In China, the start of the new year is a time to be shared with your loved ones. But while we humans are lucky enough to decide how to spend our time in the new year, animals often don’t have the same kind of luck that we do. The Year of the Dragon is considered the luckiest year of all 12 years in the Chinese lunar calendar. However, the other 11 animals in the Chinese horoscope are unlucky—because of how they suffer at the hands of human beings. They are each unfortunate for a reason, and here’s why:

• Mouse: Mice are abused in everything from painful skin irritation experiments to psychological experiments that induce terror, anxiety, depression, and helplessness.
• Cow: Female cows are artificially inseminated shortly after their first birthdays. They are confined to massive, crowded lots, where they are forced to live mired in their own waste.
• Tiger: Tigers in zoos are kept in pens that don’t come close to replicating their natural homes. The physical and mental frustration experienced by animals in captivity often leads to abnormal and self-destructive behavior.
• Rabbit: Rabbits used by the fur industry are pulled from cages by their ears and shot in the head with electric stun guns while they kick and scream. They are then hung upside down and decapitated.
• Snake: Workers shove skewers up snakes’ noses in order to immobilize them. To separate the animals’ skins from their organs, workers pump them full of water while they are still conscious and then tear the skin off the living animals’ bodies. All this happens so that humans can use their skin to decorate shoes or handbags.
• Horse: Horses are forced to pull carriages and toil in all weather extremes, and they dodge traffic all day long. They often develop debilitating leg problems from walking on hard surfaces, and some have even dropped dead from heatstroke after working in scorching summer heat and humidity.
• Sheep: Many sheep in the Australian wool industry have large chunks of skin and flesh cut from their backsides with instruments resembling garden shears.
• Monkey: Many monkeys are confined, restrained, poisoned, and left to suffer in laboratories. During cruel experiments, they often shiver and their teeth chatter while freezing fluid is pumped into their veins.  
• Chicken: Chickens raised and killed for food are bred to grow so large that they often become crippled under their own weight. At slaughterhouses, the birds’ throats are cut while they are still conscious, and many are scalded to death in defeathering tanks.
• Dog: Millions of unwanted dogs are killed every year for lack of a loving home. Many are poisoned or clubbed to death.  
• Pig: Young pigs have their teeth and tails cut without painkillers. At the end of their miserable lives, they are sent to the slaughterhouse. Some of them are still conscious when they are put into scalding-hot water during the hair-removal process.

We share the Earth with other animals, but human activities have ruined the lives of so many animals. So in this luckiest of all years, why not help restore harmony by sharing our good luck with our animal friends?

Posted by Ashley Fruno