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Welcome
Welcome to c/[email protected]. Broadly, this community is a place to discuss veganism. Discussion on intersectional topics related to the animal rights movement are also encouraged.
What is Veganism?
'Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals ...'
— abridged definition from The Vegan Society
Rules
The rules are subject to change, especially upon community feedback.
- Discrimination is not tolerated. This includes speciesism.
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Resources on Veganism
A compilation of many vegan resources/sites in a Google spreadsheet:
Here are some documentaries that are recommended to watch if planning to or have recently become vegan:
- You Will Never Look at Your Life in the Same Way Again
- Dominion (2018) (CW: gore, animal abuse)
Vegan Fediverse
Lemmy:
Mastodon:
Other Vegan Communities
General Vegan Comms
Circlejerk Comms
Vegan Food / Cooking
Debate a Vegan
Attribution
- Banner image credit: Jean Weber of INRA on Wikimedia Commons
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I'm pretty certain that they're hiding these carnist diseases from the public for the most part.
Anecdotally I was out running once when I came across several trashbags full of dead chickens (scattered around by coyotes). They looked sick. I'm pretty sure the carnists were dumping them to avoid the legal ramifications (eg. culling). The whole system is destroying the planet overtly and probably going to create repeated pandemics in the meantime.
There's downplaying by individual organizations (e.g., farms), federal agencies, and the media (who fail to connect the dots between avian flu in chickens and cow 'livestock' and the prices of eggs, milk, and meat).
What's happening in zoos interests me, as it's kind of the gold standard of biosafety as far as non-human animal enterprises go. There are experts and protocols there, and there aren't anti-transparency laws, as there are for non-human animal agriculture (the ag-gag laws).
In other words, if non-human animals are getting sick at zoos, then risks are almost certainly inadequately controlled in other areas,
If you're suspicions about the trashbags full of dead chickens you saw are correct, the humans who kept those chickens are helping spread avian flu to the local coyote population
Im not discounting the comment OP's observation, but I think it's also important to consider the inevitability of an outbreak like this in light of invasive species, non-species, and not-so-genetically diverse farm animals.
What's often missed by the lay-folks is that there's plenty of wildlife that is capable of contracting and transmitting these diseases. Sure, many zoos have intense quarantine protocols, but if zoo animals have any overlap with local wildlife, they are potentially exposed to disease. Many zoos (at least that I can think of) do not keep out local wildlife—be it pigeons, house sparrows, or squirrels.
Bags of chickens from a local, shitty farmer trying to get rid of sick birds? Possible, if a little conspiratorial. Ubiquitous wild animals interacting with zoo animals and livestock? Probably a little more likely (at least to me).
Source: me, I'm a biologist, albeit not a disease ecologist.
So, obviously I'm not suggesting that the garbage bags of deceased chickens OP commenter saw on a jog are a primary driver of the spread of avian flu across the world/NA.
Wildlife X captive non-human animal interactions are critical links in the transmission of avian flu. Hotbeds of mass-contained immunologically naive non-human animals (e.g., factory farms) play an important role in mutation and spread as well.
The big picture is that with the increasing threat of pandemic-scale zoonotic disease we need, at minimum, stricter biosecurity in industrial non-human animal agriculture. It is an industry that contributes the greatest zoonotic risk. However, it is also industry that litigiously shields itself from oversight (i.e., ag-gag laws) and has a ton of $$$ lobby power. Also, the incoming US administration couldn't look more incompetent
Less non-human animal agriculture would be even better
I think I agree with you in general. My point is more that we tend to forget that wild animals are among us everywhere and we really do need to take care to be aware of that, but maybe I didn't communicate that well.