Vet school at Onderstepoort thrust me directly into the therapeutic heart of animal exploitation, still convinced that meat was the most essential component of our diet, and that animals needed to be kept healthy and fertile on farms to ensure a continuous supply.
During early childhood I gathered a menagerie of wounded and abandoned wild and domestic animals who somehow found their way to me for healing. They were my best friends. My passion for restoring their wellness became my vocation as a vet. This genuine care-giving juxtaposed with my atavistic cognitive dissonance around carnism still haunts me, but it also helps me to empathise with others who’re stuck in that rut. Curiously from about age five I nurtured a garden where I grew vegetables, guavas, papayas, avocados and bananas for me and my family. I would also go foraging for great Makauwa mushrooms in nearby grasslands after the rains, and I knew which berries to eat from indigenous trees where I could be found having taboo conversations with charming snakes that inhabited them.
A defining incident occurred in my childhood that blurred the line between friends and food. My one legged pet rooster called Hop-a-long and I were inseparable. One afternoon I came home from school to find him on the top shelf of the fridge, headless and plucked naked, with his single drumstick pointing upwards. I can’t remember exactly what happened next, except that I was made to eat his flesh. Reluctant as I was to eat meat at the best of times, a dull resignation took hold that certain animals were pets, and others were food. It would be best not to make friends with the latter and safer to maintain my emotional distance, a ploy both protective and destructive that turned out to be all pervading for quite a long time.
At the outset of my veterinary career I realised the limits to modern medicine and began to study complementary therapies and nutrition. My growing awareness of holism in the approach to health and dis-ease began to encompass integrated mind, body, and soul considerations. I felt a need to strengthen my connection with Earth to seek healing and gain a more direct experience of interconnectedness in the cycle of life.
I left the city of London where I’d been living for a fast-paced decade and returned to South Africa to pursue a dream of self-sufficient living on the farm that lured me to the Great Karoo. I set out to create an extensive permaculture garden, which traditionally involves various animal models in a biodiverse system. I’d been consuming far less meat but I was immersed somewhat blindly in the free-range/organic/humane slaughter mindset when it came to animal agriculture. I decided that if I was to continue to eat animals, I’d have to raise and find the courage to slaughter them myself rather than get someone else to do it for me. I duly acquired a clutch of day-old koek-koek chicks that thrived in their ‘chicken tractor’, and soon became adolescents.
One morning I was horrified to discover all the cockerels raping a distraught pullet they had pinned to the ground. I took it as my dreaded cue to slaughter the unnamed cockerels and to keep the pullets for eggs. The carnage that ensued left me with a dozen corpses and revulsion that viscerally turned me off eating flesh, which I had the liberty, knowledge and confidence to do. I cringe relating that part but I think it serves to illustrate how someone can claim to be a so-called ‘animal lover’ and yet actively engage in violence that is deemed ‘necessary’ for whatever reason they’ve been convinced.
In my professional life I continued to kill animals somewhat uneasily, on request, only for what I considered to be humane reasons, in order to relieve ‘unnecessary suffering’ where nothing else could be done otherwise. I still question that assumed right to decide, although I always ask for permission from the patient and won’t proceed if it’s not granted. ‘First do no harm’ can be interpreted in so many ways. My journey became understanding the meaning of compassion.
My next lesson occurred well into the free-range egg scenario. I wandered down to the mobile hen house at dawn and accessed the nests through little flaps where the eggs could be reached conveniently from the outside. As I reached for the last golden egg, a furious mother came flapping at me in a squawking rage. She pecked my hand so hard that she split skin and blood trickled between my fingers. In that moment of surprise my simple act of egg collection had clearly become theft, and a source of conflict and misery. One of the strongest driving forces in a hen is the desire to procreate, and I was casually thwarting their daily struggle to find maternal fulfilment. I would never eat another egg.
My mind was evolving gradually, yet irrevocably towards a higher level of consciousness, but I still had a way to go: I was vegetarian for the cheese! I knew the story of dairy too well but I hadn’t yet transcended the exploitation barrier and I still thought that there were humane ways of obtaining milk while allowing mother and child to be together. How we cling to our habits! I located a local free-range dairy and approached the farmer about writing a story for my One-Small-Step column in the local newspaper that featured articles about treading lightly and sourcing local, organic, free-range food. Upon arrival at the farm I saw a group of calves held in an enclosure to one side calling pitifully to their mothers lining up to be milked about fifty metres away. The cows were answering their babies but they were barred, resigned to wait for the milking machine to relieve the discomfort of their full udders dripping milk into the hot dust. At that moment, more than anything else about the whole sorry dairy industry, it was the indignity of the slavery, forcing gracious mothers to queue up to be milked, all the while pining for their distraught calves, which suddenly struck me as degrading for both man and bovine. For what? A splash of milk in tea, yoghurt, and smelly cheese, none of which humans actually need, and they’re neither nutritious nor healthy. I was given a complimentary bag of cheeses, which I politely refused, and said. ‘I’m sorry I don’t eat cheese.’
Something major had shifted in the way I perceived animals. I’d transcended trauma and crossed a threshold where I could surrender and respond to powerful feelings of empathy rather than justify or intellectualise their use. I fully understood sentience, exploitation, and the right for animals not to be treated as things or property. I joyfully embraced veganism and became an outspoken advocate for compassion towards all living beings. I dispensed with leather shoes, belts, jacket, woollen jumpers, down duvets, persian rugs, and feather dusters. The inconsistencies in the generally accepted narrative became glaring. I was the change I wanted to see in the world.
Better alternatives for products of animal origin became apparent: plant protein from soy, tempeh, and tofu, chickpeas, beans, lentils, quinoa, nuts, seeds; fabrics from hemp and cotton to recycled plastic; aquafaba, cashew nut cream, coconut yoghurt and jackfruit. My horizons extended to include a vastly broader, more tasteful array of culinary experiences. My farm transitioned to a vegan/non-violence/ahimsa education centre where vegan curious people could visit, stay, learn to grow food veganically, prepare fabulous meals, and get over their fear of veganism. I became better versed in the concept and practice of interspecies communication. My approach to my vocation improved dramatically as I was no longer prepared to support animal exploitation. My focus shifted towards using my skills for the advancement of higher regard for animals, and ultimately their liberation. I became more vociferous about normalised routine cruelty towards animals such as tail docking, castration, dehorning, confinement, lack of shade provision, and especially the barbaric use of poisons and gin traps used for predator annihilation. I proffered more humane solutions, even though I really wanted to create a vegan world. As long as animals are held captive, their incremental welfare is paramount, yet this approach is futile as far as the vision of realising their rights to freedom is concerned.
Recently I was deeply touched by something Deena Metzger said ‘Recognise and withdraw from the place that breaks your heart and causes much pain...you will inevitably go towards the opposite to create joy and beauty.’ This echoes the motto I’d adopted from Buckminster Fuller ‘You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, create a new model that makes the old model obsolete.’
In 2019 I attended the Elephant Indaba hosted by the EMS Foundation, which attracted elephant experts from all over the world to address the crisis of Elephants in captivity. Each contributor illuminated different aspects of Elephants’ plight, but what really broke my heart was hearing about the number of elephants kept in virtual solitary confinement all over the world: officially ninety six unimaginably lonely lives, that we know about. I felt the hundred fold pain grip my chest. This was something that I could not ignore. I vowed to get involved and do whatever I could to free these unfortunate souls, and to actively help bring about the end of keeping animals in captivity. This mission requires a collaborative effort with others who’ve dedicated skills necessary to accomplish the common goal. Striving to free the biggest land animal that apparently suffers more than most, makes sense to me. Hence my involvement with PREN (Pro Elephant Network) that was established in the wake of the Indaba.
I believe animals have shown me who they are, and the rift between who I am and who I claim to be. How to walk my talk. Animals have taught me about love and respect, and to understand our niches as living beings with inherent value finding our way towards greater harmony in this miraculous universe. I am an instrument of this peace.
No Comments