About the subject

About animal welfare

Animals are our fellow creatures. They have eyes like us, they feel pain, desire and joy as we do and they are – as in the case of so-called pets – often our most faithful friends and dearest companions.

People’s relationship to animals is very different from culture to culture. In India, for example, vegetarianism and yoga are very widespread, and a vegetarian diet is part of the original yoga path. 

Germany is well known for its traditionally good animal welfare. However, this is also greatly in need of improvement, especially as the modern large-scale farms do not (have to) pay the slightest attention to real animal welfare. But in an international comparison, awareness of the necessity of animal protection and a sensitive treatment of animals on the part of the “average citizen” is doubtless in one of the first places. 

In China animal welfare is still greatly in need of improvement, to express it mildly. There even cats and dogs are caught and stolen sometimes – not in the whole of China but only in some provinces – and killed in the most cruel way so as to serve as a culinary delight for some wealthy Chinese. (Besides China there are also some other countries where cats and dogs are killed and eaten.) But in China there are also very committed people full of sympathy for these abused and oppressed creatures and who campaign for improvements in this field. You can find more about this under the link “China“.

At this point, it should be mentioned that this campaign was initiated by Chinese people who had asked the leader of this campaign, Frank Woeckel for support in their work for animal welfare. It was only in response to these requests that this campaign was started by Frank Woeckel in the first place, originally with the specific purpose of assisting the animal welfare activists in China in their work for basic improvements in this field in the whole of society. You can find a report about the support that Frank Woeckel has given the animal welfare activists in China on the website www.consultant4politics.com. 

In a comparison of religions, Buddhism probably comes off best with regard to animal welfare, and vegetarianism is certainly also the most widespread with Buddhists, too. There are also many other religious groups, particularly in India, that do not cause any harm to animals. And in Christianity as well there exist at least single groups and churches which welcome and promote a vegetarian diet and animal welfare.

With this campaign we wish to motivate people to treat our fellow creatures – animals - with more empathy. We are addressing all peoples and religions in the world in this matter.

    

We wholeheartedly ask you to develop more empathy, more mercy and love particularly for the creatures that are almost helplessly exposed to our whims. Nobody is perfect and almost everybody sometimes has a bad day when they are not so loving towards others. What counts, however, is your sincere effort to work on yourself in this respect.

Our appeal is also addressed to those who slaughter animals: please at least do this in such a way that the animal suffers as little pain as possible.

We ask all those who believe that they have to slaughter an animal without an anaesthetic for “religious” reasons the following question: do you really believe that a benevolent and loving God expects you to cause unnecessary pain to a fellow creature, when you believe that you are allowed to kill it? Don’t you also think that it is better for a religion’s reputation to keep its ritual practices free of such cruelty to defenceless creatures? Don’t you agree with me that a pure lifestyle includes refraining from unnecessary violence?

You can make a contribution to the ending of this cruelty by becoming a vegetarian and at least no longer eating anything from animals that have been killed. In this way you can reduce your personal share of guilt in such brutal slaughtering methods and the pain this causes to animals.

However, it is not our intention to explicitly pillory individual religions and cultures but we merely wish to motivate you to bring about improvements, as practicably possible, in your religion and in your region.

A very widespread problem worldwide, which so-called animal welfare organisations are often completely silent about, is smoking around animals. Animals, just like humans, suffer major damage to their health from passive smoking.

It is our concern that besides non-smoker protection for human beings animals should also be effectively protected from cigarette smoke. From this example of extensive protection from enforced smoking we can clearly see that animal welfare is also human welfare and that human welfare can at the same time be animal welfare! You can find more about the subject of passive smoking on the website www.passivesmoking.org.

In this sense we wish you much love, empathy, sensitivity, and good inspiration in your commitment to more respectful behaviour towards animals and also towards each other.