Hope Bohanec (vegan): Guardian of Animal-People and the Environment, Part 2 of 2

Compassionate Living is also a key driver of the Humane Hoax Project, a collaborative effort of activists and educators working to raise awareness of the “humane-washing” tactics being used by the livestock industry. Based on peer-reviewed studies, slaughterhouse workers’ accounts, and her own in-person investigations, Hope delves into the deceptions behind labels such as “grass-fed, “cage-free,” “free-range,” “pasture-raised,” “local,” “natural,” “family-run,” “alternative,” “sustainable,” “certified humane” and “organic.” The “humane-washing” actually leads to worse suffering for the living beings. Joy A. Mench, professor of animal science at the University of California Davis, has found that “cage-free” chicken-people are less healthy and tend to die at twice the rate of their more confined hen-sisters.

Hope discusses this in a speech she gave at Arizona State University, USA in 2018: “When I was researching for the book, I had veterinarians confide in me that they were seeing cows with the worst stages of mastitis, in severe pain at milking on the organic farms, because they’re not giving them the medications they need. So, these labels, they can be even worse.”

In her speeches and presentations, Hope often reveals a little-known fact about the contribution of fish-people to climate change mitigation: “So, how this works is that when there's billions of fish in the ocean, as there has been for billions of years, naturally, the fish droppings create a carbon sink. All of the droppings draw carbon from the atmosphere, becomes a carbon sink. Because we've done such massive fishing, there's not as much fish droppings, and it's actually hastening global warming.”

We will now conclude our show with a quote from Ms. Bohanec’s book “The Ultimate Betrayal: Is There Happy Meat?” that points to the taking of life as the “ultimate betrayal”: “Discomfort with animal suffering leads to the inescapable conclusion that one should not participate in the killing. And non-participation largely implies not providing financial support to these businesses.”