Tue 13 Dec 2005
Animal Rights and Abattoirs
Posted by sookie under Downtown, urban planning
I’m one of many people who call the increasingly dense community at Bathurst and King home, but for me it’s only from nine to five. Condos are sprouting up like blades of grass in springtime and the area is having a hard time keeping up with increased needs for green space, parking and garbage collection. I’ve heard the new inhabitants complain and see the garbage blowing about, but there’s one thing I haven’t heard them complain about, and its the main reason I wouldn’t call this place my evening home, or even consider buying a condo in this area. It’s that the abattoirs (slaughter houses) on nearby Niagara blow their putrid stank all over this community. It makes no sense to keep these facilities here while Toronto attempts to revitalize and cleanse the city.
I feel particularly compelled to complain since I’ve been vegetarian for over five years and have a hard time every morning as I pass the truck of bovines on Lakeshore Blvd on their way to meet their destiny. Today was -12C as I passed the sorry fellas in the open-air truck. Normally their cute little snouts are sticking out smelling the last of the sea air before they are sedated, but today an extreme cold warning was issued (with the added wind chill) and these guys were not moving at all. Isn’t that an animal rights issue? I couldn’t say how long their drive is but I’m sure some were frozen to death before reaching the knife.
Up at Keele and St.Clair, townhomes also border the stockyards and I’ve driven past trucks loading up animal bits. Can this not be contained? Can something not be done about the smell that wafts over Torontonians homes? Can we not just stop eating so many helpless animals? Why all the suffering?
As a vegetarian I try not to rant in the stereotypical way expected of “people like me” but I hear it coming at me more often than I’ve delivered it. Perhaps part of my despair comes from the bonds I created with pigs and other farm animals while on my Grandma’s farm in Denmark. I wanted to take one home with me. Does no one else understand that these are creatures of the world too?
Karma does.
February 3rd, 2006 at 5:58 pm
Totally agree with you. I used to see the trucks pass by on Lakeshore, and I’d stick my hand in there and pet the pigs before their slaughter. That place stinks, worse than anything I’ve ever smelled before. I can just imagine the pollution coming out of there….
People obviously think they own this world. They will not stop until every tree has been chopped down, every child will have asthma and every living mammal in the ocean will go extinct! Sick, but there’s nothing me and you can do about it. Take care, and thank you for posting this.
Ana
July 14th, 2006 at 2:31 am
Ooooh yayayayayayay that’s my piggies picture :)
Abattoirs are gross, and I symapthize about the smell it is putrid.
Keep up the good work!
Pigalina.