Greetings, determined viewers, and welcome to Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. Today we once again travel to New York, USA’s picturesque Hudson Valley to visit the loving Catskill Animal Sanctuary, founded by former teacher and animal advocate Kathy Stevens and Jesse Moore.

Ms. Stevens has written a book about this special place called “Where the Blind Horse Sings: Love and Healing at an Animal Sanctuary.” Located in the Catskill Mountains, the 40-hectare haven is home to farm animals who have been rescued from cruelty and neglect.

Since its establishment in January 2001, the Sanctuary has saved over 1,500 animals, including cows, goats, sheep, donkeys, pigs, rabbits, turkeys, chickens, ducks and geese with some now living permanently at the facility and the rest having been successfully re-homed. The Sanctuary works to raise public awareness about the loving nature of our charming animal co-inhabitants.

We have tours every weekend between April and October. Lots of children come; it’s a very, very joyful place. People can sit down and kiss a pig and hug lots of horses. It’s a very warm and spontaneous tour. What happens depends a lot on what free range animals are approaching us on a tour.

Hallo, girls. Hallo, beautiful girls. Buddy. This is Buddy. And Buddy is the horse who’s on the jacket of my book “Where the Blind Horse Sings.” Hi, boy. Hi, boy. Hi, lovely.

Buddy has been here many years, he’s fully blind. Just like humans, blind animals adapt very well and very quickly to their environment. Their hearing is generally amazingly acute, and most of them develop friendships with sighted animals and they really do adjust quite well.

Now these four mares, this is Icy, the white one is Icy. This one is Echo, this is Eloise, and this is Dakota. Now Dakota has just been placed in this field about two hours ago and it’s interesting that these two have connected so quickly. Hi, you look like you are long lost friends. Hi, yes, you do.

The compassionate work of the Catskill Animal Sanctuary is an inspiration for all visitors.

People’s hearts open up here. Somebody will say, in tears, “I had no idea this is who they were.”

“I didn’t know cows were so affectionate!” and “These animals are so happy!” People come down here and they feel the joy and that’s what they express.

Out of her deep concern for animals, for future generations and for our Earth, Kathy Stevens is starting Camp Kindness to help children get closer to our affectionate animal friends, help them understand animals’ sentience and intelligence, and teach them the value of compassion for all life.

It is going to encompass animal care, farm chores, gardening, and a daily cooking class with our vegan chef. We believe that there would be a lot more vegetarians and vegans in the world if people had had an exposure to animals as a young child and saw them the way we know them to be. And also to have these kids get their feet dirty and get their hands dirty and work in the garden and see how food grows, and to have that connection with the Earth we feel will foster a respect that we would like to encourage for the planet.

Residents of the Catskill Animal Sanctuary embrace and welcome visitors into a world of joyful delights. Each of the animals has a unique personality and cuteness.

They are some happy birds. They were talking, I don’t know if you heard, but they were talking up a storm when we were standing out there.

Ten chickens are as different as 10 human beings. There are things that make you unique. There are universal chicken traits; they love to take dust baths, to flap their wings and kick up the dust, and it helps them keep away parasites. They love to explore their environment. They are very, very, very devoted and protective parents. But we’ve had outgoing chickens, very shy chickens, we had a chicken who used to fall asleep in our laps, we had a chicken who ate lunch with us, and we had a chicken I took for car rides.

Smart, playful animals such as the pigs always brighten up their caregivers’ days!

We have had to put five different locks on the kitchen to keep the pigs from figuring out how to get in the kitchen. So that’s just one funny story. Pigs are bright, and we’re always having to outwit the pigs. So that’s the most obvious example of their intelligence. I mean the biggest surprise to me has been in their ability to communicate what they want to humans, and all the species are pretty good at that.

Through years of experience and interaction, Kathy Stevens has developed a deep, subtle understanding of the Sanctuary’s residents, just as a loving mother understands her children.

Animals have very, very powerful ways of communicating and if we were just more receptive we would see what they were. People who come and go on tours and certainly people who volunteer, it starts to become easier and everybody here realizes there’s so much more internally in an animal than any of us ever knew.

When we return, Ms. Stevens will share more about the caring work of the Catskill Animal Sanctuary. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. Today we’re visiting the Catskill Animal Sanctuary, located in New York, USA’s Hudson Valley. The haven was co-founded by vegan animal advocate and author Kathy Stevens.

I am vegan. I don’t eat any animal products. When I was in my mid-20s, I started learning about the health impact in terms of the high cholesterol and high fat of beef in particular. And at that point I started, from a health point of view, cutting out one meat at a time.

But many years later when I decided to open an animal sanctuary, I spent some time touring other sanctuaries in this country, and I’ll never forget seeing a film that many of your viewers might know, it’s called “Meet your Meat,” and it’s filmed inside a slaughterhouse. And seeing the horrors of that film and utter terror on the faces of the animals led me down a path of really wanting to not to harm another living thing. So I very quickly went from being vegetarian to being vegan as a result of that film.

Intensive animal agriculture, such as concentrated animal feeding operations cause immense suffering to our animal friends and have horrific consequences to the environment. Kathy Stevens helps to inform visitors to the Sanctuary of the devastating impact of factory farming on animals, humans and our precious, shared planet.

Factory farming is one of the primary causes of global warming. What most people don't consider is where the animal waste goes. On this planet, we grow 65-billion animals a year to feed a human population of less than seven billion. We don't have septic systems for animal waste. It goes into the groundwater, it goes into the rivers. We are literally killing our rivers and bays.

We’re destroying the Amazon that's so important to us environmentally, because we’re taking down all the trees, to either graze cattle, or grow the products to feed the cattle. So there are innumerable consequences, from methane to toxic water, to toxic air. And we don't need to eat them for our health. So why, if there's a better way that's kind to them and kind to the planet and tastes good, and is healthy, why wouldn't people at least try that way?

To promote the life-saving vegan diet as the most effective means we can use to help save our planetary abode, the Sanctuary has introduced the Compassion Cuisine program.

We’ve just hired a vegan chef and so we will be offering cooking classes, and the new chef will offer his services, both to Sanctuary members and volunteers and to the general public, doing a whole range of things designed to help people who are curious about a vegan diet, interested in developing a diet that’s more compassionate, or need to change their diet for medical reasons.

We just want to give people the tools they need to feel confident in the kitchen, to believe and to experience for themselves that vegan food is delicious. So he’ll be doing quick afternoon workshops, he’ll be doing extended courses, he will offer his services to go to do cooking classes and cooking parties in people’s homes.

All animals at the Sanctuary are given a nutritious plant-based diet tailored to their individual needs and requirements.

These animals are plant-eaters, so their diets are vegan. We make sure that they’re having a healthy diet and they are not eating other animals, in essence. Here! This one gets this combination of foods and this one gets this combination of foods, and this one gets some bananas because he needs it for his digestion, and this one gets some supplements, like vitamin E, sometimes for skin or “glucosamine” for joints.

Everyone eats something different. The ruminants, the cows, goats and sheep, their diets are hay. The horses’ diets and the rabbits’ diets are very simple, but the other animals really have very individual diets based on their age, whether they’re overweight or underweight, and whether they’re missing teeth, and whether they have digestive problems. Oh, we have a huge board in the feed room, with every single animal on the farm listed with his individual recipe under his name.

The selfless, unconditionally loving nature of animals constantly inspires and touches Ms. Stevens and the staff at the Sanctuary.

There’ve been animals who so clearly thank us for taking them out of their environments. There are animals who share in a way that’s very generous. There are animals who comfort animals of other species. So what I’ve learned from running this place is that it’s important to treat each animal as an individual. If you do that, they know you’re doing that. And they free up, and we watch these remarkable things take place, things that have changed my life and that I can’t wait to share with the world.

In recognition of their wholehearted dedication to the care of animals and endeavors such as Camp Kindness, Supreme Master Ching Hai is honoring the Catskill Animal Sanctuary with the Shining World Compassion Award.

Congratulations and our sincere thanks go to Director Kathy Stevens and the staff of the Sanctuary for creating an Eden on Earth for our beloved animal friends. We also thank them for their noble efforts in promoting the loving vegan lifestyle to help save our precious planet. May the beautiful Catskill Animal Sanctuary continue to thrive and be an inspiration to us all.

Cherished viewers, thank you for your company today on Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment after Noteworthy News. May compassion and virtue always bloom within all of us.

The eye-opening documentary “Earthlings,” directed by vegan filmmaker Shaun Monson makes clear the shocking way animals on land and sea are ruthlessly tortured and exploited by the meat industry.

I recommend everyone to take a moment to watch “Earthlings.” You should at least know what you're doing and what you're contributing to when you do participate in some of these industries unknowingly, because most of us don't know. And it's all about informing and provoking people to think.

Please join us for our presentation of Part 3 of this important documentary, Tuesday, April 13, on Stop Animal Cruelty.