‘Tiger’, ‘Zebra’, and ‘Giraffe’ Make World Vegetarian Awareness Month Plea: Save Our Habitat – Go Vegan
To mark World Vegetarian Awareness Month (October) and World Food Day (16 October), three PETA India, Vegans of Telangana, and Citizens for Animals supporters, body-painted as a tiger, a zebra, and a giraffe, gathered in Hyderabad holding signs proclaiming, “Eating Meat Contributes to Species Extinction – Try Vegan” and “Forests Are Destroyed for Meat Production – Go Vegan.” Through this eye-catching demonstration, they informed the passers-by that choosing vegetarian is good choosing vegan foods is even better, highlighting that raising animals for meat, eggs, and dairy is one of the biggest causes of the loss of species-rich habitats, and a major driver of biodiversity loss and species extinction. It’s also a threat to human food security, with one-third of the world’s total cropland used to grow crops to feed animals reared for food rather than direct human consumption.
Meat, egg, and dairy production is a leading cause of pollution, ocean dead zones, habitat destruction from land use, and species extinction. It uses one-third of the world’s freshwater resources and, by some estimates, creates more greenhouse gas emissions than all the world’s transportation systems combined. Researchers at the University of Oxford found that every person who goes vegan lowers their food-related carbon footprint by up to 73%, making it conceivably the single biggest way to reduce one’s negative impact on the planet.
Vegan eating also helps animals. As PETA India reveals in its video exposé “Glass Walls,” chickens used for eggs are confined to cages so small they cannot even spread a wing. Cows and buffaloes are crammed into vehicles in such large numbers that their bones often break before they’re dragged off to the slaughterhouse, and pigs are stabbed in the heart as they scream. On the decks of fishing boats, fish suffocate or are cut open while they’re still alive. New-born male chicks in the egg industry are ground up, burned, or buried alive since they cannot lay eggs along with other unwanted chicks, while male calves in the dairy industry are commonly abandoned, left to starve, or killed since they cannot produce milk. India has influenced the world to be kind to animals and the environment through meat-free eating since 4th century BC.
Today, India has the largest meat-free population in the world, while 10% of Indians identify as vegan. Everyone who goes vegan also spares up to nearly 200 animals every year and lowers their risk of heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers.
