A modern, non-American sequel to Animal Liberation Now

I’m extremely fortunate to have read vegan Matheiu Ricard‘s A Plea for the Animals immediately after reading Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation Now (ALN) because I could see the influence that book had on this book, which was published by Shambhala Publications in Ricard’s native French language in 2014, and then translated into English.

Ricard is a monk, photographer, author, and vegan. While I wish this book was an easier read than ALN, it’s as equally academic—which isn’t a bad thing because the average person doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with consuming animals or their byproducts. His introduction is strong: “This book is a plea and an exhortation to change our relationship with animals.”

Highlights I found worth mentioning:

• The book begins by outlining our relationship with animals, which began 12,000 years ago. Like ALN, Ricard reviews the cultural, historical, and religious perceptions of animals and how they’ve changed.
• Language influences our consumption habits.
• Animal consumption has had a significant environmental impact on land, air, food, human health, water, and poverty. Ricard takes us behind the closed slaughterhouse doors and explains what happens in the animal agriculture.
• He lists common excuses for animal consumption, and responses to them. For example, it’s argued that humans are more intelligent than animals, therefore we have the right to eat them. But animals have an intelligence of their own; they survive without verbal communication. Watch any wild animal TV series or documentary and you’ll see this.
• Gorillas have learned up to 350 signs in sign language. I’ve even seen dogs on TikTok that can communicate using buttons that play human-spoken words or phrases. Animals play, dance, sing/chant, and have judgement.
• Chimpanzees have a better short-term memory than adults. Jane Goodall identified 40 ways that chimpanzees use tools. They can even recognize 200 plant species!

Here’s a video of Bunny, a talking dog who is even involved in a university study.

• Ricard reviews the similarities between genocide and zoocide and the psychological explanations for speciesism.
• He admits it’s easier to eat 100% plant-based than to give up animal testing for medical care, which is still globally rampant. Humans have been harmed by drugs tested on animals, even though the animals weren’t. Also, aspirin is toxic to animals but perfectly fine for human consumption.
• The wild animal trade is a whopping $16b dollar industry (as of 2014) and involves millions of monkeys, reptiles, birds, tortoises, fish, parrots, gorillas, leopards, and their byproducts (skins, fur, coral, and hunting trophies).
• Bears, puppies, kittens, tigers, elephants, rhinos, and sharks are all consumed too.
• Ricard talks about the history of animals used in entertainment, like the corrida (bullfighting), which is still considered an art form in Spain. Circuses, zoos, marine parks, and hunting are included in this.
• He ends with his philosophical views on animal rights and human obligations to them. Some countries have better laws to protect animals than others.

While A Plea for the Animals isn’t an easy read, it’s a great overview of how we treat and consume animals unfairly and primer for anyone new to the animal rights movement. Despite the translation, it’s an equally important book as Animal Liberation Now.

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