I just finished watching this

Yes, the scene with the fur being taken from the live fox was by far the most disturbing image I think I've ever seen of animal cruelty, but when you add to this all the others, how can you not be moved?

We need to make some pretty fundamental changes to how we view animals and the world.

I suppose the objective of this film was to turn people away from using animals. Well, after viewing the documentary, my views have changed very little. I still have no qualms about eating meat and having pets. I personally don't care for wearing animal fur/hide, but I wouldn't condemn those who do (I was a little sad for the live wolf who was skinned alive though). I feel the same way about using animals for entertainment and science as well. My only gripe would be about being wasteful, like overfishing in the world, or killing an animal for it's hide but not eating it's flesh.


Also, after seeing the unsanitary conditions of slaughterhouses and how sometimes the people are tricked by false labeling (telling people they are eating whale when they are really consuming dolphin meat), I'm a bit more interested in hunting and fishing for my own meat. At least I'd have better knowledge of what I'm eating instead of blindly trusting the packages in supermarket shelves.

I haven't seen this movie, but some other clips before that showed somewhat the same.
In China they throw streetcats in hot oil while they are alive, and take them out a few seconds later and ripped the fur of while the cat was still alive.

I am not a vegetarian, because i believe it is not a bad thing to eat it under
certain conditions, but it is a bad thing on how those animals are being threated and killed for it!!

Ofcourse if someone is a vegetarian or vegan, good on them!
But i also believe in other options, for people that choose not to become a
vegetarian. When i eat meat, i eat only meat from
farms that let there animals walk around freely on the land and are being fed with healthy food so the animal does not suffer for my benefit.
I have, however, deceided, that i don't eat meat from fastfood restaurants like KFC, who are known for treating those animals like *beep* They are missformed and
only breed and kept alive for us to eat.

The same with makeup. For example: I only wear makeup that is not tested on animals.
The main problem is that sooo many people are not aware of the other options.

That's what needs to be changed. I am not more important than an animal, and animals deserve to be threated better!!!

(sorry about any spelling mistakes. I'm Dutch)

"China: at a fur farm, an animal that looks like a fox or canine-like animal is cut, it's fur jerked off by a man. There's a close-up of the animal without it's face and then it blinks and starts to shake. It was STILL ALIVE when the fur was taken off. "

Yes, I've also seen this video on PETAs site. While I don't support PETA at all, I DO believe that, if EVER were to encounter the people who do this sort of thing, I'd say I'd beat them within an inch of their lives with their own flailing limbs. There is no excuse for such behavior.

I eat meat. I LOVE meat. Nothing will ever make me vegetarian (unless something makes me sick and...well, yeah, we all know how that works out). BUT, if I'm going to eat something, I want to know that it didn't SUFFER.

LIONS kill stuff in less painful ways than these guys. I mean, come on! It's FUR, it doesn't have to be FRESH.

EDIT: I'm going to add a little more to this.

I am a hunter. I use that term loosely since I haven't been in probably five years. Hunting for pleasure is something I never did. If I killed something, I made damn sure it died quickly and wasn't wasted. The only thing I've ever brought down was dove. I will admit, sometimes you can shoot a bird, bring it to the ground, and not kill it. At this point, you are left with the sole responsibility of taking it's life quickly and painlessly. I never liked doing this with my hands, but I know I must. I HATE animal suffering.

I like animals more than I like people, I guess. :-\

I couldn't go thru all 3 pages of replies but I want to state that even after seeing these atrocities I do eat meat. We have harvested animals for a long time, they have been part of our diets for a long time. Not knocking vegetarianism - not at all.

But as a person who enjoys meat I do my best to buy products from the right companies. I do not eat fast food meats, I do not buy my eggs/milk/meat of any old brand. Cage free eggs, small town dairy farms (which my grocer supplies) & we buy our own cattle which is raised on organic feed and allowed to roam the hills.

Killing an animal is always painful to watch. That is why I am not a hunter or a farmer. An animal doesn't NEED to be skinned alive, an animal does not NEED to be beat. If you buy from the correct resources you are cutting out voluntary cruelty. If you don't want to give up a food you love - do research.

I agree that the scene with an animal that was still alive after it's fur was taken off was totally shocking. I think the poor thing was a raccoon dog. It was alive, scared, conscious and trying to move. This scene (like many others I saw in Earthlings) will be haunting my mind forever...
They do this sick fuqqin' thing, because it makes the fur quality better when it's taken off the alive animal.

I consider myself a very rational person, very much on the side of logic, research and skepticism. However, now, when I'm getting older, I've come to the conclusion that what Milan Kundera wrote in The Unbearable Lightness of Being is one of the most profound statements ever written about the human condition, and how we have created, in many cases, a hell on Earth:

Humanity's true moral test, its fundamental test, consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect humankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.

I also just finished watching this film and I must say: this is the most horrific film I've ever seen! Because it's real, unlike ordinary horror movies (my favorite genre).

Like so many others that commented in this thread, I had trouble seeing the whole thing. I almost had to force myself. Even though "ignorance is bliss" it's certainly not a good thing in many cases and definitely not in this one. I agree this film should be mandatory material in schools, although I doubt many children will have the stomach for it (no pun intended).

There are some topics here that require a bit of attention/debate...

There is a comparison with the carnivorous animal world and how, for example, lions kill for food. First of all: non-human animals kill only out of the need for food or survival (though I remember seeing a scene where bulls kill a lion, seemingly out of revenge, but I suppose survival had something to do with it as well). Secondly: if an animal is killed, nothing of it will go to waste. One animal will usually feed a whole group, after which pray birds will pick up left-overs and after that there are still insects taking care of the rest, until there's almost literally nothing left.

However, there are, indeed, numerous cases where animals do not kill quickly. Like someone mentioned, killer whales like to play with their food. Some animals even start eating before killing their pray. And there are many other examples. Nobody claimed nature is not cruel. But still: it's only for food or survival.

The way humans handle this whole process is with complete lack of respect for other living creatures (which, I believe, was one of the main points of this film). Humans have a one-track mind and only care about one thing and one thing only: profit. Profit with complete and utter disregard for any other factors. As long as something is cheaper than an alternative, the alternative will always be ignored. No matter what. It's really that simple. The whole problem is mass production, overpopulation, growing consumption and of course utter ignorance...

Sure, we humans use meat for food as well, just like non-human animals. But there are other ways to go about this. "Less suffering" is not the way: there is still animal suffering. There are humane alternatives to many of the stuff you see in this film. A few examples:

- Cow milking robots exist and are being used (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHJTTVlt4lY). These things are quite smart and can keep track of the cows, amount of milk they give, when they need to be milked, what kind of milk they produce, etc. Doesn't need _any_ human intervention and can be monitored remotely (in case of failure). Great stuff, or at least a huge leap forward from what is shown in the film.

- Before taking a pet, read a book about it. Realize dogs and cats can live up to 10-15 years, sometimes even longer.

- Neuter your pet(s).

- If you cannot keep your pet, for whatever reason, don't bring it to an animal shelter (where it will be killed, most likely), but try to find a new home yourself or at least make sure it's a no-kill shelter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-kill_shelter). Use the internet!

- Eat less meat and, if you can, no meat at all.

- Think before you buy something (never a bad thing, in general).

- If you want to go to a circus, go to Cirque du Soleil (http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/), where no animals are abused. If you want to see wild animals, go on a safari. Wild animals jumping hoops... nothing natural about that.

In most if not all cases technology and common sense is the answer.

What about biological food? What guarantee do you have that it really is biological? I always get the feeling you're buying yourself a clean conscious and nothing else. Remember the Dolphin meat labeled as Whale meat?

And then there is the issue about Whale hunting and the actions that Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd and others try to prevent this from happening. It's a good cause, but in my humble opinion it does not help. Problems like this need to be tracked to the origin, in this case the companies behind the whaling. This comes to show that making laws does not help, because in the end it's all about the money.

Just like we frown today at gladiatorial combat, I hope that some day we'll wonder what the hell we were doing to all those animals...

Sorry for this being slightly lengthy, but there's one thing I can't stand and that's animal suffering!

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webtweakers