Vegan activists have held a demonstration on National Animal Rights Day in Aberdeen city centre.
The event was organised by Vegan Outreach Scotland, and intended to show the public first-hand the “results of society’s brutal treatment of animals”.
It ran from 12-4pm at St Nicholas Square on Sunday, June 4.
Around 19 activists attended the event wearing t-shirts reading “Our Planet, Theirs Too”.
They were stopping people and engaging them in a discussion or handing out flyers to passers-by.
Animal eulogies ‘very touching and moving’
The event began with a public memorial ceremony, which involved eulogies for several animals.
Campaigner Sarah Urquhart, 47, said: “It is about raising the reality to people which they don’t really think about.
“It is very easy to hear about the millions of pigs that are killed each year, but each individual animal holds attachments and those eulogies were done in a way which was very touching and moving.”
The Declaration of Animal Rights was then read out and the public was invited to sign the document to show their support for the rights of animals.
It has been signed by more than 20,000 people around the world so far.
Morgan Carroll and her mum Paula were among those who decided to sign it. They are visiting Scotland for a coach holiday, after having travelled up from Warrington in the north-west of England.
Morgan, 26, said she had not been eating meat since she was nine, but it was only during lockdown she decided to go vegan.
“I think the pandemic was a sign from the planet that using animals is wrong”, she said.
Paula, 60, decided to follow suit soon after when she noticed the things Morgan was eating “looked a lot better than what I was eating”.
Animal lovers in Aberdeen were joined by thousands in 200 cities around the world to commemorate the 13th anniversary of the event.
Vegan treats for watching three-minute video
The campaigners were offering goodies bags of vegan treats to members of the public if they agreed to catch a three-minute video.
But they warned people the video was “quite a hard watch” due to the graphic suffering of the animals.
One of the campaigners encouraging people to watch the video was 21-year-old nursery worker Jamie Shannon.
He said: “I think it is mostly helpful to people that are already thinking about going vegan.”
Mr Shannon decided to go vegan himself three years ago after he began gradually learning about how corners were cut when it came to animals.
He said one day it was explained to him clearly and he went “overnight” from eating meat three times a day to never again.
And he has managed to convince his partner, who is Sikh and ate a vegetarian and egg diet, to now “pretty much” go vegan.
‘I would love to go vegan’
Sarah Irvine, from Insch in the Garioch, was out in Aberdeen for the day with her three children and decided to watch the video.
She said: “I don’t want to say I enjoyed it because it would be the wrong word to say but it had a lot of information in it that I hadn’t thought about before.”
Two of Mrs Irvine’s three children and herself are already vegetarian, whereas her eldest daughter, husband and dog remain meat-eaters.
She said: “I don’t believe in making animals go vegan as they can’t make the choice.
“I would love to go vegan, but the cost of some of the vegan stuff would put my shopping up a lot.
“The soy milk is around three times more expensive than regular milk.”
Vegan Outreach Scotland representative and event organiser Rebecca Knowles said: “We had a really successful day.
“Several people committed to going vegan today after watching the video.”
After the event, the campaigners laid the flowers outside Portlethen slaughterhouse “in memory of all our dear ones”.
In April, the campaigners held a protest outside a slaughterhouse in Inverurie.
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