By Conor Payne
- The number of wild animals on earth has halved in the last 40 years, according to research by the World Wildlife Foundation and the Zoological Society of London.
- Wild animals today account for only 4% of the mammals on the planets – 96% are either humans or domesticated animals, primarily agricultural livestock.
- Chickens and other domesticated poultry make up 70% of the world’s birds.
These facts starkly illustrate the devastation wrought by capitalist ecocide on our planet and its animal life. Climate change, pollution, overfishing and the destruction of habitats to convert the land for agricultural and other uses are all driving a sixth mass extinction event. Biodiversity loss, as well as being a tragedy in itself, is also a fundamental threat to human life on earth as we remain fundamentally dependent on nature for all of the resources we use.
The destruction of the natural world goes hand in hand with the increasing intensification of industrial scale animal exploitation and abuse, primarily for food production. Cattle ranching is the driver of 80% of the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest and this in turn is responsible for 3.4% of annual carbon emissions.
The majority of the 72 billion land animals killed every year for food suffer a miserable existence in the intensive, industrial system known as “factory farming”. This system aims to maximise profitability by farming animals at the largest possible scale with lowest possible costs. What it means for animals is a life confined indoors, confined to a tiny space with no room to move around. Female pigs are held in gestation crates which deny the possibility to turn around for their entire lives. To prevent the fights which inevitably arise from this stressful, close quarters confinement, animals are routinely mutilated on factory farms – chickens are debeaked, pigs, cows and sheep have their tails docked – often without anaesthetic.
As well as being a nightmare for the animals, the workers and the planet, factory farming is contributing to the looming health crisis of antibiotic resistance. Animals on factory farms are pumped with antibiotics to offset the health impacts of their atrocious living conditions and these are now entering the food supply and helping to lower the efficacy of antibiotics.
In Ireland, the agribusiness lobby and other business interests use their influence to put profit over animal welfare. The cruel practice of live export, particularly of ‘superfluous’ male calves produced by the dairy industry, reached a record level in 2024. These calves are exported in stressful conditions, with many dying en route, often to countries with few or no animal welfare regulations. An RTE Investigates expose last year documented the physical abuse of calves at an export facility in Kerry. Another example of the abuse of animals for profit is the annual subsidies given to the greyhound racing industry, which is supported by all the main establishment parties.
Around the world, animal agriculture and other industries use their wealth and influence over governments to ensure that animal welfare measures do not interfere with their ability to make massive profits from animal cruelty. At a deeper level, however, the industrial abuse of animals is embedded into the very logic of the capitalist system.
Scientific research increasingly underlines that animals are sentient beings, with the ability to feel pain, pleasure, fear, happiness etc and with many of the same individual and social needs as humans. However, in the eyes of the capitalist production process which aims to maximise profits above all other considerations, they are no different to the machinery or equipment used in a factory.
Capitalism subordinates animals, humans and the planet to its need for ever-increasing profit and expansion. We need a democratic socialist society and economy to plan production on a rational and sustainable basis for the needs of all. This could include ending the predominance of animal agriculture and the grotesque practices which accompany it in today’s world. It could lay the basis for a society which recognises animals as beings worthy of dignity, existing for themselves not as instruments of production for profit or for human purposes.
