A 10-year-old miniature horse called Star is making headlines in New Zealand for all the wrong reasons. Star has died after suffering a brutal attack where he was stabbed 41 times with a sharp knife.

Star was assaulted in his paddock in Waitati near Dunedin. One stab wound pierced his bowel, leading to his death despite veterinary surgery.

It’s beyond comprehension for people with compassion toward animals to understand just how this could have happened. People have donated $8538 on a fundraising page towards his vet care.

When something like this happens, we want to be part of the solution, because the problem is too big for us.

But we do need to face this horrible problem as a society. Despite many of us loving animals New Zealand does have a complex and multifaceted history of animal cruelty and neglect.

As we ponder what kind of a person would do such a hideous act to an innocent animal, we should consider the notion of cruelty more deeply.

Most of us are living with a deep hypocrisy. We drive our knives into the flesh of an animal, who takes the form of steak or ham on our plates. Do we really believe that animal lived a cruelty – free life? Or do we choose to look the other way?

The ways in which innocent animals get to our plates and into our mouths is cruel. They are often confined to huge factory sheds, crammed into pens or cages, and refused even the most basic of natural freedoms. They have their young taken from them and have their reproductive capacities exploited.

As we consume dairy products, do we consider the cruelty inherent in milk production? Two million neonatal calves die every year in New Zealand after a long trip on the transport truck at a mere 4-10 days of age. They can legally spend 12 hours on a transport truck and go 24 hours without milk before they are killed. These calves are killed just for the milk we put on our cereals in the morning.

Speaking of mornings, we often like to wake up to eggs and bacon for breakfast. Layer chickens suffer hideously in cramped cages, behind factory walls. They suffer every single suffocating day of their lives.

Likewise, most bacon, ham and pork consumed in New Zealand comes from pigs who have been housed in intensive farming systems. Young pigs are fattened up in pens by the tens of thousands. Mother pigs are confined to farrowing crates with their piglets, unable to turn around and biting the bars in frustration.

And it’s not like we can’t see the suffering for ourselves. Farmwatch has released 360 degree footage to provide the viewer with a sense of immersion in this hellish environment. We know that cruelty is happening, but our cultural blinkers prevent us from really seeing it for what it is.

We just keep on sanctioning cruelty by paying for it by the pound. We rip the leg from the roasted chicken carcass and suck the flesh from the bone. Yet, broiler (or meat) chickens are one of the most abused animals on the planet.

According to the Poultry Industry Association New Zealanders eat an average of about 20 birds each, every single year. These birds are killed at a mere six weeks of age, having been selectively bred to grow too fast for their own bodies to handle. They suffer psychological distress and a multitude of health issues including lameness. They live by the thousands in closed sheds, with artificial lighting and cannot forage, dust bathe or exercise. They trample each other.

Do we turn the other way because these animals are not a miniature pony who was stabbed in his paddock? I am not minimizing the suffering of Star. I am deeply affected by it. It horrifies me.

But so does the institutionalized cruelty that we, as a society, subject millions of innocent animals to in New Zealand every year.

Lawyer and animal advocate Catriona MacLennan has meticulously detailed incidents of neglect and cruelty toward animals who are farmed in New Zealand. Do we read that list with disgust? Or does it hit a little too close to home?

After all, a miniature horse is a lifestyle block pet. He is afforded special status, not coveted for his meat.

The knives that dug into Star’s flesh are the same knives that carve the roast lamb on a Sunday. Violence is violence, no matter what justification we slather on it along with the gravy.

And cruelty lives on in the hidden crevices of our hypocritical lives. It slides down our throats with every glass of milk, and grimaces at us from our bacon and egg pie.

If we want to stop cruelty to animals we need to stop the hypocrisy and lead by example. There is simply no kindness when an animal is confined and killed for her flesh or bodily secretions.

What we need is a revolution in our social attitudes and behaviors toward animals. We need to stop farming and eating them. Only then can we truly say we love animals.

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