Animal activists are just peaceful citizens

To the editor:

I am writing in response to several news articles published about animal rights activists who are bearing witness at Atlantic Stockyard Ltd. in Truro. These articles failed to interview activists of the Nova Scotia Farm Animal Save.

Activists are peaceful citizens who simply want to bear witness to animals in captivity. We are not trying to cause trouble. We attend the auction to show love and compassion to the animals and document what their lives are like.

Baby calves so young they can barely walk are paraded around the auction ring while people laugh at them. How is this funny? This is not funny. This is heartbreaking and devastating. Yet this is called “standard practice” by the industry. This is not “standard practice,” this is animal abuse.

Comments on the Nova Scotia Farm Animal Save Facebook page reveal that people don’t see what happens at auctions as abuse. However, people must face the reality that animal auctions are abusive. Farming animals is abusive. It is captivity. It is slavery. It is violence. Animals do not want to be kept as pieces of property to be bought and sold, shipped, chained up, and murdered.

It is important that the public is made aware that violence against animals is not normal. We cannot ignore the reality of animal abuse that is happening in our own backyard. Activists want to help free animals from a life of abuse and help people recognize that this is not the way life has to be. People do not have to abuse animals to make a living.

I can only hope that that one day they won’t have to go through this any more. I will never stop fighting for animals. Cheryl Sobie,

Animal Rights Activist, Halifax