Mercy for Animals: One Man’s Quest to Inspire Compassion and Improve the Lives of Farm Animals

Description

Mercy for Animals: One Man’s Quest to Inspire Compassion and Improve the Lives of Farm Animals

by Nathan Runkle with Gene Stone

ISBN:  9780399574054

Publisher:  Avery

Publisher:  2017

Format:  Hardcover

Pages:  320

From the inside leaf:

“Countless animals suffer every day on factory farms.  Mercy For Animals is the renowned international non-profit working to expose and end this abuse.  It was started as the unwavering passion of fifteen-year-old Nathan Runkle, a would-be fifth-generation Midwestern farmer.  Almost twenty years later, in his first book, Nathan brings us into the trenches of his organization’s crucial work, from MFA’s early days in grassroots activism to its dangerous undercover investigations and heroic rescue operations, from large-scale efforts to enact legislative changes that protect factory farm animals to acclaimed, innovative publicity that brings attention to animals’ plight.

Exposing the dire living conditions faced by factory-farmed chickens, cows, and pigs, Mercy for Animals reveals what anyone who has spent time with these animals already knows – they are intelligent creatures with complex emotional lives.  Most moving of all are the book’s stories of rescued animals given a reprieve from execution.  Mercy for Animals also examines how our food system grew to rely on animal cruelty in order to function.  We learn how the United States moved from a network of small, local farms, with more than 50 percent of Americans involved in agriculture, to our current coast-to-coast industrial complex, controlled by just 1 percent of our population.  Debunking the notion that our food system must inherently be inhumane, MRA shows us many solutions, big and small, to end this mistreatment.

The organization leads by example:  MFA has impacted inhumane corporate policies in 90 countries around the world, freed more than 30 million animals from cruel cages, and, to date, saved the lives of 5 million farm animals by inspiring people to make more compassionate food choices.  Offering us a dramatic insider’s view of tense undercover operations as well as a seat at behind-the-scenes negotiations with conglomerates like Nestle, along with easy diet modifications and tips on how to help animals in a hundred ways, Mercy For Animals makes activism both fascinating and accessible.

MFA’s work proves that protecting and respecting factory farm animals is as simple as it is necessary.  By speaking out against cruelty and speaking up for compassion, Mercy for Animals inspires us all to move toward a better, sustainable, and more humane future.”