Bleating Hearts: The Hidden World of Animal Suffering

by Mark Hawthorne

An investigation of how animals are exploited for entertainment, apparel, research, military weapons, sport, art, religion, food, and more.

Genres: Nonfiction, Animals, Vegan, Book Club, Activism

732 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 7, 2013

About the author

I am the author of A Vegan Ethic: Embracing A Life Of Compassion Toward All, Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism, Bleating Hearts: The Hidden World of Animal Suffering, The Way of the Rabbit, and Eco-Spirituality and Human-Animal Relationships. I stopped eating meat after an encounter with one of India’s many cows in 1992, then went vegan a decade later.

Beginning in 2004, I served as a contributing writer for Satya until the magazine ceased publication in 2007, and am a frequent contributor to VegNews. My writing has also appeared in Vegan’s Daily Companion by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau (Quarry Books), Stories to Live By: Wisdom to Help You Make the Most of Every Day (Travelers’ Tales) and The Best Travel Writing 2005: True Stories from Around the World (Travelers’ Tales), as well as Vegan Voice, Herbivore, Hinduism Today, Utne.com and newspapers across the United States.

Reviews

[mad mags · Rating 5 out of 5]

They Shoot Narwhals, Don't They?

(Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book for review at the author's invitation. Also, trigger warning for discussions of violence, including that of a sexual nature.)

"Hierarchies feed oppression because it allows for valuation: those at the top are more valued than those at the bottom. Oppressors like hierarchies that keep animals at the bottom because then you can do to humans what you do to animals if you say that the humans are like the animals. So it feeds oppression to have animal objectification." - Carol J. Adams (page 492)

"Change is hard, but not changing is just as hard." - Carol J. Adams (page 487)

"Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you any more." - Franz Kafka (quoted on page 490)

In Bleating Hearts: The Hidden World of Animal Suffering, author-activist and longtime vegan Mark Hawthorne examines some of the effects of these human hierarchies, which universally place nonhuman animals - an estimated three to thirty million species, comprised of trillions upon trillions of individuals - at the bottom of the proverbial shit pile. (That such categories even exist - human animals, and all the "others" - is itself a testament to the self-centeredness of the human species.)

While I was expecting an encyclopedic, A-to-Z look at animal suffering, Bleating Hearts is something much different; Hawthorne shines a light on practices that, for whatever reason, don't garner as much attention in animal activist circles: Balut eggs, an Asian delicacy that involves boiling developing duck embryos alive. The plight of the ever-popular slow lorises (please don't forward those YouTube videos, people, no matter how cute they seem!). Dolphin-assisted therapy (cruel, and a scam). Horse fighting (which often ends in the serial rape of a mare, positioned in the ring to induce the stallions to compete). Rogue taxidermy. If you think you know all there is to know about animal exploitation, think again. Even the most seasoned activist will discover something new within these pages.

Bleating Hearts is loosely divided into chapters focused on different areas of animal exploitation (I say "loosely" because there are quite a few areas of overlap). The familiar topics of food, fashion, research, sport, and entertainment are all covered, and Hawthorne further delves into areas that are often overlooked: "working" animals, animals sacrificed in the name of religion and art, and the sexual and physical abuse of nonhuman animals (oftentimes in conjunction with interpersonal violence). It goes without saying that the information presented in Bleating Hearts is quite disturbing and can be triggering - but the final chapter, "Secret Abuse: Sexual Assault on Animals" is especially difficult to read.

Exhaustively researched and documented - the footnotes comprise some 102 pages! - Bleating Hearts is as informative as it is disheartening. I took copious notes as I read, and am rather flummoxed as to how to weave them into a cogent narrative without turning this into one of my epic, too-long-for-Amazon reviews. (See, e.g., Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: A vegan feminist book review, with recipes! Bring a snack.) Instead, I'll just share a few of the more interesting facts I picked up:

* On the greenwashing of fur: "the [mink fur] industry has a higher impact than other textiles in 17 of 18 measurement categories, including global warming & toxic emissions." (page 86)

* Leather isn't just a by-product: "a cow's skin accounts for as much as 2/3 of what an operator will earn from the non-flesh products." (page 100)

* Decades of poaching has led to a tusk-free gene in Asian elephants. (page 106)

* According to none other than the FDA, 92% of medications that are safe and effective in animals fail in human clinical trials. Of the 8% that pass, more than half have toxic or even fatal effects in humans that were not expected based on animal trials. (page 137)

* "There are whales alive today who were born before Moby-Dick was published in 1851." (page 226)

* In the Democratic Republic of Congo, more than 150 rangers have died protecting gorillas from poachers in recent years. (page 229)

* 24 million seahorses are taken from the ocean every year, to be used in apothecaries and aquariums and turned into decorations. (page 253)

* "According to a 2012 investigation by The New York Times, an average of 24 horses pass away on US racetracks every week." (page 288)

* On zoos, captive breeding programs ("conservation"), and "surplus" animals: "The Copenhagen Zoo, for example, kills 20 to 30 healthy animals every year - including gazelles, hippos, and even chimpanzees." (page 332)

Though not the primary focus of Bleating Hearts, a number of themes became apparent as I progressed through the book:

Language is power. It's not uncommon for animal exploiters to obfuscate and confuse with carefully chosen words and Orwellian doublespeak. Bullhooks are "guides"; abusers, "trainers." Fishes are "harvested" (read: killed), and the catch is measured in terms of pounds rather than individuals. The practice of "calf induction" involves inducing the birth of multiple calves at the same time, so their mothers - however far along they are in their pregnancies - will be on the same milking schedule. Consequently, many calves are aborted or die shortly after "birth."

Words have the ability to both shape and reflect how we see the world around us. For this reason, it's important that we use accurate, descriptive, and unbiased language when talking about animal exploitation. Or any exploitation, for that matter. Intersectionality also matters.

(For this reason, I was more than a little disappointed to see Karen Davis refer to the Orthodox Jewish practice of kapparot as "interspecies rape." You know what's rape? RAPE. While the birds tortured and killed in kapparot may very well have been raped - or are themselves the products of rape - "the ritual transference of one's own transgressions and diseases to a sacrificial animal" does not, in fact, constitute rape.)

Sisterhood is universal. From the sexual abuse of nonhuman animals at the hands of zoophiles, zoosadists, and domestic abusers, to the institutionalized rape of both female and male animals on dairy farms, in egg-laying facilities, in animal fighting operations, etc., the intersection of veganism and feminism is powerful and undeniable. Nearly every animal exploitation industry is built on the unrelenting manipulation of the female reproductive system: hens made to lay more eggs than their fragile bodies can take. "Exotic" and formerly wild animals forced to reproduce in unnatural and aberrant conditions so that zoos and aquariums can exhibit their offspring and draw larger crowds. (Make no mistake: Zoos are businesses!) Mother cows torn from their babies so that humans can steal their milk. And so on.

Likewise, the anecdotes in Bleating Hearts are filled with stories of animal exploiters who show a similar disregard for women: Monty Merola, the convicted rapist who was caught torturing and tormenting horses whose dismembered parts were bound for the feeding troughs of zoo animals. Zoophiles who express a preference for sexual gratification with nonhumans because they're less troublesome and demanding than women. Domestic abusers who humiliate their victims by forcing them to perform sexual acts with nonhuman animals. Exploited slaughterhouse workers who take their frustrations out on animals even more exploited than they (a phenomenon that didn't make it into Bleating Hearts, but deserves a mention here nonetheless).

Perhaps no instrument illustrates this relationship quite like the rape rack, of which Hawthorne laments: "In many ways, the rape rack is the crucible on which all who consume meat or dairy products must weigh their collective conscience, the place where we must surely agree that society's use of animals has exceeded any reasonable measure of sanity. How can we possible reconcile a world where a device like this not only survives, but is legitimized as a standard business practice?" (page 454)

Your right to religious freedom, creative expression, and sexual fulfillment ends where another being's body begins. Religion, art, sex - none of these pursuits are so lofty as to be above criticism. (Although, like the author, I agree that it's hypocritical for carnists to decry ritual animal sacrifices or the abuse of animals for art's sake while munching on a cheeseburger.)

Animal abuse is child abuse. Whether forcing young students to kill nonhuman animals - many of whom they've come to love as companions - as part of a school program, or otherwise encouraging kids to participate in animal abuse, such experiences teach them to turn off their compassion, to dehumanize and objectify living beings, and to regard human animals as the center of the universe. Violence begets violence.

Among these atrocities, it can be difficult to hold onto even the tiniest shred of hope. Luckily, Hawthorne ends his discussion on a positive note. Chapter 11, "Achieving Moral Parity," includes a series of questions posed to six "ethicists, writers, and philosophers": vegan-feminist theorist Carol J. Adams; Hal Herzog, professor of psychology at West Carolina University; James McWilliams, a history professor at Texas State University-San Marcos; renown ethologist Marc Bekoff; Mylan Engel, Jr., who teaches animal rights (among other things!) at Northern Illinois University; and Richard Ryder, perhaps best known in AR circles for coining the term "speciesism." (It's in this Q&A section that I found the quotes which open this review.) Though I found myself shaking my head vigorously at some of their answers, more often than not their insights proved thought-provoking, encouraging - inspiring, even.

Additionally, at the end of each chapter Hawthorne includes a list of things you can do to help alleviate the suffering detailed in the preceding chapter. In the case of animals exploited for food, the answer is clear: go vegan! Hawthorne posits veganism as a moral baseline but, of course, there's always room for improvement. Though the steps sometimes seem infinitesimal in relation to the sheer scope of our crimes against animals, it's helpful to have a starting point. Already I see several areas where I can do better.

The only suggestion I would add is to Chapter 10: in addition to supporting programs for the human victims of domestic violence, seek out those shelters that care for nonhumans as well. Increasingly, women's shelters are recognizing the role that animal abuse plays in domestic violence and are offering refuge to their clients' companion animals - if not for the animals' sake, then for that of their "owners." (Many victims refuse to leave abusive situations unless they can find safety for their companions as well.) Donate (time, money, supplies) to DV shelters that accept nonhumans. Volunteer as a shelter worker, or offer to foster a dog or cat in your own home. The HSUS maintains a list of such programs (called "safe havens") on its website. If there isn't a DV shelter that accepts companion animals in your city, work with your local humane society (note: not the same as HSUS inter/national) and women's shelter to implement a program!

Although a terribly difficult read, there's much to be gained from Bleating Hearts. I suspect that seasoned activists will derive the greatest benefit, since this is hardly an "intro to animal rights" text - but perhaps Hawthorne can spur some omnivorous readers to make the connection between the dogs on their laps and the cows on their plates. After being confronted with the horrors in this book, I hope it will become increasingly difficult for readers to resist change rather than simply embrace it.

http://www.easyvegan.info/2013/12/02/...

[Peacegal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bleating Hearts is one of the few animal issues books that will be as valuable to seasoned animal advocates as it is to newcomers to the cause. Whether it is exposing a chronic problem that has been mostly overlooked by animal defenders--

According to a 2012 investigation by the New York Times, an average of 24 horses pass away on US racetracks every week.

--or simply looking at a familiar issue in a new and devastating way--

[Circus animals] spend 91 to 99 percent of their time confined in cages, carriers, or other enclosures that are typically one-quarter the size recommended for the same animals in zoos.

---this is a book that will make readers question their assumptions, and above all, think.

Animal advocates commonly encounter omnivores who refuse to eat lamb or veal, on the grounds that they are “baby” animals. However, rare is the omni who turns away chicken for ethical reasons, even though these battered birds are far more “baby” than either slaughter lambs or crate-raised veal calves:

[Chickens’] bodies are abnormally large, but they are still babies who chirp as they head to slaughter. Imagine a human baby growing to 350 pounds in eight weeks and you’ll have an idea how fast and unnaturally these birds bulk up.

Of course, the real reason that many omnis reject veal, or lamb, or foie gras is not because of an abiding sense of ethics toward the animals we eat—it’s just that in mainstream American culture it is quite easy to avoid these less-common meats. However, animals are paying steep prices for the popularity of more common meats, and we are as well. Kellogg Schwab of the Johns Hopkins Global Water Program is quoted here regarding the overuse of antibiotics on factory farms:

“It’s not appreciated until it’s your mother, or your son, or you trying to fight off an infection that will not go away because the last mechanism to fight it has been usurped by someone putting it into a pig or chicken.”

The West isn’t happy keeping the “joys” of factory farming to ourselves, either—we’re exporting meat-heavy diets and the resource-demanding production methods that go with them to the developing world.

Heifer International is a livestock gift charity (I call it “send-an-animal-to-slaughter”) that is especially beloved by upper-class liberal Americans. Charity-minded omnivores can look through the catalog and choose the species they wish to send to die in a third-world nation. The catalog, for example, encourages new grandparents to pay for the cost of “bunny rabbits” in honor of a granddaughter. What a delightful way to celebrate your sweet little girl—by sending a bunny rabbit to be bludgeoned on the head as it writhes on the ground, screeching, and then is skinned and dismembered. I wonder how little Susie would feel if she got to witness this “gift.”

That these programs are bad for animals is obvious, but the author details that they are often bad for people, as well. Hawthorne presents an enlightening study by journalist Palagummi Sainath of a program that gave away thousands of cows and buffaloes to India’s poor. The people neither asked for nor wanted the animals, and they resented the expense and resource use of these animals require. Really, livestock gift charities are just colluding with the global meat industry in exporting global warming, resource depletion, and factory farming practices to every corner of the world.

Most people eat meat not because it is nutritionally essential, but simply because they enjoy it. The same goes, to an even greater extent, to wearing fur. Many animal advocates already know about the hideous conditions on China’s fur factory farms—the nation is now a world leader in fur production and export. Even if a fur-trimmed coat was assembled (and thus labeled) as being made elsewhere, it is highly probable the raw skins were imported from China’s fur mills.

Occasionally, the fur industry mounts a weak defense and makes claims that rabbit fur is simply a byproduct of the meat industry, but as Hawthorne reminds us, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization acknowledges “few [rabbit] skins are now retrieved from slaughterhouses; they are simply thrown away.”

A more recent development in gruesome animal fashion comes in the form of feather hair extensions, popularized by Steven Tyler and other celebrities. While we’ve all picked up a shed bird feather from the ground, such is not the source of this expensive trend. We read of Colorado-based Whiting farms, which kills 1,500 roosters a week for their feathers and disposes of the bodies—as the company founder explains, “They’re not good for anything else.”

Historically, animal research has been the most contentious of all animal issues—and many advocates are unwilling to breach the subject because of it. I get it. However, Hawthorne handles this subject with intelligence and grace, and challenges us to ponder the big business that animal research truly is. He quotes author Dr. Ray Greek in noting that the university in which a researcher works gets about half of the grant money s/he is awarded for lab experimentation, but none if the s/he does his/her work outside the lab studying the human population.

Hawthorne does make the occasional mistake, but missteps are rare. For example, the book claims,

In much of the US, taxpayer-funded animal shelters are required by law to release “surplus” dogs and cats to Class B dealers or directly to research institutions…

However, the American Anti-Vivisection Society, which has a long-standing campaign against pound seizure, states that only two states in the U.S.—Ohio and Oklahoma—still legally require that publicly funded shelters and pounds provide dogs and/or cats to institutions for experimental or educational purposes. There are, however, other states that allow it, and several have no law either way. As for Class B dealers, their ugly type is fading fast. Only seven remain active in the US.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is heart wrenching, gut twisting. This book filled me with anger, renewing me with a sense of right and wrong. If you read this book and choose not to convert to a vegan lifestyle, you had better have a damn good excuse.

And no, 'I can't live without bacon' is not a good excuse.

[Kezia · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's very little missing in Bleating Hearts, or as I like to call it, "1001 Ways You Didn’t Know Animals Are Exploited." Possibly the most comprehensive book about animal exploitation ever written, it is an encyclopedia of nearly every horror we do to animals, and how to make a difference on their behalf.

While many people feel they are aware of how animals are used for food, fur, or even biomedical research, we are still often unfamiliar with human’s use of other species in sports, war, religious ritual, art, or labor. Hawthorne includes plenty of examples to set your teeth on edge. (I recently learned about a “sport” called gigging, in which frogs are stabbed with spears, pitchforks, and other sharp pointed instruments, sadly not included in the book though.)

Having said that, there was not too much in the book I didn't know, but I'm something of a professional advocate. The average reader will find many reasons to get off the couch and get active for animals. For more information on making a difference, I recommend his first book, Striking at the Roots.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is heart wrenching, gut twisting. This book filled me with anger, renewing me with a sense of right and wrong. If you read this book and choose not to convert to a vegan lifestyle, you had better have a damn good excuse.

And no, 'I can't live without bacon' is not a good excuse.

[Antonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A punch in the gut, this must be one of the most heartbreaking and powerful books I've ever read. As a Veterinary Medicine student, I recommend it to all students like me out there and to all Veterinarians and Veterinary nurses alike. This book is a masterpiece.

[Gail harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not easy to learn the truth but once you know you must be a voice for those that have no voice, should be required reading in every high school.

[OmniBen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I still have memories of this, sitting tired and cramped on a plane, flying from my home city to Melbourne, and then on to Brisbane, dozens of friends, activists and advocates engaging in covert operations against the monolithic institutions of animal enslavement and abuse. Those years, although admittedly difficult for the things we saw, the things we did... they are still, and will always be rose tinted. The blows we struck... the damage we did.
Back then, I immersed myself in very aspect of our heinous practises, for not only did it always come in handy to have every fact at your disposal during street outreach, but I felt I owed it to the animals to do as much as I could. Even if that only extended to reading about their plight when I wasn't able to do anything more hands on. As far as informative books go, You could do a hell of a lot worse than Bleating Hearts. It may lack the narrative appeal and personal recounting of true classics within the genre (see From Dusk till Dawn and Free the Animals). Still, this is more than a worthy read and belongs on the shelves of animal activists all over the world. 4/5


OmniBen.

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow this book is gruesome yet important. I'd be lying if I said I didn't skip a decent chunk of this book due to either me already knowing what was being said or because it was just a bit too much for me. If you want the facts on the numerous ways animals are exploited in our world, this book is for you (although major warning for how depressing, violent, and brutal the sections can be). I appreciated the "light at the end of the tunnel" theme with each chapter where various action items and organizations were listed that help combat each issue.

[Susan Clark-cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well written, well documented, detailed look at what goes on behind the industry that sells us the meat, or dead animals as he prefers to refer the meat on our tables, in our restaurants and fast food places. I guarantee if you read this book, even part of it you might never again look at meat in the same way. And for any animal lovers or even anyone wanting to improve their health, or just understand more about the way we get food, the why and other information this is the one to read.
That said I must say it is very hard to read, and I had to put it down when I had tears in my eyes from some of the things that are revealed about the suffering of the animals we so casually consume in such great quantities. It made me ashamed of American practices and it horrified in ways that are hard to describe. In the full revealment I must allow that I am already inclined in this direction and have read many, many books on how animals are treated and how we have turned other sentient beings into our food supply without or at least with very little concern for the fact that what we are eating had a life, had feelings, and social lives, and family instincts that they were denied to have. Instead because of our insatiable desire for steak, burgers, fried chicken and so on their lives became brief, tortured and full of fears, nothing natural about what they were intended to have in this world and life. I am an animal lover, activist and also vegetarian striving to become vegan because I believe it would be a better world for all of us if all of us chose more carefully what we put on our plates and in our mouths.
If you do read this you will find I believe, more than enough reasons to seriously be angry and maybe it would even change your life, or at least the way you look at other creatures we share this world with.
Maybe at some point in our history we had to eat meat to survive but this is no longer necessary, no matter how good it tastes or how much we think of it as our rights, or tradition or however we each justify eating animals.
I have to admit it was so dense with facts and so on that it was hard to read and took me much longer to get through than usual, but again, it was because of the thoughts that it brought out in me. I can't tell you how many times, I had to, Had to, put down the book and take a rest from it, while petting and loving my dog, one of the animals we here in America (for the most part I think) chose not to eat but to love and care for.
Why aren't other wonderful animals also due this care and love? That is a question you will be left pondering if and when you read this book.
Warning, be prepared at a hard look at the food industry, animals, and what some might doubt after reading this, our civilization.

[Jeffrey Spitz Cohan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Bleating Hearts" is virtually an encyclopedia of human-caused animal suffering. It covers some of the more familiar forms, such as factory farming and vivisection, as well as a few I had never heard of, such as the Gadhimai Jatra Mela bloodbath, which happened to take place as I was reading this book.

Since this book is encyclopedic in scope, it is also, by its very nature, somewhat superficial. Each chapter stands on its own. You don't necessarily have to read the chapters in order -- or read them all.

The real payoff comes in the final chapter, when author Mark Hawthorne lets some of the deepest thinkers in the AR movement have their say. What I found particularly heartening is that such luminaries as Carol Adams, James McWilliams and Marc Bekoff seem to agree that the diversity of approaches in the vegan-advocacy movement is a good thing. That is an important message for the AR community to hear, and absorb.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books animal activists dare others to read and then try to continue their omnivorous lifestyle. Nearly all of the gruesome commentary is backed up with solid up-to-date and official research. I borrowed my copy from the library but may consider adding it to the collection as a reference item to go to when people question why I don't exploit animals for my own purposes, like every other "normal" human.