BY
Dear Editor:
The “Save Toby” website has sparked outrage among people appalled at its threats to kill the bunny for dinner (“Save Toby” 3/24/05). And it appears that some people have even been compassionate enough (or unintelligent enough, as Katz suggests) to donate money to save Toby. We don’t often think about it, but thousands of cows, pigs and chickens equally deserving of life (though not as cute and fuzzy as Toby) are abused and killed for our dinner plates every day.
Animals on factory farms are denied everything that is natural to them. Warehoused in tiny cages or filthy feedlots, they become lame and depressed. Workers cut off their horns, tails and beaks without anesthetics. Their deaths are far from painless – because slaughterhouse workers are forced to work so quickly, many animals are improperly stunned and are skinned or boiled alive.
Each of us can save animals – not by sending someone extortion money, but by making the intelligent, healthy and humane decision to go vegetarian.
The website GoVeg.com offers free recipes, meat-free cooking tips and extortion-free pictures of cute animals.
Sincerely,Stephen C. Young ’00