After long absence . . . debate!

I have been on a much-enjoyed vacation, but this article convinced me to come back to blogging (at least for now).

You see, with Farm Sanctuary being in Watkins Glen and my DVM alma mater being only 1 hour away, I treated some of these rescued animals as a vet student. They got extraordinary treatment -- months of PT for a calf, radiation therapy for a goat, exploratory surgery for a pig -- at extraordinary cost. People sponsored many of these animals, sending in money each month to ensure they never had to die without the finest of treatment. Many ran up bills in the thousands of dollars and up.

What are you people thinking????

For the money spent on cancer therapy for that goat, I'm guessing 20 families in Africa could have been provided with milk goats that would be loved, cared for, and given happy lives (while feeding the members of said families). For the surgery on the pig (which resulted in euthanasia due to an untreatable problem), 10 children in SE Asia could have been sent to school from the proceeds of a pig-raising operation. When did animals rank above humans?

I am concerned about animal welfare, and I believe the article makes some excellent points about the need to work together despite differences of philosophy, but I think groups like Farm Sanctuary have their priorities skewed.

This weekend, my parents and I had a goat roast for a group of my international friends. One member of the group who couldn't come emailed me, concerned about goat slaughter methods in Muslim communities. This is a reasonable concern (although proper halal slaughter is quite humane). My issue is with people who consider animals before people.

In my book, kids eat first.