The papers have been filled recently with reports of the dolphin hunt in Taiji, Japan. Like many others, I condemn the dolphin hunt, but no less do I condemn the factory farming of animals such as chickens, pigs and cattle here in Australia and around the world.
In fact, if reports are to be believed, the hunting of the dolphins in Taiji is done for the support of a community which has no other way of making a living - and although this doesn't excuse what they do, I think the factory farming of animals here in Australia for no other reason than that it is convenient and cost-efficient to do so - simple economics, really - is far worse.
The worse-ness of what we do here in Australia is compounded by the fact that we could easily choose otherwise - alternatives to factory farmed animal products, and in fact animal products generally, are readily available and, by and large, affordable. But for the most part we choose not to take up these alternatives simply because we have a preference for the flavour of animal products. To put it baldly, we treat animals badly – animals who demonstrably feel stress and pain and fear – and kill them, just because we like to eat them and we like to do it cheaply.
Yet somehow the fresh horror and definable size of the dolphin slaughter makes more of an impact on us than what happens here at home, and as a result it produces more outcry. Maybe it’s because factory farming is, for us, like background noise – ongoing, so much a part of our culture that we don't think to question it or find it too hard to challenge it, or, because of the diffuseness of the decision-making and production involved in the process somehow seems to obliviate blame, guilt, responsibility. Maybe it’s because the animals targeted in the Japanese hunt are beautiful, often-eulogised dolphins rather than the less exotic and emotive cattle or chooks. Maybe it’s because condemnation of the Japanese hunt involves a feel-good, one-off burst of righteous indignation over something that happens somewhere else, affecting others, rather than here, and which doesn’t come with the twin perils of self-examination and its inevitable aftermath of ongoing sacrifice or the inconvenience of having to repeatedly excuse one’s behaviour to oneself or ignore one’s conscience.
Whatever the reason, does this mean, then, that I think we shouldn’t condemn the Japanese dolphin hunt? Of course not. But we should certainly do it with an awareness that we do far worse, and on a far greater scale, here in Australia, and that, through every purchasing choice we make at the supermarket, at restaurants, at take away shops, we can either choose to participate in it or we can choose to turn our minds, bodies, purchasing power, towards something better.
If you would like to learn more about factory farming, I recommend you visit the website of Voiceless, an independent, non-profit think tank focused on raising awareness of animals suffering in factory farming (and the kangaroo industry) in Australia.