All of these books have one goal in common—to help us create a better, kinder, more compassionate world for animals today. These works illuminate the many ways animals are being exploited for our food, entertainment, and fashion and they challenge the thinking that accepts using and abusing animals for our own personal gain at the cost of their individual suffering and misery. These authors call on us to help end all forms of animal exploitation—forever, and for each of us to become stronger advocates and activists for their protection.
Mercy For Animals: One Man’s Quest to Inspire Compassion and Improve the Lives of Farm Animals
By Nathan Runkle and Gene Stone
A compelling look at animal welfare and factory farming in the United States from Mercy For Animals, the leading international force in preventing cruelty to farmed animals and promoting compassionate food choices and policies.
Nathan Runkle would have been a fifth-generation farmer in his small midwestern town. Instead, he founded our nation’s leading nonprofit organization for protecting factory farmed animals. In Mercy For Animals, Nathan brings us into the trenches of his organization’s work; from MFA’s early days in grassroots activism, to dangerous and dramatic experiences doing undercover investigations, to the organization’s current large-scale efforts at making sweeping legislative change to protect factory farmed animals and encourage compassionate food choices.
But this isn’t just Nathan’s story. Mercy For Animals examines how our country moved from a network of small, local farms with more than 50 percent of Americans involved in agriculture to a massive coast-to-coast industrial complex controlled by a mere 1 percent of our population—and the consequences of this drastic change on animals as well as our global and local environments. We also learn how MFA strives to protect farmed animals in behind-the-scenes negotiations with companies like Nestlé and other brand names—conglomerates whose policy changes can save countless lives and strengthen our planet. Alongside this unflinching snapshot of our current food system, readers are also offered hope and solutions—big and small—for ending mistreatment of factory farmed animals. From simple diet modifications to a clear explanation of how to contact corporations and legislators efficiently, Mercy For Animals proves that you don’t have to be a hardcore vegan or an animal-rights activist to make a powerful difference in the lives of animals.
Available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Dominion – The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy
By Matthew Scully
Dominion takes the reader to the many places where animals are exploited today for human entertainment or pleasure—the horrendous factory farms where animals are treated as “units of production” instead of living beings; the “canned” wild animal hunts that condone the killing of animals for trophies for the wealthy; to the whaling hunts that have become more lethal and gruesome in recent years, not more merciful. Scully skillfully illuminates that in our misunderstanding and misinterpretation about the Bible’s reference to have “dominion over the earth,” something has gone terribly wrong — morally and ethically.
Scully counters those who argue the Bible’s message as a permit for mankind to “use animals as it pleases, to the hunter’s argument that through hunting animal populations are controlled, to the popular and ‘scientifically proven’ notions that animals cannot feel pain, experience no emotions, and are not conscious of their own lives.” Scully argues that all could not be more wrong with this interpretation of the Bible and how it serves only as an excuse for man to exploit animals for their own gain, entertainment and pleasure. In Dominion, Scully underlines that it’s time to demand reform from the government all the way down to the individual to change how we treat animals, and instead behave responsibly showing respect for all life and to treat animals with the dignity and compassion they deserve.
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry
By Gail A. Eisnitz
Slaughterhouse is the first book of its kind to investigate the dark truth behind the meat-packing industry and what happens inside of U.S. slaughterhouses today. Eisnitz reveals how the meat industry is completely indifferent to animal suffering, the exploitation of its workers, is unconcerned about the dangerous conditions, and is liable to produce a product that is rife with dangerous bacteria. Industry consolidation, increased line speeds, killing more animals per minute, lax standards, intolerable work conditions and horrific conditions for animals, deregulation and a federal government that protects big agribusiness—have all had a horrifying impact on workers, animals and consumers. In Slaughterhouse, Eisnitz extensively interviews workers about what’s really taking place behind the closed doors of America’s slaughterhouses. Learn what life is like inside U.S. slaughterhouses and what really goes on “behind closed doors.” Caution: You may never eat meat again. Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Farmageddon, The True Cost of Cheap Meat
By Philip Lymbery with Isabel Oakeshott
Compassion in World Farming CEO, Philip Lymbery, has joined award-winning journalist Isabel Oakeshott to tell the story of “our global farming system gone mad. We’ve called this story Farmageddon: The True Cost of Cheap Meat.”
Fascinating and terrifying in equal measures, Farmageddon documents an investigative journey behind the closed doors of the factory farming industry. It busts the myth that factory farming is needed to feed the world. With stories from the UK, Europe and the USA, to China, Argentina, Peru and Mexico, this book shows that none of us are safe from the factory farming machine. Farmageddon is both a wake-up call to change our current food production and eating practices and an attempt to find a way to a better farming future. Read more here.
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Animals Matter, A Biologist Explains Why We Should Treat Animals with Compassion and Respect
By Marc Bekoff
Marc Bekoff, a renowned biologist specializing in animal minds and emotions, looks at scientific research, philosophical ideas, and humane values that argue for the ethical and compassionate treatment of animals. Citing the latest scientific studies and tackling controversies, he focuses on the important questions, inviting the reader to participate through “thought experiments” and ideas for action. Here’s an example of some of the questions he addresses in the book:
The Ultimate Betrayal, Is There Happy Meat?
By Hope Bohanec and Cogen Bohanec
People today are asking important questions about the food they eat today, and are increasingly concerned about their food. In response to concerns about factory farming, some new shifts have taken place providing some alternatives for consumers concerned about factory farming—like free range or cage free, sustainable, organic and humane meat, grass fed, and locally raised. But these labels can often be misleading and deceptive. This book explores and examines what these labels truly mean and offers honest answers to many questions that are arising with these new marketing labels and farm alternatives.
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Eat Like You Care, An Examination of the Morality of Eating Animals
By Gary Francione and Anna Charlton
We all agree that animals matter morally, and that it is wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering and death on animals. Although we may disagree about whether some specific uses of animals may qualify as necessary, it is clear that harming and killing animals for pleasure, convenience, entertainment or amusement are not acceptable reasons because they do not involve necessity. So how can we justify the fact that we kill 10 billion land animals and fish every year for food? When we consume animal foods, we inflict unnecessary suffering and death on animals. And eating animals is not only not necessary, it is harmful to our health, causes chronic disease, and early death. Eat Like You Care addresses the 30+ most common questions and objections about a vegan diet, and shows that none of our excuses for eating animals works. This short and clearly written book will change the way you think about what you eat. The book is available in 10 languages. The ebook editions can be read on the Kindle or on any smartphone, tablet, PC, or Mac using a free Kindle app. More about Eat Like You Care.
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Bleating Hearts, The Hidden World of Animal Suffering
By Mark Hawthorne
Bleating Hearts looks at the world’s vast exploitation of animals—from the food, fashion, and research industries to the use of other species for sport, war, entertainment, religion, labor and pleasure.
Mark Hawthorne shines a light on the truth about how animals are inhumanely used and how they suffer at our hands. Once you have read this book, you will know the truth about how these animals live behind closed doors exploited and abused for each of these different industries, and you will be changed forever. This book will inspire you to take action and make different choices as a consumer and as a human being.
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
The CAFO Reader – the Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories
By Daniel Imhoff
The CAFO Reader is the most powerful indictment of factory farming ever compiled, with essays from 30 of the world’s leading experts on food and agriculture, including Wendell Berry, Wenonah Hauter, Fred Kirschenmann, Anna Lappé, Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, and Matthew Scully. CAFO takes readers on a behind-the-scenes journey that provides an unprecedented view of concentrated animal feeding operations—aka CAFOs—where increasing amounts of the world’s meat, milk, eggs, and seafood are produced. Featuring more than 400 photographs and 30 essays that bring the tragic world of industrial food production into focus with essays on every facet of factory farming by today’s leading thinkers. CAFO offers a vision for a food system that leaves behind the horrific and cruel 20th century model of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations and replaces it with a food system that is humane, sound for farmers and communities, and safer for consumers and the environment.
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Eating Animals
by Jonathan Safran Foer
Eating Animals addresses the moral dimensions of why we love some animals and not others. Foer explores the origins of many eating traditions and the fictions involved with creating them and raises the unspoken question behind the fish we eat, the chicken we fry, and the beef we grill. Part memoir and part investigative reporting, Eating Animals is a book that, in the words of the Los Angeles Times, places Jonathan Safran Foer “at the table with our greatest philosophers.”
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Why We Love Dogs Eat Pigs and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism
By Melanie Joy, PhD
This seminal book looks at why and how humans can so wholeheartedly devote ourselves to certain animals and then allow others to suffer needlessly, especially those slaughtered for our consumption.
Social psychologist Melanie Joy explores the many ways we numb ourselves and disconnect from our natural empathy for farmed animals. She coins the term “carnism” to describe the belief system that has conditioned us to eat certain animals and not others. In Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows Joy investigates factory farming, exposing how cruelly animals are treated, the hazards that meatpacking workers face, and the environmental impact of raising 10 billion animals for food each year in the U.S. Controversial and challenging, this book will change the way you think about food—forever.
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Animal Liberation, The Definitive Classic of the Animal Movement
By Peter Singer
Originally published in 1975, this book helped to inspire a worldwide movement about “speciesism” and our systematic disregard of non-human animals. The book has awakened millions of people to the realities of today’s factory farms and product-testing procedures, where animals needlessly endure pain and suffering. Author Peter Singer tears down any justifications behind using animals for laboratory and product testing, and offers viable alternatives to what has become a profound environmental, social as well as moral issue. Singer’s book is an important appeal to conscience, compassion, fairness, decency and justice.
Available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
The Animal Manifesto: Six Reasons for Expanding Our Compassion Footprint
By Marc Bekoff, PhD
Marc Bekoff, author of The Emotional Lives of Animals, and the world’s leading expert on animal emotions, helps us to rethink and question our many daily decisions and “expand our compassion footprint.” He illustrates that animals experience a rich range of emotions, like people, including empathy and compassion, and that they clearly know right from wrong. Whether animals are on factory farms, in labs, circuses, rodeos, shelters, or being annihilated through poaching, Bekoff drives home the moral imperatives and pressing environmental realities, and offers six compelling reasons for changing the way we treat animals. The result is a well-researched, informative guide that will change animal and human lives forever—for the better. Bekoff urges us to love and respect animals as our fellow beings on this planet that we all want to share in peace.
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
The Ethics of What We Eat – Why Our Food Choices Matter
By Peter Singer and Jim Mason
Peter Singer is Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne, but you don’t have to be a philosopher to understand the principles behind this book. In the book, Singer takes a hard look at the food we eat, where it comes from, how it is produced, and explores the impact our food choices have on humans, animals, and the environment. Singer and Mason offer ways to make healthful, humane food choices. As they point out: You can be ethical without being fanatical.
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
The Face On Your Plate – The Truth About Food
By Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of When Elephants Weep, underlines how our food choices are inter-related with our moral values. “Each bite of meat involves the killing of an animal that did not need to die,” Masson reminds readers. He investigates how our personal sense of denial keeps us from recognizing the animal at the end of our fork and urges readers to consciously make decisions about food every time we eat. He also emphasizes the enormous environmental damage caused by factory farms and the modern agriculture-industrial complex, and highlights the individual suffering that each animal experiences and endures in their inhumane factory farm life.
Masson argues for a vegan diet using his own daily menus as an example, and emphasizes how a vegan diet is sufficient in providing people with all the nutrients we need to live well and thrive, but his most powerful argument calls upon the power of empathy and a refusal to put animals through the suffering and torture they experience in their everyday life for our food supply.
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
The Bond, Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them
By Wayne Pacelle
The Bond is written by one of America’s most important champions of animal welfare, Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). The book is divided into three main parts. Part One, begins with a deep exploration of our biological and historical relationship with animals and reveals new findings of animals emotional intelligence and cognitive capacities. In Part Two, Pacelle unravels the underpinnings of the “Betrayal of the Bond” through his close examination of factory farming, American slaughterhouses, the world of animal fighting, the government’s role in culling wildlife for ranchers, reckless breeders and the cruel business of puppy mills, and the problem of American animal shelters today where too many animals are systematically euthanized. Pacelle shows the reader how our bond with animals is being broken in each of these areas and how business, industry and government are exploiting and using animals for profit, gain and personal agendas, and causing their deep suffering. In the final section, the book addresses the opponents and critics of animal protection and highlights the groups and industries that are obstructing progress for a more humane world, including the National Rifle Association (NRA); agribusiness organizations such as the American Farm Bureau (AFB); and the American Kennel Club and surprisingly, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). Pacelle underscores the critical importance of building a “humane economy,” not built on the suffering, abuse, exploitation and misery we are causing animals today—but on our moral and ethical calling for greater stewardship, protection and care of animals everywhere.
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
The Humane Economy: How Innovators and Enlightened Consumers Are Transforming the Lives of Animals
By Wayne Pacelle
The Humane Economy explores the economics of animal exploitation and is a practical roadmap for how we can use the marketplace to promote the welfare of all living creatures, from the renowned animal-rights advocate Wayne Pacelle, President/CEO of the Humane Society of the United States and New York Times bestselling author of The Bond. This transformation is emblematic of a new sort of economic revolution, one that has the power to transform the future of animal welfare. In The Humane Economy, Wayne Pacelle explores how our everyday economic decisions impact the survival and wellbeing of animals, and how we can make choices that better support them. Though most of us have never harpooned a sea creature, clubbed a seal, or killed an animal for profit, we are all part of an interconnected web that has a tremendous impact on animal welfare, and the decisions we make—whether supporting local, not industrial farming; adopting a rescue dog or a shelter animal instead of one from a “puppy mill;” avoiding products that compromise the habitat of wild species; or even seeing Cirque du Soleil instead of Ringling Brothers—do matter. The Humane Economy shows us how what we do everyday as consumers can benefit or hurt animals, the environment, and human society, and why these decisions can make economic sense as well.
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust
By Charles Patterson
ETERNAL TREBLINKA describes disturbing parallels between how the Nazis treated their victims and how modern society treats animals. The title is taken from a story by the Yiddish writer and Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer: “In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.” The book examines the origins of human supremacy, describes the emergence of industrialized slaughter of both animals and people in modern times, and concludes with profiles of Jewish and German animal advocates on both sides of the Holocaust. The first part of the book (Chapter 1-2) describes the emergence of human beings as the master species and their domination over the rest of the inhabitants of the earth. The second part (Chapters 3-5) examines the industrialization of slaughter (of both animals and humans) that took place in modern times. The last part of the book (Chapters 6-8) profiles Jewish and German animal advocates on both sides of the Holocaust, including Isaac Bashevis Singer himself. ETERNAL TREBLINKA has already received support from more than 200 humane, animal protection, and environmental groups around the world.
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
We Animals
By Jo-Anne McArthur
We Animals is a hauntingly beautiful book by internationally renowned photographer Jo-Anne McArthur, whose work is featured in The Ghosts in Our Machine. The book draws from thousands of photographs McArthur has taken over 15 years documenting animals in the human environment, and our often cruel and inhumane treatment of animals and the exploitation committed to them—in the name of research, agriculture, food, clothing, entertainment and amusement. McArthur presents illuminating and heart-breaking photography that takes us inside the dark, hidden places that few ever see or ponder and she reveals the routine practices done to animals that few know about. McArthur’s effort is to make these industries that use and abuse animals more visible and accountable, and for each of us to change our ways in order to make the world a more compassionate and humane place for non-human animals. Read more about We Animals. See How to Help.
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Until Every Animal is Free
By Saryta Rodriguez
Until Every Animal is Free is a book about the animal liberation movement and how we can help animals. The book dispels the many myths propagated by business and industry that use animals for profit, such as how “humane-washing” is used to get consumers to feel less guilty in order to buy meat, dairy and eggs. Rodriguez goes into detail dissecting marketing speak such as “cage-free,” “grass-fed,” and many other buzzwords the meat and dairy industries use for marketing that are deceiving and false. Rodriguez challenges the Myth of Human Supremacy, and explores some of the ideological pillars behind the belief that humans are superior to all other animals. Rodriguez says, “This book aims to encourage aspiring activists, as well as ‘closeted vegans,’ to find their voice—to have those important-albeit-awkward conversations with friends and family about animal liberation and even take their message to the streets.”
Saryta Rodriguez is a graduate of Columbia University. She spent a year in Phoenix, Arizona, where she joined PALS (Phoenix Animal Liberation Squad), and then joined Direct Action Everywhere in Oakland, California, where she was an active member.
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
The Holocaust and the Henmaid’s Tale: A Case for Comparing Atrocities
By Karen Davis
The Holocaust and the Henmaid’s Tale: A Case for Comparing Atrocities makes the troubling connection between the industrialized factory farming of animals and Hitler’s Final Solution. The author, Karen Davis, President and Founder of United Poultry Concerns (UPC) based in Virginia, invites the reader to consider how the forced labor of the concentration camps is similar to the forced labor, enslavement and slaughter of billions of chickens on factory farms. Chickens on today’s modern farms are simply “machines” for the production of food, they are not seen as living, feeling sentient beings that suffer, their needs and desires are simply ignored. The “Henmaid” in the book title is an inspired reference to Margaret Atwood’s popular 1986 novel “The Handmaid’s Tale, where women in society are machines used for reproduction, and their babies are taken away from them at birth. We deprive them of their human dignity, respect and freedom—like we do enslaved female animals. The book underlines the speciesism that allows farmed animals to be exploited, and how that very oppression, subjugation and domination is the model for all other forms of systemic discrimination like racism, sexism and ageism, that cannot be ignored.
Available on Amazon and United Poultry Concerns.
Prisoned Chickens Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry (Revised Edition)
By Karen Davis, PhD
Prisoned Chickens Poisoned Eggs shines a light on the inhumane living conditions of the industrialized chicken farming system. Karen Davis, president and founder of United Poultry Concerns (UPC) in Virginia, wrote the book in the mid-1990s to reveal the truth about the U.S. egg industry’s cruel practices routinely done to billions of chickens on factory farms every year – including the slaughter of male chicks ground up alive after birth, the painful debeaking of hens so they can live in overcrowded conditions, the starving of hens to force them to molt their the feathers and cut the cost of egg production, genetic engineering creating hens that produce ten times the number of eggs that is normal for them and the diseases that the overproduction of eggs causes them, and the cruel conditions chickens are forced to live in every day.
This new edition documents what has happened since the book first appeared including the waging of high-profile campaigns to get rid of battery cages for laying hens, undercover investigations exposing the appalling cruelty to chickens and turkeys by poultry industry workers, the globalization of chicken production and its effect on the environment and spread of avian influenza, and how farm animal sanctuaries have become key players in debunking industry myths with truthful accounts of the sensitive and intelligent birds being brutalized in the name of food. It also effectively explains why these birds are so ill, why eating them makes people sick, and what can be done to cure the pathology of the modern poultry industry. As an alternative, author Karen Davis recommends choosing a plant-based diet. She provides insights into the behavioral and cognitive abilities of chickens so that they can be seen and appreciated as the smart, sensitive, emotional birds they are, as something other than the bottom of the food chain.
Available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and United Poultry Concerns.
More Than A Meal, The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality
By Karen Davis, PhD
Karen Davis’ More Than A Meal is an in-depth study on the life of a turkey, native to America, and the unjust abuse the turkey has been a victim of over the years. Davis takes us back to European folklore about turkeys, the myths, fairy tales, and downright lies told about turkeys and their habits and habitats. She shows how turkeys in the wild have complex lives and family units, and how they were an integral part of Native American and continental cultures and landscape before the Europeans arrived. In the book, Davis examines the cultural and literal history, as well as the natural history and biological needs and concerns of turkeys. She explores how turkeys came to be seen as the suitable centerpiece of the celebration of freedom in America itself—Thanksgiving. She examines the many varieties of turkeys and uncovers the methods by which millions of turkeys are raised, fattened, and slaughtered on farms around America today, and how we have bred the domestic turkey today into a deformed, enormous bird that must be artificially inseminated to reproduce.
Finally, Davis draws conclusions about our paradoxical, complex, and “bestial” relationship not just with turkeys, but with all birds, and thus with all other animals. She examines how our treatment of animals shapes our other values about ourselves, our relationship with other human beings, and our attitude toward the land, nation, and the world.
Available on Amazon, Lantern Books, and United Poultry Concerns.
Slaughter of the Innocent
By Hans Ruesch
Slaughter of the Innocent is the first book ever written that directly discusses the scientific arguments regarding the needless use of animals, as a part of medical progress. Author Hans Ruesch researched the book for years compiling this gut-wrenching truths that reveal how vivisection or animal experimentation is deeply wrong for many reasons. He successfully lifts the veil of secrecy, which has always been an important part of research establishments and the medical community, giving the reader an honest picture at what really goes on, after the laboratory doors are closed. His words reveal some of the worst atrocities anyone could possibly imagine. He reveals the horrific cruelty to animals, how fraudulent research and is not helping humans, and how the pharmaceuticals are more interested in profiting from diseases instead of looking into preventing them in the first place. With his creative style, thorough research and documentation, and innumerable facts Ruesch proves not only that animals aren’t needed for medicine/pharmaceuticals to move forward, but the use of which often leads to detrimental and misleading findings and catastrophic results. This wonderful yet disturbing volume is a must read for any person entering the field of medicine or the people already there. Available on Amazon.
The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery – 3rd, Revised & Expanded Edition
By Marjorie Spiegel
Marjorie Spiegel’s widely reviewed and acclaimed The Dreaded Comparison spans history, psychology, and current events to present the first in-depth exploration of the similarities between the violence humans have wrought against other humans, and our culture’s treatment of non-human animals. In the book, she makes a strong case for links between white oppression of black slaves and human oppression of animals. Comparisons between human slaves and animals include brandings, auctions of both slaves and animals, the tearing of offspring from their mothers, and the repugnant means of transporting slaves and animals. Gordon Parks declared that The Dreaded Comparison should be placed in schoolrooms across the universe, and civil rights attorney William Kunstler wrote that the book “has been adopted as required reading in colleges, universities, law curriculum, and high schools throughout the nation.”
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Pulling the Wool: A New Look at the Australian Wool Industry
By Christine Townsend
Christine Townsend exposes the long-held myths behind raising and sheering sheep for wool. A long-time animal activist, writer, founder of nonprofits for animals, and animal shelter manager—Townsend uncovers the deep cruelty of wool. She unpacks the wool industry and sheep farming and how sheep are bred for maximum fleece regardless of the climate, the complete lack of animal welfare, the barbarity of sheering, and ultimately their end as meat for the Middle East. In Pulling the Wool, Townend exposes how merino wool sheep suffer and she looks in detail at such horrific industry practices as mulesing. She argues that ignoring animal welfare is a result of economic pressures put on producers and that, until Australia establishes an ethical, self-sustaining agriculture from which animals, the environment and humans benefit, the whole community must bear responsibility for the way farm animals are treated. Townsend founded Animal Liberation in 1976, co-founded Animals Australia in 1980, and moved to India to run three animal shelters in 1990. She also founded Working for Animals Inc., an Australian NGO with the purpose of raising funds for animal shelters in India. Available on Amazon.
Jaws of Steel: The Truth About Trapping
By Thomas Eveland
Thomas Eveland exposes the myths and truths behind trapping animals for fur. He discusses the various types of traps commonly used and the consequences to the animals—severe pain, deep cruelty, enormous suffering and torturous death that each animal experiences. He sheds light on this horrific, highly unregulated, inhumane and dangerous industry, how the government, ranchers, farmers, hunters are all conspirators in the industry, and how citizens, retailers, consumers, government and legislators alike all need to advocate for the passage of stronger regulations, laws and prohibitions on the trapping of animals for their fur.
Available on Amazon.
Zoo Story: Life In the Garden of Captivity
By Thomas French
Zoo Story is an unprecedented account of the secret life of a zoo and its inhabitants. Based on six years of research, the book follows a handful of unforgettable characters at Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo: an alpha chimp with a weakness for blondes, a ferocious tiger who revels in Obsession perfume, and a brilliant but tyrannical CEO known as El Diablo Blanco. The sweeping narrative takes the reader from the African savannah to the forests of Panama and deep into the inner workings of a place some describe as a sanctuary and others condemn as a prison. Zoo Story shows us how these remarkable individuals live, how some die, and what their experiences reveal about the human desire to both exalt and control nature. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist French addresses extinction, conservation and captivity issues in all their moral complexities.
Available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Beyond the Bars, The Zoo Dilemma
by Virginia McKenna, William Travers, Jonathan Wray
Review from the Library Journal: “This collection of thoughtful essays on the role of zoos was compiled by the founders of Zoo Check, an organization devoted to preventing abuse of captive animals and promoting conservation of wild animals in their native habitats. Contributors including Richard Adams, author of Watership Down (1974), actress Virginia McKenna, and wildlife photographer Hugo van Lawick express their views cogently, clearly, and without the sensationalism, which often mars publications dealing with animal abuse. This important book is provocative, especially for those who are generally zoo advocates. Recommended for general collections and those dealing with animals.
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
The American Hunting Myth
By Ron Baker
In his book The American Hunting Myth, Baker examines the so-called “sport” of hunting and the destructive system that state and federal wildlife agencies use to perpetuate it. One by one, he convincingly refutes the arguments that hunters and wildlife officials use to defend recreational hunting. He graphically illustrates how greed for more funding by state game bureaus results in environmentally destructive practices; how politicians on both the state and federal levels use their influence to expand public hunting; how traditional beliefs about nature are partly responsible for the non-ecological educations received by college and university students who train to become wildlife biologists and wildlife managers and how this training ensures land and wildlife mismanagement practices. The book is meticulously researched and details the way ‘wildlife management’ is systematically destroying America’s ecosystems and wildlife. Baker presents strong arguments against hunting using biological, ethical, moral and ecological grounds.
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Exposing the Big Game: Living Targets of a Dying Sport
By Jim Robertson
Exposing the Big Game challenges the archaic, yet officially endorsed, viewpoint that the primary value of wildlife in America is to provide cheap entertainment for anyone with a gun and an unwholesome urge to kill. Portraits and portrayals of tolerant bears, loquacious prairie dogs, temperamental wolves, high-spirited ravens and benevolent bison will leave readers with a deeper appreciation of our fellow beings as sovereign individuals, each with their own unique personalities. Above all, this book is a condemnation of violence against animals, both historic and ongoing. It explores the true, sinister motives behind hunting and trapping, dispelling the myths that sportsmen use to justify their brutal acts. Exposing the Big Game takes on hunting and defends the animals with equal passion, while urging us to expand our circle of compassion and reexamine our stance on killing for sport.
Available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Credit: Photo Credit – KSRE Photo of Hog Facility, via Photo Pin at www.photopin.com
