The images in the following program are very sensitive and may be as disturbing to viewers as they were to us. However, we have to show the truth about cruelty to animals, praying that you will help to stop it.

Today’s Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants will be presented in Dutch, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Mongolian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.

Very sad! How can we stop the pain and suffering of animals? How can we prevent it?

Yes, the best way is just to not eat meat.

This is the Stop Animal Cruelty series on Supreme Master Television. The Netherlands has a population of around 16 million, but the number of pigs exceeds the number of humans with an estimated 20 million pigs in the nation. The Netherlands is the number one exporter of pigs in Europe, sending 8 million a year to Germany, Spain, Italy and Russia.

This week we meet Mr. Hans Baaij, a lawyer and the director of the Dutch animal welfare group Pigs in Peril and the animal advocacy group Animals and Rights.

Pigs in Peril deals with pigs in the Netherlands. Animal and Rights concerns itself with the legal aspects of animals and welfare.

Why did you decide to work for Pigs in Peril?

Well, that actually happened by coincidence. At one point during the swine flu (outbreak) the writer Voskuil, took action. Yes, he started a campaign with his wife and I joined them. And yes, through him, through the writer J.J. Voskuil, I got in touch with the pigs.

Why did you choose to work for pigs in need and not for other animals?

Well, it all came about because the writer Voskuil, started this movement in 1997. He knew the situation of many farmers on farms. He saw it changing. And then in the 1970s, it really became an industry. And then he resolved that he wanted to do something for those pigs.

And I joined his campaign, which he did with his wife. And that’s how it happened that we focus specifically on pigs. It’s not a conscious choice that we like pigs and not chickens. No, we think all animals are fine. But it’s by coincidence that we’re mainly concerned with pigs.

Pigs are among the most intelligent animals on Earth. In fact, according to scientific studies, their intelligence level surpasses that of a three-year old child. They are also very sensitive and caring beings as shown by the fact that mother pigs sing to their piglets while they are nursing.

And yes, you notice it in everything, in the social behaviour and the exploration behavior, that they are very curious. And that they are very intelligent. And an organic farmer told me, he had some pasture with pigs on it, and he got a phone call from people from the village saying: “Yes, your pigs are running in the village again!”

And then he looked and he first brought the pigs back. And then he went to look at the fence. And then he said: “Yes, it is incredible how they could escape.” And every time it happened again.

And it turned out that these pigs, they removed the stakes from the ground, with the electric wire on it and with the energizer. And then they crawled under it to go outside and then they put the stakes back. And that’s how they escaped every time and that’s why the farmer didn’t know how it happened. Because their escape, the way they did it, they covered it well. Yes, so you see that an animal like that is pretty smart and can put himself in the shoes of a human for instance.

And there is also scientific research now by Professor (Donald) Broom, at Oxford (University), which shows that pigs have self-awareness. That is done with a mirror test. They know: “Ah” that they are looking at a mirror; they know that it is themselves. So through the mirror they can determine their behavior. And with this you can see that they are self-aware.

We all can understand the deep love between a mother and child and with pigs the bond between sow and piglet is no different. However factory farms seek to raise and murder pigs as quickly as possible to maximize profit and thus ignore the fact piglets need to stay with their mother for a period to grow up normally.

Regarding most pigs, they grow up to be slaughtered. These pigs are born in very large groups. That’s actually already bad because a normal pig has only five or six piglets… and here it’s mainly 10, 12 up to 14. These piglets are removed from the sow very early, already after three weeks and they’re totally not up to this. That means they experience severe psychological trauma that lasts for the rest of their lives, because they get taken away so soon. Psychologically they’re already disturbed, so to speak.

On top of that they get, as a result of not being used to solid food, they get hemorrhoids and diarrhea, as it’s called. And for this they get antibiotics. These piglets, when they’re removed from their mother they go to a barren cage and stay there the rest of their lives. A cage that is six by four or five by five and they have nothing to do.

They do hang a chain for them to play with. But they actually get used to it after two minutes so it bores them already. And then they sit there waiting for six months until they get mature and then they go to be slaughtered. So they have a life of nothing.

Pigs In Peril took a unique approach to get Dutch pig farms to stop castrating male piglets, a horrific procedure that is done without any anesthetic and is beyond painful for the young ones as evidenced by their shrieks for mercy when their testes are cut. The group filed a lawsuit against Dutch supermarkets to force them to stop purchasing castrated pigs.

And let us say that now we are this far that all the supermarkets, by next year in the Netherlands only will sell meat from pigs that don’t get castrated any more.

Tail docking has no place in a civilized world, yet in intensive animal agriculture facilities this barbaric practice is common. Mr. Baaij explains further.

And the cutting of the tails still happens, and this is very painful, especially because the tails have a lot of feeling. Yes, why does it happen? So you have to imagine that when piglets are in cages for six months and they have nothing to do and the only moving thing is the tail of their neighbor, they go gnaw it. So the cutting of tails is a sign that in general their welfare is very bad! So the circumstances have to be very bad!

Mr. Baaij also says a product of the flawed feeding practices in factory farms is that some animals are perpetually hungry when they get older.

What almost no-one knows is that many animals in the livestock industry are hungry. And why is this so? Pigs and chickens for instance, grow tremendously fast. So they are bred for very quick growth. This means also that they have an enormous appetite. Actually, they always want to eat.

And some animals are used for producing the new pigs and new chickens, and the new eggs. They are also hungry, but if they continue eating (the same way) when they are an adult, they just die because of overeating. And that is why they are put on a very restricted diet.

And so those animals are put on a starvation diet and so they are actually hungry their whole lives long or have a hungry feeling. The scientists are not sure if it is real hunger, but it is surely a hungry feeling. And then you are talking about 800,000 sows per year and 7 million chickens that are always hungry.

It is the highly stressful, overcrowded and utterly filthy surroundings found on pig farms that are highly suitable breeding grounds for new strains of viruses and bacteria. Antibiotics are constantly fed to pigs, ironically just to keep them alive until they can be slaughtered.

This practice has given rise to the development of new types of antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” such as MRSA, or methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, a pathogen that kills more than 18,000 Americans every year.

In 2003, a never before seen strain of MRSA was discovered in the Netherlands called NT-MRSA. Researchers found the NT-MRSA infections in humans were centered around pig farm facilities. A 2007 study published in the Emerging Infectious Disease Journal concluded that greater than 20% of MRSA cases in the Netherlands are NT-MRSA infections originating from factory farmed pigs and cattle.

Being transported, whether to the slaughterhouse or to other countries, is an event that brings intense fear and anguish to these sensitive beings. Approximately 10,000 pigs are transported per day in the Netherlands and the harsh journey often sickens them.

The biggest problem is that these pigs come into a limited space, namely a truck and then they have to establish a new hierarchy and so then you get terrible fights. So that’s really the biggest problem of transportation. And whether the trip takes a long or a short time, that problem is very often present. Also temperature; that is, it becomes too hot. Pigs nowadays can´t tolerate heat very well. And above 20, 24 degrees (Celsius), they already have problems.

Well, if they have to go to Spain, and it’s more than 40 degrees and they often don’t get any water on board, yes, then there are problems. Since 2006 we’ve worked on the transportation, and since that time there’s been improvement. But there are still serious things that happen. So just recently there was a transport vehicle with 400 dead pigs on board. Well, you can imagine what the circumstances were. (Yes.)

Mr. Hans Baaij and Pigs In Peril volunteers we thank you for seeking to improve the welfare of pigs in the Netherlands. Your care and concern for our porcine friends reflects the good heart of the Dutch people. May we soon live in a world where pigs and all other animals are treated as our brothers and sisters and humanity shifts to the loving and peaceful organic vegan diet.

For more details on Pigs In Peril, please visit www.VarkensInNood.nl

Thank you respected viewers for joining us today on Stop Animal Cruelty. Enlightening Entertainment is next, after Noteworthy News. May Heaven embrace our planet with Divine light.