“There’s so much pain in the world that we are powerless over, but being party to animal suffering is not one of them,” says Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix in his new PETA campaign. He’s encouraging fans to do their part to stop cruelty to animals and, as his new ad states, “Change the World From Your Kitchen. Go Vegan.”
Sitting at his own kitchen table in an accompanying video, Phoenix shows viewers the cruelty birds endure on factory farms, saying, “It’s easy to escape personal responsibility by actively avoiding the truth. But I hope you will join me in rejecting animal cruelty … [and] explore the many benefits of being vegan.”
The video – which includes footage from Australia and around the world – reveals the widespread abuse of laying hens. Birds are crammed by the tens of thousands into dark, filthy sheds and are never allowed to see the light of day. They often lose their feathers because of the high levels of ammonia and the stress from the extreme noise, stench, and confinement.
Whistle-blower footage from an egg farm in Warwick, Queensland, released by PETA last week shows chickens in cramped cages who are forced to live amid their own waste and the corpses of their flockmates.
Even on so-called “free-range” or “organic” farms, these curious, social animals – who, in nature, spend their time foraging, exploring, and taking dust baths – are often prevented from engaging in natural behaviour. And when their worn-out bodies can no longer produce enough eggs to be profitable, they’re sent to slaughter, typically to be turned into “low-grade” meat.
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview.
Each person who goes vegan saves the lives of nearly 200 animals each year. For more information, please visit PETA.org.au.
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