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The Corporate Capture of (Gyn)Ecology
To begin with a simple, brutal truth—83 % of all wild land mammals on Earth are gone—lost through humanocentric, speciesist1 trajectories. Also taking place is what some biologists call an ‘insectageddon’—happening on Earth right now—which is unquantifiable. What remains is largely us—and the animals we’ve engineered (read: manipulated), confined, and consume. Animal agricultural practices are the No.1. cause of deforestation on Earth, and the second-largest cause of climate change.2 In S.O.S I question a biopolitical form of violence taking place on a planetary scale—an epochal nonhuman-animal domestic(ating) boundary event.
Central to my work, a ‘decolonial Ecofeminist’3 intent permeates my artistic practice - as I engage with a philosophical and critical ecological enquiry into domestication and its planetary consequences. I examine the intersections of social, ethical and environmental oppressions that are intimately enmeshed and naturalised with societal controls—structurally homogenised and subsidised. Shaped by the accelerating intensification of ‘humane-washing’ as well as ‘greenwashing’ in green/bio, techno-infused global economic model. I’m looking at histories and systems that sustain them, in the paradoxical relationship of Earth’s ‘loss of bio-abundance’ (Gould 2019)—juxtaposed with the production operations of farming nonhuman animals, and its historical and future connections to the threats of future pandemics.
My installation Blood Scent: Appetite for Extinction, explores the idea that what we call domestication is, in fact, domesecration4 (Nibert 2002)—a system of control that desecrates the living world. This involves tracing how patriarchal logics of dominance, ownership, progress and consumption—structures violence. It’s about control over birth, over bodies, over movement—and it’s always gendered.
I ask: what does it mean to live in a world where extinction is normalised and consumption is ritualised?
Rather than naming the various procedures of violence that have been rained down on nonhuman life—language,5 as a tool is always being re-configured to invisiblise the abstraction into systemic normativity. A speciesist stance I contend reinserts anthropocentrism, politically and institutionally ingrained and sustained. Speciesism as a global systemic ideology, I also contend (re)centres humanistic narcissism—still (re)imagining humans at centre of the universe. Learnt, taught, regurgitated, a calcification—to the bone—as exceptional. Keeps relentlessly intact - multispecies exploitation on Earth. A planetary system which produces comfort for some - has shaped the planet into what some of us—decolonial ecofeminists call the Androcene (Bahaffou & Gorecki, 2020).
S.O.S visualises the scale of data representation, yet speciesism remains obscured. My project, however, is not about statistics. It is about how we feel when confronted with them. How does one make art in the shadow of extinction? How can artistic practice speak to the ethics of othered be-ings brought into existence only to be destroyed? - I reached out to the post-photography artist Mishka Henner, whose work has been informative, and essential to my research.
Like myself, Henner believes artists’ works should be in dialogue with one another. There is an insistence of scale in both our works—an insistence that dares one to attend to the bigger picture. The Google Earth-appropriated satellite images from space, which he sutured together, were not of military sites or oil fields. The salt-an- pepper dots visible from this aerial view are farmed nonhuman animals. Exposing the sheer scale of the industrial logic of animal agriculture (cows in this image). With which Henner accidentally connects the horrific scale of the insatiable appetite for both—‘beef’ and ‘oil’—globally inducing a climactic greenhouse gas exacerbation. And this—is just one among6 thousands of sites—imposed geo-scarifications over Earth’s surface. What this image impressed on me—calls for a continual urgent interrogation and destabilisation of this planetary intersubjective, sustained violence. These farms, each one holding—at any given time—abysmal numbers of nonhuman animals. An existence of exploitation as destiny—in this life—on Earth. The manure waste lagoon—some blood-ruby red amongst many examples—soups of chemicals, intended to magically disappear the evidence of this shitification. Marinating congested—pooling at the surface, the pit appears like an open gash, a wound that cannot heal—and is not allowed to heal.7 Forcing Earth—into an unnatural (re)absorption. Kept open, for a prolonged assault—intensifying.
This visual helps the description tirelessly amplified by animal rights activists and critical animal studies scholars. A truth that speaks of the intentionality of big industries to keep these sites—out of mind, out of sight.8 Connections long scribed in words by ecofeminists—urging pattern recognition. (Shiva; Adams & Gruen).
Method(ology) of Madness9
So, what, then, is required for billions of living be-ings to live and die—on production time—bodies being primed for commodification?
Vast areas of Earth’s fertile land are required for these nonhuman animals (only some of them get) to graze.10 Food is needed to grow their bodies—and there is just - not enough grass or time. The main mono-crop plants that we now grow so abundantly, GMO-grown corn and soy - is not produced for human consumption—or even the planets—small percentage of plant-based human eaters—but destined for the farmed nonhuman animal ‘feed’.11
Untold amounts of finite fresh water are required to keep the billions of nonhuman bodies—vitalised. The grain, blended with a prescribed doses of hormones and antibiotics, produces the feed. Antibiotics used in farmed nonhuman animals serve multiple purposes. They are used to prevent bacterial infections in among animals kept in unnaturally confined proximity. Enduring together. This is especially true for pigs and chickens, who are confined in—vast indoor compounds all—over—the—world. They never know fresh air, exercise or daylight—whilst alive. They are—unexercised deliberately—limiting movement of any energy expenditure, so as to suppress their bodies metabolism, rendering it insufficient. Redundant from burning any energy—sedentary growth produces maximum weight, muscle and fat.
This is animal agricultural’s—(pro)efficiency—a business of obesity engineering.
Fig 3 - Shama Sahzayasin ‘Domesecration’ (a title borrowed from Professor David Nibert (2003) who coined the term). Photo; S.S. London 2025.
Antibiotics12 is one of the human animal species most important medicines. (Monbiot 2022) it’s also one of the most industrially ab(use)d drugs. As in its name suggests—anti(bio)tics—anti-life—killing all bacteria indiscriminately, whether by being sprayed over GMO crops or moving through the gut microbiome. Its overuse and reliance are causing a profound planetary disruption, one of the health—of all species. Resulting in a deficient immunity, and can act as an obesogenic agent. Seeing nonhuman animals as more valuable as corpses begins the deanimalisation process. Dis(member)ment—some(body)—to be churned into abysmal (de)constructed things. Edible, wearable, disposable. Dirt cheap—as well as expensive (bull)shit (Adams; Joy; Monbiot). Abstraction complete.13 Then with dizzying efficiency, to borrow the language of Isabella La Rocca González—‘from slaughterhouses—to our houses’.
This is the appetite—engineered, manufactured, and fed—to both nonhuman animals and to—us that I am interrogating. What is this appetite going to cost us? The—animals—biodiversity—Earth?
No land for Grazelands
Fig 4 - a) ‘22 Storey Pig Operation in Hubei Province China’. Source: The Guardian 2022. b) Shama Sahzayasin ‘Filter Interference’. Image courtesy of Elise Fredericksen, London 2025. c) ‘Famous Pig Storey Operation under construction, near Ezhoui, Hubei Province China.’ Source: Gilles Sabrie/The New York Times | ANP 2023.
When profit logistics out-run grazelands—late capitalism turns its sights toward the seas and skies. Two years after the global Covid 19 pandemic—China was criticised14 in 2022—and 2023—for constructing two 26 storey pig-farming facilities. With aims to slaughter a million pigs a year—in each. These operations are reportedly fully equipped with high-tech sensor-based ‘animal mood’ surveillance systems and pig-facial recognition technology. Critics have warned it will increase the risk of larger novel disease outbreaks.15 Over two decades ago, the geneticist Mae-Wan Ho (1998) theorised that a host of new antibiotic resistances and new viral pathogens were linked to the large-scale commercialisation and genetic engineering operations that were globally expanding. Suspect-fully and speculatively, this has been realised. There are 160,000 pig farms in China alone, second—only to the USA. Acceleration and expansion globally continue.
Filter Interference invites the viewer to confront the distortions we are conditioned to see through. It asks us to break these filters, to question the cost of appetite—as Earth is increasingly terraformed into a giant factory. It calls us to attend to the silenced screams of flesh—dis(member)ed. Such as the planet’s fifth most intelligent species—the Pig. The work hopes to provoke a shift in perception—from seeing nonhuman animals as resources, to recognising them as beings caught in the same system that subjugates us all.
For the absolute protection of those that profit—the ‘feed’—
of nonhuman animal secretions and carcasses—
for mass consumption—
must—remain relevant.
of nonhuman animal secretions and carcasses—
for mass consumption—
must—remain relevant.
Agri(cult)ural Animal Husband(ry): Border Control at the Womb
Most of these animals are exploited for” feminised protein”—or “femtein”, a term Carol Adams uses in The Sexual Politics of Meat.17 This term specifically amplifies the sexual commodification of nonhuman female animals. All her secretions—milk, eggs, foetuses, babies—are extracted.18 Calculated. “Femtein” articulates the expropriation of her reproductive cycles—all forms of extractive control over the female of the species’ body. This is the real picture of—perpetual pregnancy enforced on her. A corporatisation of (Gyn)Ecology: the global industrial claim over birth, over bodies, over the rhythms of reproductive life. The planetary practice of animal husband(ry); deciding the birth and deaths of sentient be-ings existence on Earth—with—border control at their wombs.
When it comes to those considered ‘less- than’—the nonhuman-beings
—those bred for death.
This is where most humans, regardless of identity or politics, draw their line of comfort.
This is when we resist—the questioning of our appetite for heterotopia.
—those bred for death.
This is where most humans, regardless of identity or politics, draw their line of comfort.
This is when we resist—the questioning of our appetite for heterotopia.
By heterotopia, I’m referring to Foucault's ideas of other spaces that not only reflect but also invert society’s values. We are fed with that value. So, when I talk about domesecration, I am speaking of how the exploitation of nonhuman animals mirrors and reinforces patriarchy itself.19 This is humanocentrism in the Androcene.
The female of other species ‘M(other)ed’—on repeat—into era(sure). Wombs—churned into laboratories. Her gushes of white liquid gold—‘milk(ed)’ on tap. Churning cheeses—hide rushes of blood that follow from exterminating her babies. Tagged, Medicated. Wash(ed). Cleanse(d). Vaccinated. Cen(sensored). Sur(veil)ed. Maimed. Bless(ed). Bloodless, Wrapped—plastic/fantastic cellophaned. Price-tagged—again. Blink. Repetition.
Carol Adams describes eating nonhuman animals as: “the re-inscription of male power at every meal” (1999). I would add that it is also a self-sabotage and, (re)absorption of a self-induced (in)subordination—of women whom many disregard the cross-species pattern recognition of female exploitation. Essentially—disassociating, and distancing into anthropocentric discourse—rejecting complicity—(un)recognised. Denied.
Grounded in speciesist indoctrination - then rise the many tired tactics of carnistic, omnivorous discourse of idyllic pastoral fantasies: such as portraying nonhuman animals as willing participants in their own subjugation, objectification, and existence—marketable as consumable. Patriarchal transmogrifications of female of the species—accepted, practiced and, often unwittingly aided.
Unveiling these erected symbolic boundaries—melancholic—societal constructions are resisted with indifference, ridicule, disavowal, passionate passive aggression, and fierce anger when perceived as a threat to one’s ‘way of life’. This ‘way of life’ is protected with a vengeance, unleashing discourses of violence—naturally.
This explains a planetary phenomenon: patrilineal masculinities who—since ‘time immemorial’21—vehemently uphold and defend their positionalities in the treatment and ab(use) of nonhuman animals. An unparalleled cross-(cult)ural speciesist discourse prevails.
Masreei B. Al-Hafiz reflects on violence and the ties between animal flesh consumption and the masculine imaginary throughout history:
‘Why then has he ended up as the most ferocious and devastating of the carnivores and a sadist—killing not only for food but for pleasure and fun as well? How has the unnatural diet of meat affected not only his own health but also the environmental equipoise of the planet which he hopes he will inhabit through the generations until eternity? What has his religion to say about this physical as well as mental pabulum and spiritual sustenance—or is he using his religion to peg on it his perverted sense of power over the rest of the species?’
(Al-Hafiz, 2007, p. 57.)
This mirrors, at the nonhuman level, the continual extraction of reproductive capacity from farmed females. This is what we—yes, I said that—consent to with our purchase power in affluent countries—when we follow industry dictations.
In conversation with the writer Billy Thompson (2024), of the Retreat Animal Rescue Centre, we discuss, ‘how free are we’? When capitalism creates so many unfreedoms—where we serve—as consumers.
Angela Davis explicates that by participating uncritically in these systems it implicates us—in the whole process. She magnifies in her contemporaneous critique:
Nonhuman animal domestication has not just been an agricultural practice—it is the architecture of violent conformity. To un-domesticate is not only to abolish these practices, but to liberate forms of knowing, from systems of institutional containment. Their captivity is our captivity, rehearsed—our own estrangement—hidden in their silenced flesh. Adams and Nibert remind us that speciesism denies animals’ subjectivity, reducing them to “biota” and commodified labour. “Biota” and vitalities—become new fetishised wet dreams—(in)sights for (re)sourcing—spelling the transitions from nonhuman animals’ reductionist compartmentalisations imposed—to humans—subtlety applied. Presented as freedom of choice(s).
Fig 5 - Shama Sahzayasin ‘Blood Scent: Appetite for Extinction’ Installation 2025. From Right to Left. a) ‘Filter Interference’ b) ‘S.O.S.’ c) Otherness Outrage, Sounds of the deep background noise. d) ‘Domesecration’. Floor - e) ‘Cruel Mercy’. Installation image courtesy of Elise Fredericksen, London 2025.Multispecies (Co)mm(unity) Art De(liberation)23
I made three large scale works on paper to mirror the scale of the planetary domesecration I am addressing. These embodied paintings register a cathartic function to them—made for the setting of a white cube space, inviting the viewer to engage with the semi-abstracted contents of the installation. However, since that last iteration the work continues to take ecstatic transformation. In the final stage of this project, I have been exploring multispecies collaborative—ways of making that do not reproduce the unilateral logic of extraction but instead invite co-presence. An invitation to unlearn the desensitisation to violent (idea)logical structures and to (re)sensitise. I reach out once again to Billy Thompson, who inspires—responsibility as virtue. He welcomes my request for a (co)mm(unity) multispecies art de(liberation).
My experimental film emerges from this research beyond verbal language, a gesture of listening attuned to the subtle presences. Each frame carries traces of beauty, natality, extinction and memory. In Sufi thought, God was occasionally described as an “unnamed bird” (Rabi’a); a presence carried on wings, on breath, on vibration. I return to this image because the birds have always been the first to call it—to announce what humans refuse to hear. This work chooses not to turn away in denial, but to face the denials of capture and murder of nonhuman animals: the billions of chickens, cows, sheep and pigs whose individual voices we never hear, hidden behind walls to prevent a mass empathic response. Except for the quiet familiar status quo of loss—like the long lost—aurochs or the auk—driven into extinction.
In the chapter titled “The Animals Call It” in Ecofeminism, Adams and Gruen draw from the Australian Waanyi writer Alexis Wright’s novel The Swan Book (2013), describing the ‘inseparability of climate collapse, denial, and colonisation.’ Wright writes of a lyrebird who recalls the screaming of slaughtered pigs—whilst in proximity to the violence as it happens—and calls it. Adams and Gruen continue: ‘There are also birds in Tasmania who recall the songs of birds who do not live there anymore, who may be extinct in the places where their sounds live on through others.’ Wright states that an ethical listening would mean to “really listen hard”: to listen for gaps in understanding, for failures of capture, for meanings we cannot bear through cultivated indifference; to listen for their assessment of us (intruder, danger, predator); to listen as they herald the threshold between life and death, as they invite humans to their death but warn against the killing of others. ‘The bird sirens have called it; now we need to “really listen hard” and act.’
(Adams & Gruen, 2022 p. 333)
Since the last global pandemic, the tiny birds that navigate the longest migration on Earth—the Red Knots—have sounded an emergency of their own, as well as signalling the decline of the Horseshoe Crab—an ancient being who has survived asteroids, ice ages, and planetary reconfigurations. Otherness Outrage traces the history of zoonoses—diseases crossing from animals to humans—through the story of the Horseshoe Crab. Its blue blood, deemed more precious than gold, is harvested to test human vaccines because it clots in response to bacterial contamination. Preventative solutions do not (re)produce profit margins—domesecration does. Again and again, nonhuman life is preyed on, captured, extracted.
What does it mean that five out of seven major zoonotic diseases of the modern era trace directly back to animal agriculture? And yet, ‘meat’ production is projected to rise by 2050. What does it mean that the more we extract, confine, geneticise, and compress other species, the more pandemics circle back to us—like warnings written on wings? The Horseshoe Crab is only one circle in this wider orbit of domesecration; a reminder that the systems we build to protect ourselves are built on the bodies of others. With the sculpture Cruel Mercy, I want to visualise this paradox—the way the nonhuman body becomes a laboratory, sacrifice, instrument, a site of salvation. Washed up fishing net debris and liquid textures held in glass test tubes speak to fragments of scientific and colonial language. The work acts as a tracery of an ecology of contradiction.
My hope is that by naming domesecration, we begin to see it—not as the past act of domesticating animals, but as an ongoing desecration of the living world. If awareness is the antidote—what does it mean to stay awake—in a world built on sleepwalking—to resist desensitisation?
Art cannot reverse extinction, but it can hold awareness—it can reframe, unsettle, remind, ignite—re(kin)dle—love and (re)respecting multispecies life. As (kind)red spirits—here with us—desiring, to d(well)—on Earth. I hope my practice can be a tool for multispecies (co)mm(unity) art (de)liberation, for future change and growth. If domesecration names a world of enclosure, multispecies art offers a small rehearsal of a world beyond it.
With Gratitude
Shama
List of Figures and Images
Fig 1 - Shama Sahzayasin ‘S.O.S’ - Water(colour) pigments, pastel and anti(bio)tics on wallpaper. 54 x 300 cm. (S.O.S Morse code implied as in emergency abbreviation for ‘save our souls’). ‘Blood Scent: Appetite for Extinction’, installation image by Elise Fredericksen, London 2025.
Fig 2 - Mishka Henner’s ‘FEEDLOTS’ Coronado Feeders, Dalhart, TX. 2013. Image courtesy of Mishka Henner.
Fig 3 - Shama Sahzayasin ‘Domesecration’ - ‘Blood Scent: Appetite for Extinction’. Walnut & pomegranate ink, water(colour) pigments, pastel and anti(bio)tics on bamboo paper. Sourced objects with liquids. FAN/Zine. Installation image Shama Sahzayasin London 2025.
Fig 4 - (a) Guardian 2022 image of the first 26 storey pig operation in Ezhou, Hubei Province. (b) Shama Sahzayasin Filter Interference - Blood Scent: Appetite for Extinction. installation image by Elise Fredericksen, London 2025. (c) Gilles Sabrie/New York Times|ANP 2023 image of second building under construction Ezhou, Hubei. China.
Fig 5 - Shama Sahzayasin Blood Scent: Appetite for Extinction. Presented at Goldsmiths Art + Ecology Graduate Show. Installation image by Elise Fredericksen, London 2025.
Fig 6 - Collaboration with multispecies (Co)mm(unity) assemblage - courtesy of Billy Thompson at ‘The Retreat Animal Rescue.’ Kent, UK 2025.
Fig 7 - Shama Sahzayasin FAN/Zine (doubles as a hand fan and zine - created specifically for the extremely high temperatures whilst exhibiting), containing poetry and watercolour paintings - accompanied ‘Blood Scent: Appetite For Extinction’ Graduate Exhibition presented at Goldsmiths 2025.
Notes on Terminology
AG GAG - “Ag-gag” laws (agricultural gag) are anti-whistleblower laws that apply within the animal agriculture industry. Popularised by Mark Bittman in an April 2011 New York Times column (though used long before then by advocates), the term typically refers to state laws in the United States that forbid undercover filming or photography of activity on farms without the consent of their owners—particularly targeting whistleblowers exposing suspected animal rights abuses. Although these laws originated in the United States, they have also begun to appear elsewhere, such as in Australia and Canada. Source: Wikipedia.
Biomass - The total mass of all living organisms on Earth.
Carnism - A term coined by Dr. Melanie Joy to describe the invisible belief system, or ideology, that conditions people to eat certain animals.
Speciesism - is a term coined by Prof. Richard Ryder in 1970 to name the discrimination of nonhuman of species. A speciesist mentality not only excludes but dominates and hierarchies nonhuman beings’ very existence on Earth. See Jeremy Bentham for moral consideration of sentience.
Veganism - Is not a menu choice. At its core it is a philosophy and way of living with roots traceable to Jainism, Buddhism, strands of Hinduism, and Sufi Islam. Veganism opposes carnism and the global capitalist, patriarchal order that commodifies and exploits animals. It is therefore both a personal ethical stance and a political boycott of systemic violence. Its revolutionary, environmental, and progressive nature has provoked strong resistance from industries reliant on nonhuman animal exploitation.
FOOTNOTES
Biomass ref: Yinon M; Bar-On; Phillips R; Milo R, 2018.
1. Speciesism is a term coined by Prof. Richard Ryder in 1970 to name the discrimination of nonhuman of species. A speciesist mentality not only excludes but dominates and hierarchies nonhuman beings’ very existence on Earth. See Jeremy Bentham for moral consideration of sentience.
1 - ‘Domesecration’ was the title of a large-scale painting from my installation—a title borrowed from Professor David Nibert, who also coined the term.
2 - See Greenpeace and other studies included in the bibliography for in-depth details of Animal Agriculture impact on Global Greenhouse Gas Emission's as well as the no.1. cause of Planetary deforestation. The studies also show GMO mono-crops of corn and soy that are not grown for human consumption, but diverted for animal-agricultural ‘feed’—and are also linked to deforestation. 78% of land farmed globally - now is domesecrated, for growing mono-crops to feed and, to raise cows for their bodily commodification. Sold to rich countries. ‘Emissions from farming are bigger than those from power stations,’ states Chris Stark Chief Executive Carbon Trust/former head of Climate Change Committee. He adds ‘Factory Farmers continuously block progress with anti-reform politician's representing rural areas.’ The Badger Trust analysis.
3 -Decolonial Ecofeminism allows acknowledgement, as described by Myriam Bahaffou, that the linking of colonisation of nature, peoples, women, and all marginalised bodies’—as a central link of ecological and social oppression—-places decolonial feminism as the original ecological justice movement, before white feminist theorisations of the 1970s. ( Bahaffou & Gorecki, 2020). See also Edward Said, Orientalism (1978).
4 - ‘Domesecration’ was the title of a large-scale painting from my installation—a title borrowed from Professor David Nibert, who also coined the term.
5 - Media, advertising, animated visual cutification of nonhuman-animal representation and linguistic gymnastics is applied to distance ourselves from nonhuman animals, erasing them as unique individual beings. For example, using terms such as, ‘livestock’ (as a plural) - otherises them—positioning them as a group. This classification makes it acceptable to view them as not-favoured animals (i.e., our pets—whom we acknowledge individually and by name), assigning them othered and ‘killable . And by classifying them as ‘stock’ ‘broiler’—as products—we justify objectifying their bodies as property and future commodities.
6 - For further perspective—according to the UN—there are ‘three times more ‘livestock’ (nonhuman farmed animals) alive than humans at any given time. This includes:19 billion chickens, 1.5 billion cows, 1 billion pigs and 1 billion sheep’. Citation from article on this website. (UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, Economic Forum, 2019).https://www.fao.org/home/en
7 - The authors of a recent paper describe - ‘Pollution burdens disproportionately affect socially vulnerable, minority populations’. They add, ‘Airborne pollution around open or semi-confined AFOs poses a health risk to neighbouring communities (3, 4, 5). Particulate matter below 2.5 microns diameter (PM2.5) is of particular concern as it lingers in the air for extended periods and is easily inhaled.’ See further; Chamanara, S., Gounaridis, D., Goldstein, B. et al. Geography of animal feeding operations and their contribution to fine particulate matter pollution in vulnerable communities in the United States. Commun Earth Environ 6, 620 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02520-w
8 - The colossal scale of these operations on the ground is difficult to get close to, and—illegal to photograph. Armoured with political lobbyists globally, invested in protecting the profits of this status quo, and is buffered by growing AG-Gag laws and harsh penalties for any trespassers onto these sites.
9 - Yes, I call this systemic structure madness in the literal sense.
10 - An important study named Grazed and Confused (2017) shows grazing nonhuman animals is not an effective long-or short-term strategy for offsetting carbon emissions produced by animal agriculture—or for improving soil-carbon equilibrium, which they continue to present in newly revised language and marketing re-brands known as the ‘regenerative farming’. For further, see The Drawdown Report www.drawdown.org; Monbiot; Winters. https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/grazed-and-confused
11 - And the ocean-dwellers are not exempt. The mass ‘by-catch’ caught by fisheries (legal and illegal) includes many endangered species being dredged up. Bottom-trawler fishing means these ‘by-catch’ species are not carefully extracted and separated from the target species - but—are all churned up and enter the market food chain as feed for land-animal feed production. And they are the main ingredients in pet food destined for booming pet industries in affluent countries. They can be found in the ingredients list labelled on pet food as ‘fishmeal’ and ‘meat-meal’ (‘meat-meal’—a code for the remnants of whatever is left on the slaughterhouse floor: ears, feathers, beaks, feet, tails etc.) Rich nations pets have more food security than 1 in 3 humans.
12 - A recent report states 70% of the world's antibiotics is administered—not to humans—but to our engineered ‘farmed’ captives. FAIRR Initiative. “Antibiotics & Health – key findings.” 2024.
13 - Into dependable, free raw material for Capital. Nibert reminds us how the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1789, p. 311) ‘helped nonhuman-animal subjectivity enter the public and political spheres through suffering,’ and that the first laws passed for some level of moral-ethical consideration was made. He stated: “The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? is it vulnerable? ” (Nibert 2002).
14 - References for fig 4 - a & c. Articles available here: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/25/chinas-26-storey-pig-skyscraper-ready-to-produce-1-million-pigs-a-year and: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/business/china-pork-farms.html
15 - Bynum points out in their chapter titled ‘Planetary Health’ : ’A recent preference for a diet high in animal protein has led to a rapid intensification of livestock husbandry on land and an over-exploitation of the seas. Changing land use also brings together organisms that were previously not in contact, and allows well-tolerated bacteria and especially viruses to ‘spill over’ from their novel hosts. New human diseases—Ebola, Zika, Nipah, Covid-19—are the very undesirable result. Scientists now consider that we are at a tipping point where anthropogenic climate change and habitat destruction will roll back gains made in human health’ (W. & H. Bynum, 2022, pp. 107-123). See also: UNEP. Preventing the Next Pandemic: Zoonotic Diseases and How to Break the Chain of Transmission (United Nations Environment Programme, 2020).
16 - Pigs, among the most intelligent mammals on the planet, exhibit a wide range of complex behaviours such as performing video-game-like tasks, following human commands and using rudimentary tools.’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_intelligence
17 - ‘Meat’ originally meant ‘food’; is now used to refer to animal flesh’. (Shariatmadari, 2019). In the King James Version of the Bible, God announces that ‘I have given every green herb for meat’ (Genesis 1:30).
18 - Only a few selective male specimens are kept alive for breeding. They are electrocuted in the anus for collection of their sperm (bulls). And, the majority of males are killed at birth (this is the case with male calves, who are often destined for the international veal market via industrial-scale of live export, and male chicks, are macerated on enmass at birth). It is beyond the scope of this essay for me to expand on the exploitation of the male (sperm producer).
19 - Touted by Darwinist post-and neo-followers to (re)assert male supernaturalising supremacy. (Italics mine)
20 - Sahzayasin - scene title from dissertation Art + Ecology 2025.
21 - It seems fitting to use clichés when speaking about the oldest cliché on planet Earth.
22 - She continues: ‘I usually don’t mention that I’m vegan, but that has evolved… I think it’s the right moment to talk about it because it is part of a revolutionary perspective. How can we not only discover more compassionate relations with human beings but also develop compassionate relations with the other creatures with whom we share this planet? That would mean challenging the whole capitalist industrial form of food production.’ Frequencies For Change Media: Angela Davis in Conversation with Grace Lee Boggs.
23 - By De(liberation), I mean both the reflective process of thinking-with nonhuman animals and the ethical imperative of multispecies liberation.
Bibliography
Adams, C.J. (1990) The Sexual Politics of Meat. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Adams, C.J. & Gruen, L. (eds.) (1993) Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Animal Agriculture No. 1 Cause of Deforestation Globally. Greenpeace USA.Available at: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/forests/issues/agribusiness/ Accessed 18 November 2025].
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