My parents gave all their children one year a charity gift as a Christmas present. My parents know I love animals, and so they wanted to give me something animal related. By their logic, they decided I’d appreciate giving a poor family a goat. I could have cried.
What are the problems with Animal Gifting?
First of all, the animal is often shipped overseas on long and stressful journeys. Below is a cow being lifted off a boat in a net.
secondly, the families animals are given to are poor, so poor they can barely afford to feed themselves. The animal often suffers terribly, going without necessary veterinary intervention to bring it relief. Veterinary treatment is simply too expensive. The recipients even often suffer to give even the most basic care to the animal. The animals also suffer hunger and a farm animal is another mouth to feed. They do not just live off the land.
When the family cannot afford to keep them, and if they do not die of disease, they meet a horrific end, having their neck sawed open with a blunt knife, while the terrified animal struggles to try to escape.
There are many more problems with animal gifting, including creating more problems for the recipients themselves, not just the animal. There are much better alternatives, such as crop gifting. This is much kinder and more sustainable. Find out about more of the problems of animal gifting, an see the solutions, here. Also see what you can do to stop it.