Image by Jo Anne McArthur / We Animals

Every day we see media reports of human actions that seriously beggar belief. Last week I read about extreme violence being inflicted on motherless calves in a victim ‘farming’ establishment of the breast milk trade (aka ‘dairy‘); I read about laughing fishermen hacking the tail off a shark before setting the now defenceless, mutilated, bleeding individual who could no longer swim, adrift to die in agony while filming themselves clearly enjoying their brutality.  A few days earlier I read of a raccoon who had been tormented by laughing, mocking humans until the panic stricken creature was forced from a boat so far from land that survival was impossible.  Who knows what I’ll read tomorrow?

I would be surprised if anyone was reading this while thinking these are just the sort of things they enjoy hearing about. Probably, like me, most…