Preventing Animal Cruelty

Preventing animal cruelty is a big part of being vegetarian or vegan for many people. While each vegetarian is doing their part to reduce the demand and effectively end the cruel conditions in which livestock are kept, there are other ways you can contribute to the same cause. One of the easiest is donating. The only question is: who should you donate to? There are the big-name organizations, like PETA and Greenpeace, and there are smaller, local places (which may take longer to find, but it's worth it and a more rewarding feeling to know exactly where your money's going to help!). Have a local animal shelter? Donate food or toys to help care for the animals there. If you have a little more time on your hands and want to commit, offer to be a foster parent for a young and needy puppy or kitten. There are also good organizations that people close to me have worked with which always need more support, such as Best Friends, an animal society dedicated to giving pets deemed "un-adoptable" by shelters to loving homes, and Farm Santuary, which works to end cruelty to farm animals and has friendly farms for these rescued animals in both New York and California. But the simplest way to prevent animal cruelty is to recognize it and refuse to stand by and let it happen. The ASPCA has a page of the Top Ten Ways to Prevent Animal Cruelty. They are all incredibly easy and helpful things that everyone committed to stopping the cruelty towards animals can do.