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When a politician puts on a cowboy hat, stands in front of a barn, and <a data-mce-href="https://sentientmedia.org/anti-trans-campaigns-keep-returning-to-the-politics-of-meat/" href="https://sentientmedia.org/anti-trans-campaigns-keep-returning-to-the-politics-of-meat/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">compares transgender children to cattle</a>, it’s not just a bad metaphor — it’s a mirror. The meat industry isn’t just bankrolling the war on trans rights; it’s underwriting a worldview where domination is framed as identity, where masculinity is defined by violence, and where anyone who challenges that is cast as a threat.Welcome to the grotesque overlap of speciesism, gender norms, and political propaganda.In Kansas, a man running for office decided to liken gender-affirming care — which overwhelmingly involves reversible puberty blockers — to animal castration. “Castration is for cattle, not our kids,” said Shawn Tiffany, standing proud in his branded ranchwear, funded by thousands in donations from beef and livestock industry giants. Not one of those donors responded when asked whether they supported the message. Silence speaks.Meanwhile, in Missouri, Kurtis Gregory used the same strategy: reference bulls, demonise trans people, get your campaign cash from livestock and agriculture lobbies, and call it “family values.” Because apparently, nothing says traditional masculinity like mutilating animals and mocking vulnerable children.This isn’t new. It’s the same fragile masculinity dressed up in cowboy cosplay, and it’s exactly what Carol J. Adams wrote about in The Sexual Politics of Meat. Meat isn’t food in these ads — it’s symbolism. It’s gender enforcement. It’s about reassuring voters that boys are boys, girls are girls, and anyone outside that binary can be safely dehumanised — like the animals they breed, control, and kill for a living. This isn’t a cultural coincidence. This is a strategy. And it’s being bankrolled by an industry that depends on domination. Domination of bodies. Of reproduction. Of sex. Of lives.Animal agriculture is built on controlling reproduction through artificial insemination, IVF, hormone manipulation, and routine genital mutilation. It’s so close to bestiality that exemptions have to be written into anti-bestiality laws to keep farmers out of prison. That’s not a smear — that’s law.Somehow, the same people clutching their pearls over LGBTQ books in schools are pumping out ads about slicing off testicles and eating them. They’re not banning “obscenity” — they’re selling it. Just wrapped in patriotism, steak, and supremacy.The irony is suffocating. These men are obsessed with “protecting children” while explicitly describing the castration of non-human animals for food. They claim to stand for truth, while pushing lies about trans healthcare. They posture as protectors, but what they’re protecting is a hierarchy — not a community.And it’s costing us far more than human rights. It’s costing the planet.&nbsp;A <a data-mce-href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/working-paper-424-Berland_Leroutier.pdf" href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/working-paper-424-Berland_Leroutier.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-mce-selected="inline-boundary">new study</a> shows that cis mens diets and driving habits generate 26% more carbon emissions than women’s — not because women starve or stay home, but because men cling to meat and motors like they’re sacred. Even when you adjust for income, job type, and commuting distance, the difference remains. It’s not necessity. It’s identity. Masculinity emits.And what happens in hetero households? The transport gap grows. The man takes the car. The woman disappears from the stats. Not biology — entitlement.The meat industry knows its customer base. Across nearly every country, men eat more meat than women. The exception? Gay and bisexual men. Because their masculinity isn’t tangled up in chewing carcasses. That terrifies a system built on power.So we get this unholy alliance: cattle feedlots funding anti-trans propaganda. Cowboys selling steaks and straightness. Christian nationalists rewriting dominion as destiny. All of it engineered to preserve a myth — that domination is manhood, that violence is virtue, and that killing animals makes you strong.But it doesn’t. It makes you afraid.Afraid of change. Afraid of fluidity. Afraid that without the binary, the hierarchy falls. That’s why they attack trans people. Not because they’re confused — but because they’re not. Trans people expose the illusion. And like any fragile system, the illusion must be defended at all costs.The more insecure the man, the bigger the steak. The louder the truck. The more rabid the politics.So what can we do?We can start by rejecting the myth. Eating animals isn’t strength — it’s learned domination. A muscle memory of supremacy that serves industries, not people. Masculinity doesn’t have to be violent. Identity doesn’t have to mean power over others. And resistance doesn’t have to mean cruelty.If you’re serious about justice — for trans people, for women, for animals, for the planet — then stop reinforcing the system that keeps them all in chains.Reject animal use. Challenge masculinity. Dismantle domination.And for the love of truth, stop calling it tradition. It’s tyranny with a cowboy hat.

Masculinity Has a Meat Problem — and Trans People Are the Scapegoat

The fishing industry has always relied on one thing to survive: distance. Fishes live out of sight, out of mind. They don’t scream in a way we recognise. They don’t look like us. They aren’t people — or so we tell ourselves.But Tom Pickering isn’t having it.The writer and director of I Could Never Go Vegan has returned with a new short horror film, What A Catch, and it’s not for the faint-hearted — especially if you’re still clinging to the idea that stabbing a fish is somehow more acceptable than stabbing a pig.This Victorian-era nightmare follows a fisherman whose solo trip takes a sinister turn — and unlike most horror, this one isn’t metaphor. It’s exactly what happens to fishes every day, dressed in period costume and a fog of denial.Pickering has toured the film across the globe — Frightfest, Chicago Horror Film Festival, HorrorHound and more — racking up awards and praise, but more importantly, reaching non-vegan audiences. “It’s been amazing to have people reach out and say how it’s changed their perspective,” he told <a data-mce-href="https://plantbasednews.org/culture/film/new-horror-film-exposes-fishing-industry/" href="https://plantbasednews.org/culture/film/new-horror-film-exposes-fishing-industry/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Plant Based News</a>. “It’s effectively an activism film they weren’t expecting to watch.”And that’s the catch.The film exposes the blood-soaked absurdity of fishing by simply mirroring it. No exaggeration, no metaphorical monster — just the actual horror of what happens to billions of fishes, scaled up and made visible. Pescatarianism: The Horror Hiding in Plain SightPescatarians like to think they’ve opted for the “kinder” form of animal use. No cows, no chickens — just fishes. As if that makes it better. As if being more particular about your victims is a moral high ground.But fishes aren’t lesser beings. They are just less familiar. That’s it.In a <a data-mce-href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14780887.2024.2328037" href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14780887.2024.2328037" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UK study</a>, researchers explored how pescatarians justify eating fishes while avoiding other animals. The answer? Distance. Social, emotional, physical. One participant even described themselves as a “vegetarian who occasionally eats fish.”&nbsp;Here’s how the rationalisations stack up:The fishy identity – Aligning with vegetarians to feel ethical, while still eating animals.The compromise excuse – “I do it for convenience,” or “My friends still eat meat.” That’s not ethics, that’s peer pressure.Face blindness – “Fishes don’t look like us.” They don’t need to. They have their own lives, their own preferences, their own fears. The Reality Beneath the WaterThe fishing industry is not the lesser evil — it’s the biggest one. Up to 2.2 trillion wild fishes are caught every year. Trillion. That’s more than all land animals killed for food combined. Half of them aren’t even eaten by humans — they’re ground up to feed other farmed animals in an absurd feedback loop of destruction.Fishes aren’t simple creatures either. The bluestreak cleaner wrasse recognises itself in a mirror. Saddled sea bream can distinguish individual humans by their clothes. Some fishes cooperate with octopuses to hunt — cross-species teamwork. And others, when shown a reflection, assess their own body size before picking a fight.These aren’t instincts. They’re choices. They’re cognition. They’re proof.And yet, people still gut them alive and call it a compromise. Horror Is Just the Truth in CostumeWhat A Catch works because it doesn’t sugar-coat. It doesn’t pretend that exploitation needs to be stylised to be scary. The act of catching, stabbing, suffocating, and gutting someone who doesn’t want to die — that’s horror. That’s fishing.This film puts the violence front and centre. Not with the usual industry footage people scroll past, but through a story that pulls you in — and then yanks you under.If we saw land animals treated this way, we’d call it a massacre. But when it’s fishes? We call it dinner. Bring Fishes Into FocusIf the film does one thing, it’s this: it collapses the distance.It forces people to see what they usually ignore. It reminds us that fishes aren’t ingredients. They’re not abstractions. They’re not property. They’re just individuals — ones we’ve made invisible.And it begs the question: if horror films can help people wake up to injustice, why are we still pretending there’s anything ethical about eating animals?What A Catch is now streaming on YouTube. Just don’t watch it before dinner.<figure id="figure-iy45uz1s6tmbtmw04l"><iframe id="iy45uz1s6tmbtmw04l" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nc73OVK_AuE" class="w-full bg-gray-100 rounded-sm md:rounded-md lg:rounded-lg" style="aspect-ratio: 16/9" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowFullScreen="" data-url="https://youtu.be/nc73OVK_AuE?si=aOnPChkqwIwgw3gI" data-corners="default" data-fullWidth="false"></iframe></figure>

What A Catch: A Horror Film That Makes Pescatarians Squirm

Across the United States and the United Kingdom, dairy is falling apart under the weight of its own contradictions. In New York, lawmakers are finally trying to curb the rise of mega-dairies. In the UK, the government is reluctantly considering taxing sugary milkshakes, years too late. And in both countries, the industry’s stranglehold on policy has led not just to environmental disaster and human health concerns, but to the routine, state, sanctioned killing of anyone who gets in the way, cows, badgers, and the truth.Let’s start in the US, where New York, one of the nation’s top milk-producing states, is home to around 500 concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), mostly dairy. These mega-farms lock up more than 425,000 cows in industrial hellscapes where they live short, controlled lives of forced pregnancy, separation, and finally, slaughter. The scale is absurd: 17.5 billion pounds of manure are pumped out each year, polluting air, water, and soil. That’s the sewage equivalent of 12.9 million people.The manure crisis alone should be enough to halt expansion. But that’s just one part of the disaster. In just two decades, New York doubled the number of dairy factories while wiping out over two-thirds of its small family farms. And yet, 95% of these “operations” still get to parade around under the wholesome-sounding label of “family-owned.” As if a prison becomes nurturing just because it’s run by someone’s uncle.This isn’t progress. It’s a full-scale collapse of any moral or environmental framework. Which is why <a data-mce-href="https://sentientmedia.org/new-york-aims-to-ban-new-mega-dairies/" href="https://sentientmedia.org/new-york-aims-to-ban-new-mega-dairies/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a new bill</a>, aimed at halting the creation or expansion of new mega-dairies, is being described as a "first step." Not a solution. Just an attempt to hit the brakes before the industry drives off another cliff.And what’s the defence from the dairy lobby? That limiting herd size “limits their opportunity for success.” In other words, environmental ruin and animal abuse are just the cost of doing business.Across the pond, things aren’t much better.In the UK, the dairy industry is fighting to hold onto its sugary mask. For years, flavoured milkshakes have somehow dodged the government's Soft Drinks Industry Levy, even though many contain more sugar than Coca-Cola. The excuse? “Children need calcium.” The truth? Only 3.5% of young people’s calcium comes from flavoured dairy drinks. Most kids get it from actual food. The exemption was never about health, it was about profit.&nbsp;And now that the <a data-mce-href="https://ko-fi.com/post/Will-Labour-Stand-Up-to-Big-Dairy-J3J51EKFBK" href="https://ko-fi.com/post/Will-Labour-Stand-Up-to-Big-Dairy-J3J51EKFBK" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Treasury is finally reviewing this loophole</a>, the industry is panicking. But instead of reformulating their products or telling the truth, they’re clinging to the fiction that cow’s milk is a sacred health food. Never mind that it’s high in sugar, cholesterol, and saturated fat. Never mind that it’s been linked to acne, reproductive cancers, and early puberty. Never mind that everything people claim to need from milk is available in plant-based forms without exploiting anyone. Because the dairy industry isn’t selling nutrition. It’s selling nostalgia.&nbsp;But perhaps the most grotesque twist in this global dairy tragedy is <a data-mce-href="https://ko-fi.com/post/The-Badger-Cull-Killing-Badgers-for-a-Cattle-Prob-I3I21G00RB" href="https://ko-fi.com/post/The-Badger-Cull-Killing-Badgers-for-a-Cattle-Prob-I3I21G00RB" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-mce-selected="inline-boundary">what’s happening to badgers.</a>In England, badgers have been massacred in their hundreds of thousands under the excuse of controlling bovine TB, an epidemic largely fuelled by how cattle are traded, confined, and tested. Only around 5% of cases originate from badgers. And yet the government keeps expanding culls, even against the advice of its own scientists.Why? Because it’s easier to kill wild animals than challenge the cattle industry. It’s easier to shoot badgers than question why we’re farming cows at all.And it’s easier to keep the public focused on wildlife than admit that the dairy industry itself, this brutal cycle of forced breeding, infant removal, and early slaughter, is the true disease.Because if we stopped farming cows, bovine TB would disappear. There’d be no more endless compensation to farmers, no more blood on badger fur, no more slurry lagoons poisoning waterways. But that would require confronting the unthinkable: that the entire system is the problem.So we carry on. We let dairy farms balloon to unimaginable sizes. We let children drink sugar disguised as health. We let badgers die so we can keep milking cows. And we call it tradition.But tradition doesn’t justify torment. History doesn’t excuse hypocrisy. And subsidies don’t make slavery ethical.If cow’s milk were introduced today as a brand-new product, a sugary animal secretion harvested through forced breeding, infant separation, and slaughter, it wouldn’t just be banned. It would be unthinkable.And yet it’s still in every school, still in every fridge, still being propped up with tax breaks, media campaigns, and dead animals.The dairy industry isn’t just environmentally toxic or nutritionally outdated. It’s morally bankrupt. And the longer we protect it, the more damage it does.This isn’t just about sugar. It’s not just about pollution. It’s not just about badgers. It’s about ending an institution that relies on violence and deceit to survive.Tax the milkshakes. Ban the mega-dairies. Stop the culls. But above all, stop pretending dairy is anything but what it is: exploitation disguised as nutrition.

The Cost of Clinging to Cow's Milk

In 2019, I briefly worked for The Humane League. Their flagship campaign at the time was the Better Chicken Commitment — a set of welfare pledges that many saw as a step forward. Replace fast-growing chicken breeds with slower-growing ones, they said. Give them more space, more time. Make the system “less cruel.”I asked a simple question:Wouldn't slower growth mean chickens live longer, eat more, require more land, and in turn — to meet the same demand — wouldn’t more chickens be bred and killed?The silence was deafening.Now, in 2025, the data is in.A new peer-reviewed <a data-mce-href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00071668.2024.2432926" href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00071668.2024.2432926" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> in British Poultry Science lays out the problem in black and white:Yes, slow-growing chickens suffer less intense pain — fewer broken legs, less heart failure, fewer grotesque deformities. But to keep shelves stocked with the same amount of flesh, producers need to breed and kill far more of them.How many more?🔺 48% more chickens farmed🔺 69% more time spent in captivity🔺 Higher feed use, more land, more faeces, more emissionsIn short: a “welfare” initiative that means more lives taken, more environmental damage, and more chickens confined for longer periods.That’s what was being championed as progress.If you've ever donated to The Humane League, Compassion in World Farming, Open Wing Alliance, or any of the other NGOs proudly pushing the Better Chicken Commitment — you may want to ask where your money actually went. Because it wasn’t to spare chickens. It was to help the industry breed and kill more of them. The Welfare IllusionI’ve already <a data-mce-href="https://ko-fi.com/post/ANIMAL-WELFARE-vs-ANIMAL-RIGHTS-E1E1WM32E" href="https://ko-fi.com/post/ANIMAL-WELFARE-vs-ANIMAL-RIGHTS-E1E1WM32E" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-mce-selected="inline-boundary">written</a> about this in depth: the dangerous delusion of animal welfare. How it soothes consumer guilt while propping up the very systems it claims to challenge.The Better Chicken Commitment is the perfect example of what I called The Golden Cage — a well-lit, air-conditioned prison is still a prison.Now imagine packing that golden cage with more birds, keeping them longer, feeding them more, and clearing more land to grow the extra feed.It’s not just tragic. It’s absurd. A System Built on SupremacismWelfarism assumes we have the right to breed others into existence, use them, kill them — so long as we make that experience “less bad.”&nbsp;The Better Chicken Commitment isn’t better for chickens. It’s better for marketing teams. It gives NGOs a “win.” It gives retailers a feel-good badge. It gives consumers an excuse.But for the chickens? It means their numbers go up. Their lifespans stretch just long enough to eat more, shit more, cost more — and then die all the same.And the forest that was bulldozed to grow their feed? The animals shot? The insects, rodents, birds displaced by yet more monoculture crops? The rivers choked with all that bird crap. All victims of “better” welfare. The Ethical Equation Nobody Wants to SolveLet’s be honest. The average chicken in a factory farm suffers immensely. So the solution seems obvious: reduce suffering. But if your answer is to increase the number of individuals subjected to exploitation in order to reduce the intensity of their suffering… you’re not solving a problem. You’re just redistributing it. When did “kinder” killing become more important than less killing? This Is Why We Reject WelfarismTelling people that “better bred” chickens will save the world is a lie. Because painting mass slaughter as progress is a betrayal — of the animals, the planet, and the people who think they’re doing good.Because every welfare reform that props up demand only deepens the exploitation. The Only Ethical CommitmentThere’s no “right” way to breed someone into existence only to kill them. There’s no “humane” way to turn a living being into a product.If you truly care about chickens — or pigs, or cows, or fishes — the answer isn’t slower growth or better bedding.It’s simple:Stop breeding them. Stop using them. Stop killing them.Not a better chicken.No chicken.Go vegan.

The Better Chicken Con: When “Welfare” Means More Dead Birds

Yet again, the government has defied its own scientific advisors and <a data-mce-href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/badger-cull-licence-area-2025-b2761061.html" href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/badger-cull-licence-area-2025-b2761061.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">greenlit</a> another wave of badger culling across England. Ignoring evidence, expert advice, and public outrage, officials are set to expand this failed policy, which is projected to result in the deaths of thousands more badgers. The latest expansion, authorised by Natural England against its own chief scientist’s explicit recommendations, will see supplementary culling commence immediately in nine regions from Derbyshire to Wiltshire, and additional culling in ten more areas beginning in September.This latest move represents not just policy incompetence, but a brazen disregard for both science and morality.Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a serious zoonotic disease primarily affecting cattle. While it's true that badgers can contract and spread bTB, the crucial and often conveniently ignored fact is that badgers account for only a tiny fraction of cases, just one in every twenty incidents of bTB transmission originates from badgers. The real culprits in the bTB epidemic are the cattle themselves, particularly the way farmers repeatedly trade and move cattle around the country. Each year, tens of thousands of cows are killed after testing positive for bTB, but the cattle industry conveniently shifts the blame onto badgers, diverting attention from their own practices.Between 2018 and 2021 alone, approximately 40,000 cattle were killed annually in Britain due to bTB. Farmers, meanwhile, receive generous taxpayer-funded compensation, up to nearly £5,000 per animal, for each slaughtered cow. It’s no wonder, then, that powerful agricultural lobbies fiercely resist real solutions like vaccination and tighter biosecurity measures, favouring instead a politically palatable but scientifically indefensible cull of wildlife.Natural England's own science chief, Dr Peter Brotherton, has explicitly stated that there's no scientific justification for this latest cull extension. Brotherton has repeatedly advised against supplementary culling, highlighting compelling evidence that killing badgers does not significantly impact bTB rates in cattle. His expert opinion, that badger vaccination, supported by improved cattle testing and biosecurity measures, represents a practical, humane, and effective alternative, has consistently been disregarded.Badger culling isn’t just ineffective, it actively makes the situation worse. Research has shown culling causes surviving badgers to disperse more widely, potentially increasing the spread of disease across larger areas. This phenomenon, known as the "perturbation effect," has been consistently ignored by the government, despite decades of research indicating that killing wildlife does little to control disease spread and may actively exacerbate it.Since the policy began in 2013, approximately 240,000 badgers have been killed in England, at a staggering cost exceeding £60 million of taxpayers’ money. Despite this massive investment, there has been no tangible improvement in bTB infection rates. In fact, after years of culling, bTB remains prevalent in cattle, proving unequivocally that badger slaughter is a grotesque waste of public funds.The government’s decision to authorise continued culling is transparently political. Successive governments, Conservative and Labour alike, have bowed to farming lobbies rather than standing up for robust science or animal welfare.&nbsp;Prominent voices like wildlife campaigner Chris Packham, veterinarian Dr Iain McGill, and even rock icon Brian May have tirelessly highlighted the moral bankruptcy and scientific flaws of badger culling. Yet their arguments, grounded in rigorous scientific consensus, continue to fall on deaf ears.Badger culling is barbaric. Animals are either caught in cage traps and then shot at close range or pursued and shot free-range in the dark, with thermal imaging and spotlights ensuring the badgers never stand a chance. No matter how competent the shooters, accuracy cannot be guaranteed. Many badgers suffer slow, agonising deaths from improperly inflicted wounds. Even those who die quickly have been killed needlessly, innocent victims in a ruthless attempt to appease agricultural interests.This brutality is compounded by secrecy and denial. Culls are often conducted under cover of darkness, with minimal oversight and little transparency. The result: a grim, hidden toll of suffering and death justified by distorted claims of agricultural necessity.Vaccination programmes for badgers and cattle, improved cattle testing, strict biosecurity protocols, and restrictions on cattle movements have proven highly effective in controlling bTB elsewhere. The Welsh Government, acknowledging these realities, has already chosen to abandon badger culling entirely, prioritising vaccination and cattle movement controls as superior solutions.In stark contrast, the English government persists with its policy of mass slaughter. Their promises of phasing out culls have repeatedly been revealed as little more than empty gestures. While the government periodically announces supposed phase-outs and future shifts towards vaccination, these claims consistently mask expansions and licence extensions, as evidenced by this latest disgraceful development.The elephant in the room, conveniently ignored, is the inherent risk and cruelty embedded in animal farming itself. The simplest, cheapest, and most ethical solution to bovine TB is the one agriculture lobbyists and politicians alike stubbornly refuse to acknowledge: ending the farming and exploitation of cattle altogether.Dairy and beef farming creates the conditions for bTB outbreaks, with intensive cattle trade and close confinement amplifying disease transmission. If we didn't farm cattle, we wouldn't have a bTB crisis. The booming plant-based food sector offers abundant alternatives that neither harm animals nor fuel disease transmission, rendering culling obsolete.The government’s decision to continue the badger cull is not just scientifically illiterate and morally indefensible; it represents a profound democratic failure. The vast majority of the public opposes these culls, yet politicians continue to bow to agricultural pressure, wilfully ignoring science, ethics, and public opinion.Now more than ever, public voices must speak louder. Supporting legal actions, contacting MPs, amplifying awareness, and making individual choices that reject animal agriculture are powerful ways citizens can fight this cruelty.Badger culling epitomises the failed, cruel logic of animal exploitation. It is a symptom of a wider injustice, our treatment of animals as disposable commodities. To truly solve bTB, we must confront the real cause: our reliance on animal agriculture.The evidence is clear. The science is undeniable. The morality indisputable. It's time for this cruel, costly, and catastrophic policy to end. It’s time to vaccinate, regulate, and ultimately, liberate ourselves and our wildlife from a harmful system that profits from animal suffering.Badgers deserve better. The public deserves better. It’s high time we demand better, no more badger culls.

The Badger Cull: Killing Badgers for a Cattle Problem

If you thought plants were passive bystanders waiting for bees to show up, think again. <a data-mce-href="https://phys.org/news/2025-05-nectar-production-response-pollinator.html" href="https://phys.org/news/2025-05-nectar-production-response-pollinator.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">They respond to the specific buzzing of their favourite pollinators by pumping out more sugar. </a>Snapdragon flowers, for example, will sweeten their nectar when they detect the wingbeat of a snail-shell bee. Evolution, as usual, favours the efficient.This isn’t some niche botanical footnote. It’s a glimpse into the intricate acoustic dialogue between plants and pollinators, a finely-tuned system developed over millions of years. Plants don’t just rely on scent and colour; they 'listen' for the right pollinators and reward them. The fidelity of these relationships is so precise that even the gene expression of a flower can change depending on who’s buzzing nearby.But while flowers are tuning themselves to the needs of pollinators, humans are stealing what they’re offering.Bees don’t make honey for humans. They make it for themselves, to survive the winter, to feed their colony, to live. Commercial beekeeping rips that resource away and replaces it with sugar water. And while we’re told this is harmless, the science says otherwise: sugar lacks the micronutrients, enzymes, and antimicrobial properties of honey.Worse still, commercial beekeeping isn’t just theft, it’s sabotage. Wild pollinators, like bumblebees and solitary bees, are far more effective pollinators than honeybees. Yet they’re being edged out by managed hives that compete for food, spread disease, and dominate ecosystems that once supported thousands of diverse pollinating species.There are over 20,000 species of bees. Only one is farmed for honey. And that one is helping to wipe out the rest.In this collapsing system, even flowers are changing. Some are becoming less generous, evolving to self-fertilise, shrinking in size, producing less nectar, or producing none at all. As pollinators vanish from landscapes poisoned by herbicides like dicamba, flowers are giving up on the whole deal. The result? Weaker ecosystems. And a feedback loop of decline.Even the plants that do keep producing nectar aren’t always being truthful. Some trick pollinators into showing up with promises of sugar they never intend to deliver. Floral honesty is partly genetic, and evolution is now selecting for cheats. It’s a botanical arms race where everyone’s just trying to survive, because the humans made it hell.Want to know how much damage one puff of herbicide can do? Just ask the milkweed at the edge of a field. A single exposure to dicamba at 1% concentration can warp plant growth, delay flowering, and repel pollinators altogether. That means fewer bees, fewer flowers, and fewer seeds.And what’s it all for? To protect crops destined to feed livestock.The irony is thick: we destroy wildflower meadows to grow monocultures for animals we’ll kill, and in doing so, wipe out the pollinators that keep the entire food web functioning.Some people still cling to the delusion that eating honey somehow helps bees. That’s like saying buying ivory helps elephants. It’s exploitation dressed as environmentalism.Honey production reduces genetic diversity through selective breeding, contributes to wild pollinator decline, and turns sentient, problem-solving animals into machines. It’s not just about food, it’s about control, commodification, and disposability. Bees are drugged, artificially inseminated, clipped, and culled.If we genuinely want to help pollinators, the solution is simple: stop stealing from them. Let bees keep their honey. Let fields keep their weeds.Instead of exploiting bees, we could be supporting them:🌸 Grow native, pesticide-free flowers.🌸 Protect wild spaces.🌸 Avoid herbicides that drift like second-hand smoke through ecosystems.🌸 Reject the farming systems that treat animals as units and pollinators as tools.🌸 Choose sweeteners that don’t cost someone else their freedom. Plant-pollinator coevolution is one of the most beautiful collaborations in nature. But it’s being unravelled by a species too entitled to see itself as the problem.Be vegan. For the bees. For the flowers. For the world they built together.

Herbivore Club

ARTICLES

Masculinity Has a Meat Problem — and Trans People Are the...

What A Catch: A Horror Film That Makes Pescatarians Squirm

The Cost of Clinging to Cow's Milk

The Better Chicken Con: When “Welfare” Means More Dead Birds

The Badger Cull: Killing Badgers for a Cattle Problem

Plants Whisper to Pollinators. We Drown Them in Pesticides