Why Animals Matter: The Case for Animal Protection by Erin E. Williams, Margo DeMello

Product Details

Synopsis

Our treatment of animals in modern America is full of contradictions. Pets are a beloved feature of most American households, many enjoying the most luxurious food and accessories, and reveling in the love and companionship from their human families. At the same time, animals raised for food or clothing, or used for medical experiments and product testing, often live painful, lonely lives in small cages from birth to death. And wild animals suffer in other ways-losing their lives as their habitats disappear, being hunted for trophies, and finding themselves removed from their homes for the exotic pet trade.
Why Animals Matter: The Case for Animal Protection offers a concise yet complete overview of the problems of animal suffering, linking them to larger issues of human and environmental exploitation. Authors Erin E. Williams and Margo DeMello examine industries that exploit animals-meat processing companies and agribusinesses; medical experimentation and cosmetic testing facilities; the entertainment industry (circuses, rodeos, zoos, racing, and film making); the pet industry; the fur and leather industry; and commercial and recreational activities centered on hunting. The authors also consider the adverse environmental effects of animal exploitation from pollution to deforestation and the depletion of biodiversity. In addition, they look at the connections between the poor treatment of animals and human exploitation of immigrants, slaughterhouse and farm workers, as well as the larger issues of globalization, hunger, and the negative consequences for Third World nations.
Highly informative yet very reader-friendly, this book not only explores the connections betweenanimal and human suffering, but also integrates solid information with positive case studies of rescued animals and inspiring stories of individual successes.

Publishers Weekly

Animal experts Williams (who works for the Humane Society) and DeMello (Stories Rabbits Tell) deliver an excellent look at cruelty to animals on an institutional level in various industries, taking a "common sense perspective" and revealing many disturbing facts that could turn the most ardent meat eater into a hard-core vegetarian. The meat industry gets their toughest scrutiny: the authors show that while nearly 10 billion land animals are raised and killed for food each year in the U.S., "there are virtually no laws that protect them from the worst abuse." Williams and DeMello also vividly describe how more than 95% of the nation's 300 million egg-laying hens spend their entire lives—only 12 to 18 months—"crammed into barren, wire battery cages" where they lack the space to walk and spread their wings. Further, our turkeys are produced by artificial insemination using a sucking device that collects semen from males and then forcibly injects it into females. They are also equally hard on other industries, like cosmetics, textiles and the large commercial pet breeders who sell animals "well before weaning age" to outlets like Petco, Petsmart and Petland. This is a tough but fair-minded revelation of how mass production of animals for food and other purposes results in cruelty that usually remains hidden from sight. Photos. (June)

Biography

Erin E. Williams (Silver Spring, MD) works for the Humane Society of the United States.

Margo DeMello (Placitas, NM) is a lecturer at Central New Mexico Community College, administrative director of the House Rabbit Society, and the author of Low-Carb Vegetarian, Stories Rabbits Tell, and Bodies of Inscription.