Each year, thousands of wild animals, including bears,
coyotes, and foxes, are killed because they’re considered a threat to the
livestock industry. In the United States alone, 2
million total wild animals are killed each year.
A new Wall
Street Journal article highlights the ill effects of cattle grazing on
bison living in and around Yellowstone National Park:
Government agencies aim to kill or remove up to 900 wild bison from Yellowstone National Park this winter as part of a continuing effort to reduce the animals’ annual migration into Montana by driving down their population.
Nine hundred represents more than 18 percent of the total
population of bison. The justifiable reason for this mass slaughter? According
to the article, it’s the bison’s potential “to compete with cattle for grazing
space on public lands outside the park.
While supporters of the slaughter are also concerned about the
risk of brucellosis, a zoonotic infection, the author explains that “there have
been no recorded brucellosis transmissions from bison to cattle.
To make matters worse, the cows the government is working so
hard to “protect are often treated as nothing more than meat-producing machines,
subjected to their own brutal slaughter.
Cows and the bison and other wildlife threatened by the meat
industry are just as worthy of compassion as the dogs and cats we cherish as
companions.
Luckily, we can all remove our support from this cruel
system by ditching meat in favor of healthy, humane alternatives.
Click here to
order your FREE Vegetarian Starter
Guide.