Genetic Modification of Animals Through Breeding (Irish Vegan Festival 2024 Presentation)

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Published on Apr 24, 2024

About :

Hi Everyone,

On Sunday, 21st April, my sister (@vegoutt-travel) and I presented at the Irish Vegan Festival in Belfast. This was our third time attending the event and our second time presenting. We presented for the first time in 2022.

Picking a Topic

Vegan events are typically attended by vegans. Most people become vegan because they believe in animal rights, and several others become vegan for a healthy lifestyle. Most of the presentations at the events are about animal cruelty or the benefits of a vegan diet. Most of the audience already understands these points; it is like preaching to the choir. Hence, they are vegan. Most of these types of presentations are more suited to non-vegan audiences.

I wanted to present something that is not talked about as much in vegan circles. Two years ago, I discussed people’s reasons for reducing meat consumption. This considered a broader group of people that also included vegetarians, semi-vegetarians, pescatarians, and flexitarians. Each group’s primary motivations varied. I discussed these using different surveys. What were the implications for meat and dairy consumption as well as the consumption of alternatives to meat and dairy?

The initial plan was to present at the festival in 2023. However, this was not to be. We did not end up with a time slot to present. However, we had already decided what to present. The presentation was to be based on a post I wrote in January 2023. This post was titled ‘Manipulated for Us’. The post discusses how we, as humans, manipulate the world around us for our own benefit. This post discussed how we change our natural landscape to build huge cities, use various resources to build literally everything we use. The post continues by explaining how we manipulate animals for our own benefit. This part of the post was going to be the focus of our presentation at the Vegan Festival.

A few months after the initial post, I also posted a video in my back garden. The video and post were titled ‘Manipulated for Us: Introducing Hamlet and Lily’. In this video, I provide a very off-the-cuff discussion about how animals are manipulated for us. I pay extra attention to Hamlet the Happy Pig and Lily Goat. This was also a full introduction video to these two amazing characters.

Content of the Video

Our presentation at the Vegan Festival was a combination of my post from a year earlier and the video I made with Hamlet and Lily. I included an additional section about plants. So many of our fruits have been manipulated to be bigger, or have fewer or no seeds. The bulk of my presentation was about how animals are manipulated through breeding to give us more of what we want. See examples below.

Chickens are bred to grow faster and be bigger, as well as lay more eggs (approximately 20 times more than they would in the wild).
Cattle are either bred to be bigger and more muscular for more meat or bred to produce more milk.
Pigs are bred to be bigger for meat and smaller to be pets. They are sometimes bred for organ transplants for humans because they are so similar to us.
Sheep are bred to grow more and thicker wool.
Racehorses are bred to be stronger and faster to have more stamina.
Dogs are bred for hundreds of different reasons. This type of breeding has produced weaknesses in most dog breeds.

My section of the presentation ended by asking what would happen to all these animals if people stopped killing them for meat or using them for other purposes. They already occupy an enormous amount of land. This amount of land is far less than they need to have a decent quality of life. Even if there was sufficient land for them, they are not capable of surviving in the wild. They have been altered so that they are dependent on us.

So what is next? I strongly disagree with culling. I believe the solution is to gradually bring down the numbers. Eventually, the remaining animals can be moved to sanctuaries. People could even have them on their properties if they have the right environment to cater to them. We owe them that much.

My sister took over the presentation. She talked about Hamlet the Happy Pig and Lily Goat. She described what they were like and what was needed to look after them. Taking care of a happy pig has its challenges. Looking after a goat is not so difficult.

She also discussed a former factory farm chicken named Black Betty. She had suffered greatly from the days when she laid an egg a day. After being brought out of that environment, she only laid one egg a month. She finished the presentation off with a discussion about our adopted dogs.

Our presentation lasted roughly around an hour. We both presented for about half an hour each.

References from the Video

AI Images of plastic surgery and designer babies generated by Bing AI
New York City skyline sourced from Istockphoto
Dubai floods sourced from Business Insider
Population growth figures sourced from The Industrial Revolution
Rural-urban migration figures sourced from Urbanet
Global GDP and GDP per capita sourced from Our World in Data
Minerals used in a lifetime sourced from USGS
Annual average food consumption sourced from FoodHow.com
Lifetime number of clothing items sourced from Huffington Post
Fruit comparisons sourced from Daily Mail and Inside the World of Cellular Biology
Animals and how people use them sourced from Wikipedia
Image of Indian Aurochs sourced from Wikipedia
Image of Wild Boar sourced from Wikipedia
Image of Mouflon sourced from Wikipedia
Image of Tarpan sourced from Wikipedia
Image of Red Jungle Fowl sourced from Wikipedia
Chicken sizes and Ross 308 Vox and United Poultry Concerns
US egg statistics sourced from United Egg Producers
Different breeds of cattle sourced from NayTurr
Image of Knickers the Steer sourced from The Verge
Beef production sourced from USDA
Milk yield per cow sourced from ResearchGate and Statista
Poland China pig image sourced from A to Z Animals
Picture of various pig sizes (Mini pig to Big Bill) sourced from Change.org petition on mini pigs
Picture of a variety of coloured pigs sourced from Radio IQ WVTF
Image of award winning giant pig sourced from Gardens Desigusxpro
Image of giant pig in china Daily Mail
Wild boar and domestic pig comparison sourced from A to Z Animails
Lesser beasts story (abusing pigs for profit) sourced from Business Insider
Genetic engineering of pigs sourced from MIT Technological Review, SingularityHub and Global reaserch
Image of Chris the sheep sourced from BuzzFeed News
Image of Baarack the sheep sourced from NDTV
Sheep breed information sourced from Sheep 201
Image of racehorse Black Caviar sourced from Wikipedia
Dog breeds and their health issues sourced from Fetch
Mammals and birds in captivity sourced from the Guardian
Number of animals killed every year Our World in Data
Video of annual animal deaths sourced Daily Loud X account. It was converted to a gif.
More information on the number of animals killed annually on Our World in Data and on another page on Our World in Data
Animal Kill Clock can be accessed at AnimalClock
Song: ‘Legend of Hamlet the Pig’ was created by Suno

Some Nice Food from the Event

Before we could do any of the above, we needed some delicious food. Here is a sample of what we ate.

Thanks for Watching.

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