Published Letters and Op-Eds from COK’s Writers Group

Fight for rights of every kind of animal

Sidelines
March 21, 2010

Thank you for featuring Pearl Howell’s insights on the recent incident at SeaWorld ("Animals should roam in natural environment," Sidelines, Mar. 3).

The incident sparked a national debate about how we treat animals in America. But the reality of it is that Tilikum is one victim of animal abuse out of more than 10 billion. 

According to the USDA, almost 10 billion animals were raised for food in 2008 in America, and that number doesn’t even
include seafood.

On modern factory farms, egg-laying hens are kept in extremely small battery cages. Pigs are kept in gestation crates so small they can’t even turn around. Milking cows are repeatedly and artificially impregnated and hooked up to milking machines. 

With such intense production, many animals die before even reaching the slaughterhouse.

The average person wouldn’t do this to a whale or a dog, so why do we pay people three times a day – every time we eat – to do this to other animals? If we want to have a real discussion about how we treat animals in our society, we ought to talk about the way our food is raised. To learn more, visit TryVeg.com.

Kenny Torrella
Senior Mass Communication Major