A viral video from southwest China captures the heart-wrenching
moment a pig
races to aid a friend who is about to be slaughtered.
The incredibly powerful clip shows two men pinning a panicked,
squealing pig down on a bench. A second pig rushes in and frees the first pig
from the bench. This heroic pig squeals, bites, and rams into a worker’s legs. Then
the two pig friends stand close together, trying to scare the men from killing
them.
While details about what followed this harrowing rescue
attempt are unreported, this video is further proof that animals are not only
intelligent but empathetic. In fact, countless videos show animals helping each
other in times of crisis. Consider this video of a
dog helping a friend struggling against rushing water.
There’s so much more to animals than we know. Each year
scientists make groundbreaking discoveries pointing to greater similarities
between humans and nonhuman animals than differences. Take this recent
article from Smithsonian magazine
on fish and their ability to feel pain.
Pigs and other farmed animals are sensitive and friendly
just like the dogs and cats we adore at home. Despite this, the meat industry
treats them as mere objects.
When they’re as young as 10 days old, piglets are taken from
their mothers and have their tails cut off, their teeth clipped, and their
testicles ripped out without any painkillers. And piglets who are too sick or
not growing fast enough are gruesomely killed by being slammed
headfirst onto concrete floors or tossed into overcrowded gassing carts where
they slowly suffocate from CO2. Surviving piglets are packed together into
filthy pens.
While pigs in nature live for about 15 years, at
factory farms they are selectively bred to grow extremely fast, reaching
slaughter size in just six months. Sows are repeatedly impregnated and confined
in gestation crates—barren metal cages so small the animals are unable to turn
around.
After a life of misery, pigs are brutally killed by being
hoisted upside down and having their throats cut.
If this video teaches us one thing, it should be that no
animal wants to die. And if the story of these two pigs protecting each other touches
you but you’re still consuming animal products, it’s time you aligned your food
choices with your values.
Choose compassion and leave pigs and all animals off your
plate. Click here to get started. And check out
our Pinterest page for thousands of recipe ideas!