaker
you. Now, we have had lots of discussions in previous shows about animal companions. And I am very ah privileged that, you know, I have a large number of different animal companions in the many homes in which I live as a touring artist. I think listeners might be able to hear. One of Kate's animal companions, I think, which is joyful. I don't want that to be edited out. I think that is a beautiful sound, Kate. I'm very, very happy to. da Do we have a name for the animal companion? Yes.
00:02:19
Speaker
Archie. Archie Pussycat. Archibald. I don't know if listeners will be able to hear. I can hear it. It is a joyful noise. I'm always up for the sounds of ah cats being and cats. That is beautiful. um However, our first story, I'm going to go over to Paul to talk about a story that we've seen in the Manchester Evening News this week.
00:02:40
Speaker
Now, it's about animal companions, but it's about animal companions who get abandoned and And I've certainly read lots of stories over the years about the problem of Christmas and, you know, dogs and cats when they're puppies and kittens being brought into homes for people who aren't able to give that level of commitment. Maybe they don't understand the... yeah the The challenges that will come from sharing your home in in such a manner. But this story in the Manchester Evening News isn't about those animals. It's about rabbits. ah And this is real news to me, Paul, that Easter is a time when a lot of people...
00:03:20
Speaker
go out and get rabbits, according to this story. And animal charities have been overwhelmed with abandoned rabbits. This is something of which I did not know. Is this something that you've heard about before, Paul?
00:03:35
Speaker
Not particularly this. And, you know, I've worked closely with an animal rehoming centre that does still ah take in rabbits and i don't think i was aware of this like yourself dom i guess the sad but well-known fact of animals getting abandoned over christmas and what we saw after covid and things like that are kind of kind of understood i think by a lot of people but yeah this is this was kind of relatively new use to me um obviously this is up in your neck of the woods and it's a report from petter saying that 80 percent of rabbits is a massive number isn't it purchased or adopted during the Easter season are abandoned or die within a year. Really sad. um it it And it really probably speaks to the fact, sad fact, I think that people just, I don't think, seem to understand the commitment or don't even think that far ahead when they might purchase an animal. either for themselves or for a loved one. They're just treated still like gifts and objects rather than sentient beings. No real thought about the the ongoing need for for care. It's just a kind of disposable object, I think, really for some of these people who who choose to abandon them afterwards, like an old toy, essentially. It does, it well, did it did make me think, you know, also we've talked quite a lot about
00:04:53
Speaker
the need for people to adopt don't shop but of course I've only just realized in the headline here it does talk about adoption so it's probably not 100% clean in that respect although i do know from experience that shelters are quite careful ah The one that I work with certainly in terms of ah trying to match people with animals and making certain checks. It can never be 100% but they they do that. Other shelters, I'm not so sure on because I'm not sure.
00:05:21
Speaker
Pet shops, we've talked about pets at home recently, things like that. I have to say I'm not sure what kind of checks they go through with people, whether it's very lightweight. So again, really what we want people to be doing is not making these purchases as just maybe short term whim, make a child happy, then suddenly realise the cost, suddenly realise the commitment and then just oh i'll but just get rid of it, stick it on the stick it in the streets and and move on to the next thing, get my dog at Christmas, or something like that. So yes yeah, it's ah it's sad and I suspect this isn't going to go away for a while because of people's mentality, unfortunately. And yeah, I guess I think we still benefit from pushing for the for the adoption side of things, as i say, because I think it probably puts puts a bit more pressure on people to be able to think. Obviously, people can lie and and just kind of go through the motions, but at least it gives us, I think, some chance. The other part of this story to think about as well as it it does talk about the rehoming centers and we've again we talked about this in a recent show they become overwhelmed ah there's a spike in these sorts of things and it's incredibly difficult for them to both hold all these animals that they want to because they've obviously got limited space it's not a never-ending space that they've got And then, the you know, the effort and the cost of rehoming them, which is what they want to do. It's it's what they exist for. But you get a whole big load of of rabbits at the same time. It's going to be difficult to to do that. And you are you're probably going to be trying to rehome them for
Colombian Hippos Debate
00:06:48
Speaker
some period of time. And, you know, that will stop them taking in. other rabbits or other animals that come in so yeah not a great story to start with from happiness factor but i guess it's um a reporting fact which is something we just have to face up to yeah you mentioned that it is in my neck of the woods and and you're right i'm based in manchester and uh there's a photograph in the article of uh of Jess Wood of Rabbit Rescue Northwest. And it it's amazing to know that for all the suffering that there is, that there are folks like Jess Wood who are working really, really hard. It says that the ah the the charity with which she works has 42 rabbits in its care. So, you know, they they're doing a lot and will, as always, share a link to the story. They they do need support. You know, they they need help with... a
00:07:38
Speaker
having things like you know the the feed the bedding the blankets uh so uh if you are looking for something that you can do to help out this is clearly good stuff being done by by good folks and i think you've really hit the nail on the head paul that it is just the problem of not seeing animals as a seny and seeing them exactly like toys uh you know that could just be picked up and had fun with and and no commitment no effort so uh Yeah, good that there are good folks doing good things to to combat the the lack of awareness.
00:08:12
Speaker
um Now, I've got a large lack of awareness of stuff that's going on outside of the UK. And one the great things about me being one of the People doing this show is hearing news from around the world. And we've got an article from CBS on which Kate is going to speak. Now, the article speaks of, i quote, cocaine hippos in Colombia, which ah brought up all kinds of issues.
00:08:43
Speaker
unusual images when I heard that. So so Kate, over in Colombia, to to to what are we referring when we speak of cocaine hippos? What's this story all about? Yeah, well, I hadn't heard of it either. but um So the drug lord Pablo Escobar, who I'm not quite sure when he died, but it's quite a few years ago, he had his own, well, he had a a huge um like mansion and area of land and it was near the Magdalena River. And um dear Pablo, he had his own like private zoo with a lot of um animals from Africa. And I do believe that some of them are still living in a kind of... ah
00:09:30
Speaker
re zoo on the on the same premises. But they he started off with two pairs, I believe, and they have now become 170. And within the next six years, they're expected to reach a population of about 400. The hippos are very happy indeed living there. The weather's just lovely. They've got no predators. So, which is great for the hippos, but there's a lot of people who are not very happy. Not the local tourist trade. They love them.
00:10:04
Speaker
And um some conservationists love them, but I'm afraid there are are quite a few people that are blaming them for the demise of the ecosystem within and around the river because they they spend the night to the night eating. It's one way round, I can't remember. And then the day, I think the day they're kind of wallowing around in the river, pooping in there. And so... they're kind of they're putting rather a lot of nutrients into the river they're more likely to get like blue green algae and so big fish diebacks according to some trampling on turtle nesting grounds and things like that but i thought oh oh gosh how what other i wonder what other pressures there are on that river though it won't be just the hippos And sure enough, of course, people are putting a huge amount of pressure on the river, which runs its either from south to north or north to south, but it's the whole length of the country, basically. So, you know, human effluent and mining and oil contaminants going in there, deforestation. There's 30 million people living kind of alongside it Palm oil. So, yeah, like i said, deforestation and over 20 large dam projects. So, You know, I don't think they can blame 170 hippos on the demise of the river entirely. and There are, in fact, some um conservationists who think they might actually be quite a positive influence because, you know, historically, a long, long time ago, there used to be prehistoric huge herbivores, which, of course, no longer there.
00:11:45
Speaker
and they had their place in the ecosystem you know they used to create new habitats um ah ecological corridors and some people seem to think that actually their poo in the water feeds fish and um so some fish species will actually thrive and actually also because they're quite big and scary lot of fishermen who use dynamite of all things to to fish I mean what a horrendous thing to do they're too scared and so you know that's actually put that off so you know it's debatable But of course, there's so a wonderful woman called ah Senator Andrea Padilla, who's, you know, in the in the government. And she says just to kill them, to shoot them, which is what is being proposed, is cruel and lazy. It's a cruel and lazy solution that's putting cost and convenience over the lives of sentient beings. And, um you know, they they are...
00:12:50
Speaker
the victims of of humans and humans meddling and bringing them over here and perhaps money should be spent on rehoming them or sterilizing them which can be dangerous but just killing them they don't believe is the solution i mean it is a dilemma isn't it what you know dominic i don't know what you think I don't know what I think. I know that I sound like that cliche vegan when I'm like, the most invasive species of all are humans, but the most invasive species of all are humans. And it feels like, ah to use one of my comic book references I often give, it feels like I'm in bizarro world, meaning like you know the opposite of like normal, where like you know people give you like funny looks for people,
00:13:39
Speaker
for for daring to say that that that it's humans who are the most invasive creatures. And it's so easy to just go, i kill the hippos, kill the hippos. Just very similar to Paul's story of, oh, they're only hippos, they're only rabbits. And we, in general, are so far removed from understanding how...
00:14:02
Speaker
all lives are connected to being to the world as it is that yeah i agree that it's a complicated matter so i don't know what the answer is but i know that the hippos aren't getting the best treatment that the hippos could possibly get i know that i know that it's not there i did think It's not their fault at all. I did think that CBS, from whom we got this article, they could have been more anti-hippo. They could have been more anti-vegan. I thought it was a...
00:14:41
Speaker
relatively neutral article compared to some of the ones that that we have. But yeah, really sad that this is going on. But, you know, really thank you. I guess though it's a symbol of Well, it's more than a symbol, isn't it? It's a reality. But what's happening all around the world, you know, with animals coming up against humans, whether they're supposedly so-called indigenous or so-called invasive, you know, humans always want the upper hand, don't they? Thank
Media Bias Against Animal Activists
00:15:18
Speaker
you. Well, I've kind of praised CBS for relatively impartial reporting. The same cannot be said for the Daily Mail here in the UK. The Daily Mail, it's like...
00:15:33
Speaker
one of the worst newsmakers it really, really is. And they can't really be accused of being pro-vegan or they definitely have their own agenda. So the Daily Mail has got a report of an animal rights activist going into a restaurant and freeing a lobster, freeing a lobster from a restaurant and releasing the lobster into the harbour.
00:16:03
Speaker
And yeah, I think the best friend of the reporter could not say that this is impartial reporting. The person closest to reporter could not say there is little bit of a a bias here. Paul has has read this article. um So...
00:16:24
Speaker
It's very much painting that, oh, these these crazy animal rights ah ah people, you know, and the the twist in the story, I believe, Paul, according to this article, is that, you know what, and it wasn't even lot a lobster to be eaten. It was it was a lovely lobster who was who was happy, who was being used for educational purposes.
00:16:46
Speaker
Actually, you crazy animal rights people, like... I'm not quite sure how much, just like one... It's interesting, just like one person says that and it's like, yeah, that's gospel truth, isn't it? That's absolute gospel truth that this person is like, no, I was never going to kill the lobster, never. Honest gov, never, never. What do you make of it all, Paul? Yeah, I mean, I think the answer to your last question there is ah absolutely not the case because the the article... And as you say, the Daily Mail, not typically in line with vegan stories. You do get the odd one from them. I think that it surprises you. They'll do an article. about say a horse racing or something like that that comes out very pro vegan but it's kind of it's always a shock when you see that so generally they're not really our friends and generally hold a kind of right leaning compliant kind of readership i guess really it's an article which essentially as you say mocks the actions of the individual
00:17:50
Speaker
and even suggest that what they did was cruel because the release of the lobster into the wild basically they said well we don't know what's happened to it so it must be a bad thing we don't know that it could be living a very happy life now not in a tank so you know again you don't know there is like as you say this claim that this particular lobster was a pet what the article fundamentally fails to recognize and this is a very key point is that this restaurant amongst other murdered animals also sells lobsters to be eaten so if they've got one lobster in a tank that they say is used for educating children i'm one i'm querying what that education would be i mean will they show the kids um them dropping live lobsters into a pot and screaming when they're cooked for people to eat i suspect not so i do wonder what the educational factor will be there and they certainly can't claim to be friends to lobsters given that they serve up them and their friends for profit. You have to say don't you if you're um if you were ah having a dog or a cat as a pet and then you suddenly served up dead
00:19:01
Speaker
cat or a dog. um I'm not sure that would go down very well, but lobsters, course, well, they're food, so it doesn't really matter so much, does it, I guess. So yeah, it's still a worrying story because of the way that it's been framed. And it's interesting to see that they do, as you say, really try and um tap into the right-leaning readership by saying, oh, she was wearing a rainbow-coloured jumper as well. Of all the things, of all the crimes. I'm not quite sure how that's relevant, but maybe she's a lefty, bisexual, lesbian-leaning lady. yeah you won't You won't like her anyway, whatever she did, because she might be she might be one of those. She might be one of them. yeah so um
00:19:44
Speaker
I don't know house how cynical is that. it's ah It's just playing into the... the simple-mindedness of the readers I think really which is that's what they're there to make their money and get the clickbait for I guess at the end of the day but so yeah so yeah that was uh it was almost comical but it's not because you know it it uh it just kind of shows you where we're at with reporting and people buying into at the end of the day in terms of stories there's some various reports about what happened after this and they kind of pose the kind of action-packed story about the crazy animal rights activists grabbing the fish and the loyal loyal members of the staff desperately trying to save the lobster from this crazy woman you know it's it's it's so thinly veiled it's it's it's ridiculous they do talk about the fact that um she's had some previous for other things uh and and the comments from the judge about this particular case are again almost quite it made me chuckle which is which isn't the right because The judge said it was a deeply misguided thing to have done. It's like, well, what, as opposed to killing ah an animal? It seems like we constantly find this kind of the law does not equal morals. I mean, it's it's just it's not the same thing. And it's important that people recognise that. I think I'd say it's a very well guided activity.
00:21:00
Speaker
ah to do but yeah it's ah certainly not recognized like that in the eyes of the in the eyes of the law what became the lobster we don't know we can hope that it has is living a nice life by itself in freedom and not stuck in a tank with people staring and tapping at it and it's certainly a better life than the lobsters that are served up dead by the same restaurant thank you paul definitely those of you listen regularly will know that ah We're a big old group of friends, not professing to be experts, just people who volunteer our time doing this show. And it's different people on different shows. I'm not on every show, but I cannot remember the last show that I was on where there was such a clickbaity article as this. It's really everything that just makes you...
00:21:41
Speaker
what makes me despair. Really, really despairing
Badger Culling Controversy
00:21:46
Speaker
article. Well, over to Kate, we've got um an article from Farmers Weekly. We do go far and wide for our stories. And we've got an article about DEFRA. That's the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. So DEFRA, I've got a £15 million pound badger vaccination contract. Now, we often speak about badgers on this show. Of course, there is a huge drive to control bovine tb
00:22:20
Speaker
and And DEFRA have been awarded this contract to PharmCare Solutions to expand Badger vaccination across England. So what does Kate make of this story? So, oh God, I think we've all been despairing about and the plight of the badgers, haven't we, for all this time that, you know, they've been been been murdered out in the field um systematically. Yeah, it's it's really, it's just horrible. So apparently about 250,000 badgers have already been killed, which is a mind boggling number, isn't it? So on the face of it, it sounds like it's moving the positive direction. What would be ah be a bigger move in the positive direction would be of just saying, just stopped cattle farming and everyone had oat milk instead. And they just left the badgers alone to have a nice life. But, you know, because that's not going to happen just yet. they are They have got this money. going to be given to the Badger Vaccination Field Force. Yay. And they are going to trial it in East Sussex. Oh, no, that's where it was trialed. Sorry.
00:23:39
Speaker
So year one, they're doing it in South Oxfordshire, North Worcestershire, North Shropshire, and they're hoping to increase it to nine vaccination areas. So and then they're going to see how that goes. But, you know, Badger Trust people are quite sceptical, although this seems to be signalling the end of like scapegoating vaccines. wildlife. It is still quite stressful for the badgers because they're going to have to be trapped and then ah vaccinated. And yeah, the Badger Trust people are sceptical that it might not work. It's just going to be so difficult to do. but it is going to be alongside improved farm biosecurity because 94% of cases are actually caused, come come are from cow to cow. rather than badger to cow. In fact, badgers are more likely to get it from cows than the other way round. And also from cow slurry, which is cow poop.
00:24:41
Speaker
I mean, the disease TB, it can remain dormant for years in badgers when they do have it and they don't show, you know, they don't tend to get sick until much later on. But cows can get very sick. And apparently when in years gone by when ah tb was much more prevalent in human beings um it was drinking raw cow's milk that often gave people tb which i didn't know so and unless you live in america now where they're raving about drinking raw cow's milk i'm wondering you know whether it is such a ah threat here I don't know, in people, that is. Anyway, like I say, we'll have to see how this goes.
00:25:30
Speaker
Hope, hope, hope that they stop killing badgers. Stop farming cattle, please, you know. so Yeah, exactly. ah People listen to our show from all the way around the world. And when we speak about badger, this story, we're very much talking about the European badger. I mean, different parts of the world have got different kinds of badger. um ah For fear of being like those people who say, I'm an animal lover when all they mean is cats and dogs because they're cute. I do think that whereas badgers from other parts of the world look quite fierce and look quite, you know, ah the European badger does look really, really cuddly. I grew up in ah the the Welsh countryside and had a little badger cuddly toy and became really aware of badger hunting.
00:26:19
Speaker
by farmers because of TB scare. It was it was one of the things that that really ah made me consider everything about you know animal industry and how animals are treated. that This was happening on my doorstep and now I've moved to the city, I live a very different life. But it's it's really stayed with me you know how awful it was, the the reaction to badgers. And as you say, Kate,
00:26:46
Speaker
can sometimes be seen as extreme sometimes often be seen as extremes when we dare to suggest that maybe we don't need beef or dairy milk maybe the world could go on without the exploitation of bovine and that would definitely be a solution to this problem I just i just want to say, i'm knowing people who rescue hedgehogs, but eat cheese and milk, I'm like, there's a bit of hypocrisy going on there as well. you know um i have tried pointing out to people that if they perhaps even just stop cheese and milk, that you know it would make they it would be a so much better place for badgers. and hedgehogs and a whole load of other wild creatures. You know, I just wish people would join the dots. Don't we all? Don't we all? Don't we all? Now, um I was saying that the Daily Mail was the most clickbait... I was
Stereotypes in Media Coverage
00:27:48
Speaker
saying that the Daily Mail was the most clickbaity...
00:27:51
Speaker
story we'd had for a long time well stop the press everyone stop the press we've got a new contender not even a contender we're here with the story from the sun which oh i mean it's a different kind of uk newspaper to the daily mail but in a very different way just as odious so So The Sun have got an article expressly critiquing vegans. And in the same way that the Daily Mail article was mentioning the rainbow jumper of the animal rights activists in their story, this story from The Sun, on which Paul is going to share views, this story is in no way about flatulence. It is not about gas. and yet and yet
00:28:43
Speaker
Like every couple of lives, it seems, they're talking about farty vegans, farty vegans. That is their angle on the story that ah human rights laws are being changed, that the the veganism is going to be protected in the same sort of status as religion. Particularly, this article is talking a lot about pride.
00:29:06
Speaker
prisons, a lot about prison foods, a lot about people making foods in prisons. I will let Paul comment on it, but something that struck me as well, just like really looking at the subtext of the article, I'm going to read one line. The Ministry of Justice puts veganism, which relies on a fucking party fibrous diet on par with religions such as judaism and islam which prohibits certain foods it's like you know you know it's so so click so so like the subtext the subtext of like you know oh you know that the subtext is you know those religions that we at this newspaper also don't like It's just awful, awful stuff, awful. If you got an AI bot to write the most awful stuff ever, it would struggle write something as bad as The Sun. That's my opinion. Paul might wait and go, no, actually, actually, Dominic, you've not seen The Sun. Are you going to praise The Sun, Paul? Oh, yeah, it's a marvellous piece of journalism, obviously. And what a lovely paper they are when you were...
00:30:19
Speaker
When we consider what they've done for other stories in the past and whole areas of the UK boycotting them for how they're approached to things. So, yeah, this is, like you say, another odious article, but this is almost like if you think you want to connect with the lowest comedy value, I mean, this is probably people that like Ant and Dec, I reckon, It's like you say, it's kind of fart gags. It's like a comic for children, but not even a good comic. It's like really, it's just like, I don't know. It's just like, it's disappointing and just like, oh God, is this what people spend time reading this? And this is their news information source. It's like, well, might as well go and read the Beano. You know, it's kind of the same sort of thing. Yeah, big, big thing to want to say, The Vigo's brilliant! What are you saying, Paul? Leave the Vigo alone! Leave the Vigo alone! It's almost like, story about vegans. What do we know about vegans? Or a bit left-wing, or fart? Well, no, I don't know if they do particularly more than others, but I think we did have a story on that once, actually, but... Even if vegans do fart a lot, I mean, I'd rather be doing that than having rotten flesh sitting in my colon for a long period of time causing colon cancer. I mean, if that's the choice, I'll take that. It is very juvenile. And the interesting thing with this, I thought when I first read it was, oh, and so it does raise a serious question because I actually thought,
00:31:47
Speaker
that there was already a degree of protection in place, recognising rights that applied across the board, as it does in, say, hospitals, education facilities, as well as prisons. So I don't if i want to trust the accuracy of the sun here, but I actually thought that this was already...
00:32:03
Speaker
in place to some degree but let's say it's not and I'm wrong that's fine we'll go along with that if we follow it through that's probably not the right phrase is it for a fart shouldn't have said that one but yeah it does kind of raise some questions about if you want to talk about like ah oh it's a Vegan's just a fibrous diet. Well, I mean, it probably is, but you can have a fibrous non-vegan diet. You can have a non-fibrous vegan diet. is is How many stereotypes can you kind of get into this so story?
00:32:34
Speaker
And i like you say, I think trying to then continue the tapping into the um stereotypes, it's like, oh, you know those Islamist people we don't like, they're bad people. Terrorists, same as vegans so far. It's the same thing, basically.
00:32:49
Speaker
Hate them, hate vegans. It's like, it's just like, yeah, let's just kind of, let's do all that as well. And ah part of me feels like I just want to say, I don't want to comment on it anymore because it's just a bollock story, but it's, and also I guess the fact that it's prison as well, isn't it? Because i'm I'm guessing the readership here will be, let's say fairly united in their view of all prisoners as just like scum, you know, and don't get me wrong. There are some bad people in prison, obviously, but there might be people that have, you know, had hard times and they're trying to, you know, make amends, et cetera. But yeah, it's just like, right,
00:33:23
Speaker
vegans islamists prisoners excellent let's let's like you got like kind of like um all you need is a rain poke a jumper and we'll be sorted here i yeah you know what paul i think this article is aimed at people who do not know vegans do not know muslims and do not know prisoners it's aimed at that it's all hatred of the unknown xenophobia absolutely yeah absolutely you know um And yeah, you know, in my work I've been into prisons, done a great number of projects with folks who, you know, I'm not religious person, but to use a religious phrase there, but for the grace of God go people had terrible lives and end up in prison and, you know, of course their human rights should not be stripped away, of course, you know, course, like if something happened and I was in prison, I would hope that wouldn't have to go oh, well, all my rights and beliefs are out the window then. You know, of course not. Yeah, absolutely. I really believe... Sorry, Paul, you go on. No, I was just going say, you're quite right. I think it's like, you know, it's like, OK, you want to live, going to have to eat meat-only type of dishes. And it's like, well, yeah, that's just a crazy world that you'd have to live in if that was the case. It was interesting how...
00:34:45
Speaker
ah the The other bit that it taps in into, like I think, which is again another another clickbait tick in the box, is it says that Vegans are entitled to protection under the European Convention on Human Rights, which is another classic sort of ah reform party. It gets very 1984, doesn't it? It's like, you can you can have a better life by giving up your rights. you know It's very much like ah yeah reverse, ah kind of like, we're taking your rights away so you've got a better life. It's like, really? ah You've got to be a bit dafted. Kind of buy into that. Yeah. I mean, obviously let's not lose sight of the fact that what the kind of story is ultimately saying, because I think we've probably glossed over it little bit, but yeah, it does say that like, um and, and, and yeah, it basically, the revisions that are being talked about here are a step forward for nutrition support for vegans and the states of veganism in prison policy. So that's, that's a good thing.
00:35:39
Speaker
And if the sun wants to take the piss out of it and talk about farting, So be it. But, you know, we can say at least um those in this position, even if they are bad people, at least they've got access to um a diet that they want. and and And why should they not have that? So, you know, I'm i'm kind of OK with that. Thank you, Paul. I've said it before and I'll say it again.
00:35:58
Speaker
like I've often felt huge guilt that I'm not more of a active campaigner or hunt saboteur. You know, hats off to people who are.
00:36:10
Speaker
I do think that if you're able to do, and it's a privilege to be able to do, the act of saying I'm vegan to non-vegan people, and I'm not judging anyone who doesn't feel able to say I'm vegan to non-vegan people, but that alone is a huge... huge positive thing because the world is full of folks who would read that article from the sun and think yeah look at all this list of horrible people vegans up there at the top you know and
00:36:44
Speaker
if you can be a positive representation, which I always aim to be. I do make a point of mentioning that I'm vegan, and I know within my line of work, I am a professional person, I'm a cheerful person, I'm a kind person, I'm an upbeat person. I always aim to create inclusive fun, and people are often surprised when they find out I'm vegan. Oh, you're very energetic, aren't you? And I think that that is how we combat the attitudes of people who have been reading The Sun, who are like, yeah, those vegans, if you can just make them think, oh, but I met a vegan.
00:37:22
Speaker
And they were all right, actually. They weren't horrible. um I'm not taking away from direct action, from hunt saboteurs, from more aggressive, confrontational things. There's arguments for it against many different stances. But it's not nothing. It's not nothing to be a positive representation of veganism, which hopefully
Shark Finning and Its Impact
00:37:44
Speaker
we are. Yeah.
00:37:47
Speaker
Thank you, Kate. Thank you. Well, we've got one more story before we go through our pick of the week section. Our story is actually from the animal reader. So we don't just cover the Daily Mail and the Sun. We do cover... ah ah different kinds of articles and this one is about the US authorities seizing 50,000 shark fins worth over a million dollars and again here in the UK we've spoken on previous falafel shows there is a kind of person who's very quick to go oh yeah the sharks oh yeah the dolphins oh yeah the the the dogs who are eaten in China you know very quick to
00:38:34
Speaker
point in the finger and I can imagine possibly some of those same readers of the suns who are like boo prisoners boo vegans being like yeah boo people who would eat shark fins but um you know it's easy to point the finger and ignore what's going on here the The article says about how shark fins is a delicacy. It's not quite the same thing as nipping down your McDonald's and having a really cheaply produced processed meat. ah Shark fin soup delicacy.
00:39:06
Speaker
can be super expensive. Oh, you made pun there. Super expensive. wo um So this article is about about that as ah as a bad thing. So, Kate, what was your what did you feel when you were reading this article?
00:39:23
Speaker
I'm blown away by the numbers, to be honest, you know, and I just think how can how can this, well, it's not, that actually, I hate the word sustainable when it comes to to things like this, because fishing, any fish, one fish is not sustainable for that one fish. So, you know, people usually say sustainable ah when it comes to like fishing,
00:39:48
Speaker
thinking, oh, we can take that many amount of fish to eat and then the rest of the population will be fine. But actually, you know, I don't even know how the population of ah sharks is fine. And I think there are quite a few species that are on the endangered list now. um so ah yeah so 50 000 fins this time from 50 000 animals that'll be ah and i i did the maths and it and all that's one million dollars it's twenty dollars per shark fin um which seems pitiful as well but worldwide
00:40:26
Speaker
73 million sharks are caught worldwide. I mean, that's a crazy number, isn't it? And finning is so horrible. you know, they they cut the they catch the shark, they cut the fin off, they throw the shark back in live and it can't float. It sinks to the bottom and it suffocates or else other animals start eating it. So it's really grim.
00:40:48
Speaker
and This seizure is part of Operation Thunder, which is 134 countries taking part, law enforcement agencies from all around the world against illegal wildlife and timber trade. And like said, this ship moat, it was actually stopped in Anchorage in America.
00:41:08
Speaker
They they they're actually seized... ah It was part of 20 shipments altogether. and these poor sharks were silky sharks and big eye thresher sharks, or they were once upon a time. It is on the decline. Shark fin soup is on the decline. China is, they've they've kind of adopted bans and they're not supporting the transport. um There's lots of NGOs working really hard to to stop it, including CITES, which is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
00:41:48
Speaker
And 90% of shark fin trade is now regulated, which still sounds grim to me. Oh, really? But as that is kind of dipping, fin trade,
00:42:03
Speaker
meat in its entirety is actually on the rise. oh it Yes, apparently so. 2024 shark 76 to 80 million And mortality estimates where had gone up from seventy six to eighty million per year and we get shark products in this country it's sometimes called squalene sometimes it goes into like cosmetics and things it's called flake or rock salmon in the uk and the us that's what it can be called um i don't need to tell any of our vegan listeners not to buy that because they won't be buying it but there will be some people buying it and not realizing that non-vegans Yeah, so but anyway, anyone that eats it, good luck because it's a top predator and it's going to be have high levels of all sorts of toxic chemicals and heavy metals like mercury that have bioaccumulated.
00:43:09
Speaker
in its flesh good luck with that that's all i can say there are groups trying desperately they've they've identified about 816 areas that um are proposing to become like um reserve areas for sharks and rays probably their spawning grounds and things like that so yeah anyway it's horrible, whole thing is horrible, yet another thing we have to think about, and I'm really sorry, it's a grim story.
00:43:45
Speaker
Well, no, I really appreciate you doing all the research and especially feeding back on that one, Kate. Now, if you've not listened to the show before, you'll know that each episode we ask our contributors to choose something to be their pick of the week. And in this week's pick of the week, we're going to be travelling the globe from the US all the way over to Australia.
Legal Battles in Animal Rights
00:44:08
Speaker
As well as producing these audio-based shows, our podcast hosts at Zencaster also provide the written transcript for each show. This is AI generated, so it might not always be 100% correct, but nonetheless we hope that this will increase the accessibility our show.
00:44:29
Speaker
So to access any of these written transcripts, head over to zencaster.com forward slash vegan week. I'm going to spell it all for you.
00:44:44
Speaker
then a forward slash, and then the word vegan, V-E-G-A-N, then a hyphen, and then week. Zencaster.com forward slash vegan hyphen week.
00:44:55
Speaker
and then each transcript is embedded with any of the shows you click on.
00:45:02
Speaker
Okay, we'll go to Paul first with the story from Australia reported here in The Guardian, our slightly more left-leaning newspaper. Paul, what is this article all about?
00:45:19
Speaker
Yeah, so this is an article which is being led under the sort of subtitle of press freedom and it is certainly um have has a very potential big risk for press freedom, but it's also emanated from a particular animal rights case. So I think here you've got a classic case of maybe two groups of people who wouldn't always necessarily be aligned. We've already seen some journalists and vegans not being aligned, but, um you know, there are shared interests here for sure.
00:45:51
Speaker
And essentially what we've got here is a case whereby um an animal rights group has got on site to a particular abattoir.
00:46:01
Speaker
They have set up hidden cameras and have filmed the activities within the organisation. They have shared that with, I think, is of government... groups, if I remember rightly to start with, ah that then um didn't go anywhere. And then they shared that with more mainstream press. And then that got some traction. And then, of course, as a result of that, the organization had the filming carried out on have ah lost their shit and wanted to obviously stop that being spread around because everyone realizes what a bunch of arseholes they are. So yeah, essentially what's happened here is um after that, the, the organization, the um I'll pick it out in a minute when I find it, it's where have you gone? it is game meat, the game meets company. Now they've obviously employed some lawyers here and essentially what they're saying is that If there is footage taken as a result of this ah break-in, um then that footage is essentially owned by that organisation, regardless of what it's showing. So let's just put that into perspective.
00:47:24
Speaker
and you can probably think of many cases related to both animals and humans, if there was footage that was managed to be taken for any kind of really heinous act. Let's think about abuse to humans, abuse to children, abuse to animals or any other kind of a illegal activity.
00:47:43
Speaker
What this is essentially moving towards is a position where that footage is ah null and void and can't be used. And that's what's happened here, or what started to happen here, because the courts have essentially agreed that that footage is owned and kind of copyrighted by the organisation doing the nasty things to the animals um and therefore can't be, you know,
00:48:09
Speaker
ah shared, used, etc. Obviously, the the the press side of things here is that they often are the voice of, or they're often in the mouthpiece of getting this sort of information out there, regardless whether it's animals or not, and they could, they realise they could become ah culpable. um by handling and and showing this information and you know individuals newspapers media outlets etc could become classes um committing an illegal act by doing their job and ah publishing um investigative journalism in the interests of ah the population so ah
00:48:50
Speaker
Yeah, all about protecting the people doing the bad stuff and all about keeping the populace in the dark so that they can make the money from their heinous activities. Yeah, um there's a lot more other stuff on here, but that's kind of um the kind of summary of it. Lots of ridiculous statements, as you can imagine, from the people that are protecting the nasty ah activity. There's also some really, you know, uh... It's kind of absolutely demoralising reading and people in the position of, say, vets as well, saying, oh I've looked at the videos, there's nothing really going on here that you could class as animal abuse. You know, you do start to wonder, people that are doing the slaughtering, um they're obviously absolute arseholes, but ah at what point does an individual become willing to sell their morals like a vet who allegedly cares for animals to support the abuse of animals? And, you know, these lawyers, what,
00:49:49
Speaker
At what point do they kind of look back on their life and go, yeah, I defended these people that were abusing animals and I made a load of money from it. What a great life. You know, I think it's those people that I almost feel almost, so I must feel sad for them. I think really in that, you know, that's, that's their life that they look back on and that's what they'd have achieved.
00:50:08
Speaker
Yeah. They might be rich from it, I guess, potentially, but what a life, eh? Absolutely disgusting. Yeah. I think it feeds back into the very first article you talked about in today's show, Paul, where rabbits aren't seen as important. They're seen as just the same as toys. And sadly, i don't have the highest opinion of a large number of vets. I've seen the the business model that is veterinary care follow a similar model to what we see in in that the health service for people, in in dentistry, that it's about money. It's about money. and you know i mentioned before about you know I travel around often stay at my mum's, my mum's got animal companions, my mum's got cats, and she often doesn't take them to the vets now because she knows that they' theyre the the prime objective is going to be to make money. not tarring all vets with the same brush. People go into careers with really noble intentions a lot of the time, but I don't think I'm the first person to say that there are some people in some industries who are really, really driven by money.
00:51:19
Speaker
And, you know, that that I've seen it in some vets. So, yeah, I feel i think also something that you said in a our what something you said in one of our other stories, Paul, was about how the law and morals aren't the same thing. Not the same thing at all. We did a massive show on ah a film called Christspiracy, which is you know all about conspiracy theories. all about the money behind...
00:51:49
Speaker
animal industries and it's hard to not make a connection of this to that how anyone could be like no no showing video evidence isn't valid isn't good it's it's awful it's awful you know like you say it wouldn't be the case if it was in something do with people you know it's it's because like the rabbits at easter it's it's not you know it's not seen as the same. Kate you're the person who found this article for us what was your feelings when you first read this article in the Guardian?
00:52:23
Speaker
It is a sign again that um industry is freaking out that um you know with all the technology and stuff that we have to hand at the moment Their dirty little secrets um are, you know, being shown, being aired, and they are trying to use any tool at their disposal to, including the law, to um shut us down, basically.
00:52:58
Speaker
um so that they can carry on business as usual. I i do ah think the vet in question actually works for them. Yeah, I believe that's the case. They could have actually asked some other vets that don't, you know, maybe for their their opinion because they might have come across and found something else, you know.
00:53:19
Speaker
Fancy that. He actually gets paid by them. He's hardly going to... and is there, I guess, day put day by day and sees what goes on. He's probably completely immune to the horror now, I should imagine. don't um du know who knows? I don't know. But i i it does make me worry. don't know about you, Paul and Dom, but what else?
00:53:44
Speaker
I mean, we've we've recently here in the UK, we've had... um that law passed whereby you know critical infrastructure um you know um animal testing places and like the mbr acres and all of that there that's now part of of critical yeah infrastructure for the country because the whole country will collapse if it isn't for animal testing you know um So, and I have heard, i actually looked it up, I think, ah because somebody said to me the other day, they thought that Arla was um
Fraudulent Pet Cremation Scandal
00:54:23
Speaker
thinking of trying to bring dairy and making it like a critical, um a vital security pillar. Mm-hmm.
00:54:34
Speaker
and And they're doing it at the moment. Apparently, it can't be because food industry, so-called inverted commas food, is so diverse, you you can't say, if that bit, you know, goes down, then the whole of the food system is going to collapse.
00:54:52
Speaker
But I think what they're planning on doing is, ah I don't know how far along they are with this, but building massive like central depots and things like that so that they can lobby. They're building big sites so that, you know, they can argue that whether, you know, I might be... reading far too much into this, I don't know, but I'm just so sceptical and cynical, you know, so that they can argue that oh we must protect this at all costs. We can't let those animal rights people anywhere near, you know, otherwise the whole of the dairy industry is going to go down and we absolutely, we can't we can't live without other mammals' milk. so you know i don't know it just makes me worry that this is all part of and i think they are lobbying at the policy level as far as i know in my totally ignoramus kind of way um i'm probably thinking way too much into this but you know what i mean i don't know i don't think you are an ignoramus and i don't think you're thinking too much at all kate i think uh i think you know for fear of putting too much
00:56:02
Speaker
praise on social media for which i've a whole load of critique i think that we do still have access to to youtube and people do put stuff up on there that that does change people's folks now our our usual master of seven is anthony isn't here to to to correct me because i never know in what order these shows go out because they don't necessarily go out in the order that we record them but i know that um Kate and Paul and I are going to be recording a show about um about a YouTube film called The Chicken Whisperer, which we have previously mentioned on a previous ah ah ah one of these vegan weeks. And that's a really good example of something being created and edited in a way for the general public. So although this doesn't... nullify the horrors of not including films of abuse in courts, ah we can still be getting information out there to people with the goal of changing people's minds. And that's our overall goal, isn't it? To make the world a ah kinder place for people seeing
00:57:12
Speaker
what goes on. So we do still have that. Kate, I'm going to ask you about your pick of the week. Now I'm going to try and say this place lane correctly. It's another ah article from The Guardian and the the place in which we' this article is about is not Maryland, it's which I called Maryland. Is that how you say it, Kate? Oh, I don't know. i was going to call it Maryland. Oh dear.
00:57:41
Speaker
I've been there. I've been there. Yeah, it's East Coast, USA. It's kind of around the sort of, um it's between DC and and New York City. It's kind of, it's part of um ah Baltimore, Maryland. So I think, but.
00:57:56
Speaker
ah you You've practised how to say this article. If you call it Maryland, that's absolutely fine. You can call it as it is. I think it's Mariland. Okay, Mariland. Well, i hopefully, if we've got any listeners there, they'll they'll kind of, I don't know, leave a voice note somehow. don't know if you can hear that. I can hear that. We'll quote the details at the end of the show. Shane might know. Ask Shane. Shane will know, won't she?
00:58:23
Speaker
Definitely. What's been happening in Maryland then? Well, I came across this story and I thought, do I go there? It's so sensitive because um it's about this guy and his wife, actually, who receive a 20 year sentence for a pet crematorium scam. And he's You know, I have so not long lost my own little doggo. And there is nothing worse than losing your dearest companion animal. i mean, we love them so much and we are their whole world as well. And they leave a massive void when we lose them. So, you know, I've even spoken to non-vegans and who've told me that they felt worse losing their dog than a person in their life. And one one guy even said he missed his dog worse than he wased missed his mum. But, you know, anyway, but i I don't know having Having lost, I mean, I've had quite a lot of um dogs and cats in my life, but somehow it
00:59:37
Speaker
I don't know, it seems to me that it's getting worse and that people are being... I find it... ah I just feel like people are being preyed upon by cynical companies that are dealing with their deceased animals. um I think I've noticed a change. um And ah feel like I was guilt-tripped or trapped even when I lost my dog. And it's a time...
01:00:05
Speaker
It a time when you're very vulnerable and and you're less likely to argue about money. And so this story, ah this guy is just a horrendous piece of work. So he's called Rodney Ward and he lives in Baltimore County. Yeah, like I said, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for running a fraudulent pet crematorium called the Loving Care Pets Funeral and Cremation Services. And he is thought to have defrauded at least 50 victims. And by victims, we mean pet parents. So he was ordered to pay $12,510 restitution after providing owners with fake ashes containing sand and gravel and construction debris and storing their decomposing animals in a hearse on his drive and just chucking others in like a woodland area.
01:01:12
Speaker
So, um investigators, they found 38 decomposing animals yeah in his hearse. Yeah, it's just horrible, horrible, horrible. when One pet owner called Sharon said that she'd entrusted Ward's business with the remains of her 17-year-old service dog, Blackie Dior.
01:01:33
Speaker
He quoted scripture. He did all of this to make me feel comfortable. I would never think that he would be so demonic. So, I mean, that the judge has said he would consider reducing his sentence if he said where...
01:01:51
Speaker
all the the missing pet remains were. But the a county state's attorney, somebody called Adam Lipps, said, don't believe one word that comes out of his mouth. if it If it happens, we'll follow up on it and we'll do the right thing. So, I mean, clearly both he and his wife are thoroughly disturbed in some way. i don't know how much money they've actually made out I guess they won't know unless they know how many victims. But, yeah, it's just, it's pretty horrible.
01:02:24
Speaker
But I do wonder, i mean, what do you think? he's Well, i tell so I'll tell you what I think. And I'm going to be a little bit a little bit of devil's advocate here because I do not disagree with anything you've said, Kate. I don't disagree with anything you've said. I'm just going to try like, see it from another, you know, point of view. Like, what he's done is awful, so awful. My mantra is,
01:02:50
Speaker
I know most people are overworked and under-resourced. You get people who are delivering posts, who throw parcels in bushes, people who are doing important studies, who make up results. You know, these aren't things with such a high emotional attachment as a beloved animal companion.
01:03:15
Speaker
But I wonder whether... know, we don't know anything about the pressures on, on, on these people's personal lives, none of which makes our actions excusable. They're inexcusable. You know, i mentioned I've grown up with animal companions. I've been really, really close to them, but, um,
01:03:33
Speaker
I wonder if there's a c certain element of just... just It saved time to lie in this in this really barbaric way that that it's it's easier to actually do the job as promised. It's going to take more time, isn't it, than just shoveling a little bit of gravel or or whatever in there? And and I wonder... I think ah so so I'm going to tie into Paul's story when Paul was talking about prisoners and about how, you know, I said there, but for the grace of God, go I. I think that it would be really interesting to know to know the real reason, the real reason why. yeah Maybe it is that this person just does not care. But even if it is that they don't care, what has taken them down that path to not caring?
01:04:17
Speaker
do do we Do we know if, fer because I haven't read the story, do we know that if there was ever proper handling of animals and then it led to this through some way or was it never never done? Was the business set up as a complete fraud from the outset? or As far as I know it's not a real business.
01:04:37
Speaker
So whether or not they tried their best in the beginning and then things kind of got out of hand, I don't know. But you'd think that any kind of relatively...
01:04:48
Speaker
sane person would think, oh dear, not coping with this very well. Let's just stop this for a while have a rethink or something. I don't know. and um ah i don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but there's been a a kind of slightly similar case in the last few weeks in the UK, only it wasn't animals, it was people. And it was um a guy who, a funeral director and He was taking people's loved ones and saying he was like getting them cremated and all the rest. But he wasn't. He was putting their bodies in a lockup. And you think, who is going to do that in their right mind and not think they're going to get found out eventually?
01:05:31
Speaker
I mean, I think this guy and his wife, how did they know that they were just not going to get found out eventually? it just, you know, ah it just seems weird. I'm going to put as ah yet another devil's advocate position here. as As the resident out autistic man, I've spoken before about being a neuro-spicy individual before. So i'm going to be like, I'm going to be super autistic here and super like, you know, my black or white thinking... you couldn't find anyone who was more close to to my grandmother as i was when i was a little boy and i did the the funeral service when my grandmother passed away and for my mum it was a massive big deal what happened to the ashes and for me i didn't care i didn't care i cared for grandma i didn't care you know grandma had a dog as an animal companion i
01:06:24
Speaker
loved that dog, I took the dog. Yeah, I'm not saying that other people shouldn't care. I'm not saying that. Of course we should care. Of course we should care. However, is my controversial opinion that, I don't know, I'm more concerned with with folks alive, with with animals alive, with the animals who are suffering, than those who've passed away. Because the folks who are being pained aren't aren't the animals who have passed away. it's It's the people and I do care about those people. But, you know, I ended up scattering my grandmother's ashes and I did it for my mum because my mum is alive. And for my mum, that really meant a lot to her. It didn't mean anything to me. Grandma means a lot to me.
01:07:08
Speaker
But the the ashes scattering meant zero to me. so um So, yeah, I do really feel for these people. I really, really do. It's absolutely awful.
01:07:19
Speaker
But, you know, it's awful to be deceived when you're grieving and you've got such a loss. But um this is the story that, as as as the autistic man, it's upset me the least. The weak one the upsetting stories. This one's upset me the least.
01:07:35
Speaker
Do you know, I absolutely agree with you. For myself, those say that though those animals and what my dog, when she'd gone, that's it. She wasn't there anymore. you know And I said goodbye to her...
01:07:51
Speaker
her body and they whisked her off. And the next thing I knew, was contacted by a pet crematorium who was saying, now, would you like your dog's ashes in her own plot or in a plot with other people's loved companions. And I'm like, but I've said goodbye to her. I don't want to go and visit her in another county on another part of the country. To me, she's where I used to walk with her. She's in the air. She's in the sunshine. you know what I mean? So I feel like, so this is like my other bit about this story. I do feel people are...
01:08:34
Speaker
guilt tripped now into spending loads of money when they've already probably spent a ton of money trying to keep their animal well at their end of life. And as we know, we've already spoken about, vets are so expensive as well, you know.
01:08:52
Speaker
But ah having having a companion animal and even rescuing a companion animal is becoming, you know, it's becoming impossible for a lot of people and people are having to give up their animals. And yes, I absolutely agree. um i think that it's better spending the money on live animals.
01:09:10
Speaker
But also, i mean, 20 years in prison and the animals are dead. Most animal abusers and neglecters do not get 20 years for for harming live animals, do they? Let's face it.
01:09:23
Speaker
ah just thought that's a bit mad as well. what i mean is i guess it's because it's people that are involved. You've hit the nail on that. It's because it's people. Yeah, yeah. I think it's it's interesting, isn't it? Because um I understand what you guys are both saying.
01:09:40
Speaker
here But i if I take take it in an almost kind of ah alternative kind of black and white view, I could say you've entered into an agreement with someone for someone to do something. and they've not done it, you take the emotion away from it, which I personally, I'm probably more like the way my cat died. I've got her ashes there on my shelf and I like kind of still looking at them and stuff like that. And so it's slightly different, but you could kind of just go, okay, put that to one side. Someone has has done something or not done something that they were paid to do. And therefore they should be punished for that because it's fraud at the end of the day. And it's got a nasty tinge to it as well in that, You know, it's involving, like you're saying, like Kate was saying, it's of um exploiting people at weak moments. And at the end of the day, yeah that's pretty nasty and shitty thing to do to people, isn't it? I don't know, it's a very, it's a, it's kind of, there's lots of ways of looking at this, I think. And people have spiritual beliefs and spiritual, ah you know, fundamental ways of being and and that's, you know, that just because I don't have those leanings doesn't mean that they're not real and valid, you know, so yeah, like they, I think we're all in agreement.
01:10:58
Speaker
The bloke in Maryland's done an horrible thing. We all agree that. We all agree that. All
Political Backtrack on Fur and Foie Gras
01:11:05
Speaker
right. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Kate. I am going to give a big old reminder to our listeners that we're always keen to hear your opinions, whether it is correcting our pronunciation on Maryland or anywhere else. in the US or the world, or your opinions on any news stories that we cover. um Here's how to get in touch.
01:11:31
Speaker
To get in touch with us, just send us an email at enoughofthefalafel at gmail.com. We see ourselves as a collective. our listenership stretches all around the world and everyone's opinions, questions, feedback and ideas are what helps shape the show.
01:11:50
Speaker
Go on, send us a message today. enough of the falafel at gmail dot com All right, we've got one final story to cover. It is from The Guardian and it's about our at time of recording.
01:12:07
Speaker
UK government, the Labour Party, ah they are backing down. on the foie gras and the fur bands ah and oh my word, I am a person who is not keen on the Labour Party anymore. I was when I was younger, I grew up under ah under ah a more right-wing government, under the UK's Conservative Party. And I always, you know, my mum was a member of the Labour Party.
01:12:39
Speaker
And i don't think it's unfair to say that the Labour Party have shifted their stance. that The the um Conservative ah Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said that Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair was her greatest achievement, by which she meant the ah decreased left-leaning views of the the Labour Party, which she credited to herself. But this current Labour Party, one of the things that I have clung hope to was them having manifesto promises for animal welfare and it's really awful i mean you know if we were talking about pigs or chickens i wouldn't be so surprised but i think amongst
01:13:27
Speaker
You're Joe Public, the kind of person who would think that shark fin soup is a bad thing. I think that ducks being force fed is not something that everyone's in favour of. And, you know, the the opinions on fur...
01:13:45
Speaker
you know again it's it's with i i think it's fair to say polite society if you say oh i don't like the fur ah the fur industry and i don't like foie gras you know yeah your average person is probably not going to put up a huge argument against you so the reason the labor party are backing down is because uh they are wanting to have european union trades deals eased It's a really, really upsetting thing. David Bowles, Head of Public Affairs at the RSPCA said, every animal deserves a life free from suffering. We are bitterly disappointed that the government has failed to ban the sale and import of fur and we welcome the setting up of a round table to consider next steps.
01:14:33
Speaker
So, Kate, you were really apologetic for bringing a lot of the negative news stories, but sometimes the world is what the world is. How did you feel, Kate, when you read this story? Yeah, disappointed, disappointed. Yeah, even it was, I think, wasn't it one of the, it was one of the promises for Brexit that, you know, oh, we'll be able bring in such much better animal laws because we won't be tied in with the EU. And then I think Boris's lot, they threw it under the NHS red bus because a lot of his pals, they wanted to carry on,
01:15:15
Speaker
you know having their foie gras and their pro-choice and all that and the and the fur. you know um i think it is it does seem to be more for richer people. It's a you know is still seen as... off they me how just think who who would wear fur these days? In the UK, I know it's still people... are ah abroad who Who wears it? i don't know. Well, he's been talking about, you know, Joe Public, but of course I'm making presumptions there based on the worlds in which I, i live. So, you know, maybe there are more well to do, more upper class areas in which such things are still praised. But certainly like, you know, if you put a cartoon on the telly and you have someone dealing in fur as a villain, like, you know, that, that, that's, that's a common thing. Whereas if you had a farmer on a show, you know, and so Which show happens, you know the the film Chicken Run, you know farmers be being shown as like not you know ah necessarily the heroes, but it's more rare. Cruella de Vil for a start. Well, yes. yeah yes yes
01:16:29
Speaker
ah Horrible. So, yeah, i was just, ah yeah. So, yeah, very disappointed, really. Very disappointed. I've spoken to Anthony, our master of ceremonies, about, you know, how overtly political we can get with our own personal opinions. And it is just at my personal opinion. But we do happen to have vegan party party.
01:16:52
Speaker
leader in the Green Party of Zach Polanski, for whom i I've got a lot of time ah to to listen to what Zach Polanski says. So I do feel some hope, some optimism that we do have And I know that it's easy for politicians who are not in power to give all kinds of pledges. But I felt with this Labour Party, even when they were the opposition, I always thought, oh, gosh, they're not opposing that odd, are they? They're not opposing. that odd like you know that they they they didn't that they didn't give the the fierce opposition that zach polanski is offering and whatever your views on zach polanski i think he's great and here where i live in the north we've got hannah spencer an mp uh uh who's a plumber going down to westminster now that's amazing amazing that she's been voted in fantastic person uh
01:17:54
Speaker
ah But even if you don't think she's fantastic, even if you think they're the worst thing ever, they are opposing. They are giving opposing views. I think we need that now more than ever. Paul, weigh in with your political two-penner.
01:18:09
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I don't mind saying that I voted, I was a Labour voter for this party. I think, sadly, on this and ah other other matters, they've become a bit of a, unfortunately, laughingstock with yeah U-turns on various things. Even if you might have agreed with the yeah U-turns, their consistency has not been there strong card. I think anyone supporting or against them would probably say that and it it would be difficult for them to um argue against that. So yeah, it's really disappointing. It looks very much like a case of, well, I want to use want to use a better phrase than bigger fish to fry, but that's kind of what they're saying. They're essentially valuing the the profit of trade to the country over moral matters as more important. So you have to say, well, when, where does this stop then? If, uh, if you were offered to make more money for the UK by investing in human trafficking, would we buy into that?
01:19:11
Speaker
Um, where's, where's the line here? It appears that the moral line is, is quite low and it just, yeah, it just, um, makes you think, I mean, I know politicians, uh, uh, uh,
01:19:22
Speaker
ah prone to saying one thing and doing another but it's it's it's i'm not i'm less angry and just sort of really disappointed that it's so easy to capitulate to cash basically at the end of the day and it just sort of says well if that's what it's all about if all we're worried is about the markets and the profit and that then we're just going to become like the states and then you know then we all all bets are off for any kind of caring really Yeah, well done, Paul. But, you know, I've urged listeners to go and do their own research on the political parties and what they've what all their stances are on um animals and animal rights. Faire, foie gras,
Listener Feedback and Episode Closure
01:20:05
Speaker
the lot. You know, Green Party, yeah, they they're absolutely great. They're just firm on absolute prohibition. they is They say it's incompatible with a society that respects animal sentience.
01:20:19
Speaker
I'm the same as Paul that I did vote for this Labour government. Me too, I did. I really felt that there was an non alternative. And here in the UK, I do feel there's an alternative now. and I do feel positive. So Kate, you've brought us a positive story. You've brought us the positivity. Now, speaking of positivity, I want to tell all our listeners about...
01:20:43
Speaker
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01:21:16
Speaker
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01:21:38
Speaker
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01:22:04
Speaker
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01:22:14
Speaker
Thank you everyone for listening um and holding out thus far for the happy ending story. Hooray! So the next Enough of the Falafel episode will be coming out on the 23rd of April and it will be a vegan talk episode with Ant, Dominic and Shane discussing open rescue, good or bad. Anyway, that's enough of the falafel for this episode. Thank you, Paul. And thank you, Kate, for your contributions. And thank you, everyone, for listening. I've been Dominic and you've been listening to Vegan Week from the Enough of the Falafel Collective.
01:22:57
Speaker
This has been an Enough of the Falafel production. We're just a normal bunch of everyday vegans putting our voices out there. The show is hosted by Zencaster.
01:23:08
Speaker
We use music and special effects by zapsplap.com. And sometimes, if you're lucky, at the end of an episode, you'll hear a poem by Mr Dominic Berry. Thanks all for listening and see you next time.
01:23:38
Speaker
This episode may have come to an end, but did you know we've got a whole archive containing all our shows dating back to September 2023? twenty three That is right, Dominic. There's over 100 episodes on there featuring our brilliant range of different guests, people's stories of going vegan, philosophical debates, moral quandaries, and of course...
01:23:59
Speaker
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01:24:14
Speaker
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