Chino Butcher Speaks Out for the Rights of Animals

Working here in an agricultural community and reading the letters back and forth on animal experimentation I have been seeing a lot of self-righteousness flying with them. I would like to add some of my own.

Nobody who lives close to the land and who has butchered animals for her own table, as I have (and will again), would claim that one has to be a strict vegetarian to be an animal rights advocate. James Wilson of Los Angeles: Do you butcher, or have you? I have personally put turkeys, rabbits, goats, sheep and hogs on my table. None of them knew they were going to be killed and each death was as swift and as sure as a bullet could be.

I enjoy a good debate when both sides are participating intelligently and truthfully, but when vivisectionists try to equate me--a butcher--with them, well. . . .

My animals are clean and fed regularly, are always watered and are as free from pain and worry as is humanly possible. Many nights, even when it is cold and rainy, I am outside tending to my stock to insure their comfort. Reported conditions in the vivisectionists’ labs confirm the opposite for experimental “subjects.”

I wallowed through a letter (my pigs never wallow anywhere because their pen is kept clean) about stray dogs’ lives being exchanged for healthier human lives. Let me say from experience that if I used goat medicine on my steers or if I used dog medicine on my sheep--we would all be dead. Why, oh why, does anyone (after all these useless years of trying) still think that rat, mice, dog or cat medicine is a sure cure for humans?

I love animals and I eat meat. I do not torture animals to death and I believe we have a lot to learn from them. We can learn patience by watching a cat at a gopher hole; honesty by watching a horse perform any of its specialized jobs; faithfulness and compassion by watching the dog at our side. Torturing any of earth’s inhabitants--animal or human--will not improve the lot of the rest of us. Certainly, the pound pets or the lab-raised “subjects” are going to die anyway--so let there be some quality to their death. A good butcher never terrorizes an animal but does show them respect.

Many of us who live close to the land feel that many of those who do not have lost much in their quality of life. No one among us would torture, maim or neglect any of our charges nor would any of us torture, maim or neglect our neighbors. I would not want someone who tortures animals by day in the name of “science” living by me at night. It would be downright scary.

DIANE PITZLER Chino