Animal husbandry has been a human occupation for at least 10,000 years. Humans have used animals for a variety of purposes since then including food, materials for clothing, hunting, biological science, etc.
For food consumption in 2013, American meat companies produced:
For food consumption in 2013, American meat companies produced:
- 25.8 billion pounds of beef
- 23.2 billion pounds of pork
- 5.8 billion pounds of turkey
- 286 million pounds of veal, lamb and mutton
- 38.4 billion pounds of chicken
The U.S. exported 1.7 billion metric tons of beef and beef variety meat in 2014 valued at $807 billion USD.
According to this 0.5% of the US population consumes no meat and about 3.2% are vegetarians consuming some animal products.
I think it's safe to say that animals and the products they produce is a significant element in US if not world culture.
Sadly these facts and, presumably, the knowledge about the industries they support (a trillion with a 'T' in exports) are lost on today's youth: for example, one in three youths in the UK don't know where bacon, eggs or milk come from.
The scale of this ignorance, at least in the UK though its hard to imagine its different here in the US, is beyond imagination.
Just google: "adults don't know where food comes from us" or any variant.
It's hard to imagine, without this knowledge, much is known about where food comes from in general or what the term "animals" really means.
(Yes, we all know zoo's are evil - animals should run free so poachers can freely kill them off to extinction.)
So why is this?
Quite honestly I hadn't thought much about it (beyond the general stupidity of snowflakes in general) until recently.
Last Saturday Mrs. Wolf and I witnessed a wonderful event. The live birth of a giraffe (for those who don't know what that is):
You can see the miracle of giraffe's giving birth here among other places. The calf above (here less than 12 hours old) was born Saturday morning at Animal Adventure Park (http://www.aprilthegiraffe.com/ and http://theanimaladventurepark.com/) located at Animal Adventure Park, 85 Martin Hill Road, Harpursville, NY 13787.
April the giraffe, the mother, became quite famous prior to the birth.
In any case Mrs. Wolf had been watching the "giraffe feed" for some time. Saturday morning I got up and, as was the usual case for a few days prior to the birth, checked the feed.
"No hooves" (trigger warning - see if you can figure out what that means!)
About 30 minutes later Mrs. Wolf's phone goes off with a "Hoof Alert." Mrs. Wolf came running in and sure enough there were hooves. A few hours later we watched the birth live on Mrs. Wolf's iPad.
Absolutely fascinating process to watch live.
So what does this have to do with the ignorance of snowflakes (and adults) regarding "animals" in general?
All the while Mrs. Wolf watched the giraffe she was on a number of "live feed" sites which offered a variety of "chats."
Mostly Mrs. Wolf, a championship dog breeder, mother of four and participatory grandmother of eight, just liked the idea of watching an animal, which few people really know anything about, give birth. (She loved watching the baby kick, the mother's reaction, and so on. Mrs. Wolf delivered a number of puppy litters over the years among other "live births.")
Sadly, these "chats" were filled with the most vile and horrible comments (here are just a few):
- I hope the baby is stillborn.
- I hate this baby.
- This is too sexual in nature (from PETA).
- The giraffes are in jail.
- The giraffe is not pregnant.
- This is a scam.
- The baby will get hurt, make the mother lie down.
- The baby will die inside, they'll have to pull it out.
- Where's the vet, the mother needs help.
There were vast numbers of extraordinarily weird and/or negative comments.
Animal are just like humans in fur coats? Right...?
Mind you giraffes are endangered and the variety of zoo and animal park breeding programs here in the US are a good hedge to prevent their extinction.
But no matter...
One can see that helicopter mom clearly doesn't want little Suzy or Johnny to have any idea about the reality of animals. (Probably some weird feministic aspect of divorcing females from the knowledge of birth.)
No, little Johnny and Suzy better not see any live births, no, not at all. The cruel world is exploiting the nearly extinct giraffes for fun and profit. It's icky and gross to see animal sex, birth, nursing, etc.
"Oh my God!" they cried, "there's afterbirth on the floor!" "Where's the vet, it needs to be cleaned up!" "How dirty!" etc. etc. etc.
(Indeed, the calf weighs in at about 130lbs plus, no doubt, some twenty or more gallons of amniotic fluid. What do you think happens in the wild? The poor giraffe mother probably has lions and hyena's waiting literally waiting at her rear end. And don't tell helicopter mom that in the wild a giraffe calf has only about a 25% chance of surviving to adulthood.)
I remember being about 6 or 7 and my father taking me to a farm thing of some kind where they were demonstrating artificial insemination - probably around 1964 or so. The images are still firmly burned into my mind. Today he'd probably have to go to prison for scaring me like that...)
Note: We live in a house with about 400lbs of predator including 1" fangs and have for thirty years. Don't tell me about animals.
What better way to have a discussion about animals, food, reproduction, bonding, nesting, nursing, you name it.
But no, it would seem that this is far, far to overwhelming for the tiny, narrow blizzard mind to accept. Too real. Too scary. Too out of control.
The thought an animal could or would be happy in such a place is beyond them (watch April with here caretaker Alissa).
Side note: Giraffe mom does not like men (XY chromosomes) around the baby (that would by at the chromosome level - not your make up, size 24 pumps or pattern of dress). However, female caretaker Alissa is okay to touch and feed the baby. Seems momma giraffe (and dog momma's too for that matter) know the real difference between boys and girls.
(Ooops! It won't be possible to watch this any more because the loons spammed the parks email about the giraffe spraining its leg and the park is taking down the "live feed." I guess further ignorance will be the result.)
It's an animal, not a person.
It's actual life style in the wild would mostly consist of being eaten by predators or poached by poor Africans to make a buck.
Human's have been managing animals for a very long time.
I worked on a farm as a small boy.
Trust me, no modern snowflake has any idea where food comes from or how it's "made."
In any case April and her baby are doing well.
To bad that's not the case for little Suzy and Jonny - the'll never know where the idea for the stuffed giraffe at the indoor game center came from.
No comments:
Post a Comment