Animal Earth Human

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 30, 2008; Page A04
Video footage being released today shows workers at a California slaughterhouse delivering repeated electric shocks to cows too sick or weak to stand on their own; drivers using forklifts to roll the “downer” cows on the ground in efforts to get them to stand up for inspection; and even a veterinary version of waterboarding in which high-intensity water sprays are shot up animals’ noses — all violations of state and federal laws designed to prevent animal cruelty and to keep unhealthy animals, such as those with mad cow disease, out of the food supply.

Moreover, the companies where these practices allegedly occurred are major suppliers of meat for the nation’s school lunch programs, including in Maryland, according to a company official and federal documents.

The footage was taken by an undercover investigator for an animal welfare group, who wore a customized video camera under his clothes while working at the facility last year. [ Warning - Graphic Video: View the video on the Humane Society Web site ] It is evidence that anti-cruelty and food safety rules are inadequate, and that Agriculture Department inspection and enforcement need to be enhanced, said officials with the Humane Society of the United States, which coordinated the project.

“These were not rogue employees secretly doing these things,” the investigator said in a telephone interview on the condition of anonymity because he hopes to infiltrate other slaughterhouses. “This is the pen manager and his assistant doing this right in the open.”

The investigator and Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society, said the footage was taken at Hallmark Meat Packing in Chino, Calif. Hallmark sells meat for processing to Westland Meat Co. in Chino, according to Westland President Steve Mendell, who is also Hallmark’s operations manager.

Over the past five years, Westland has sold about 100 million pounds of frozen beef, valued at $146 million, to the Agriculture Department’s commodities program, which supplies food for school lunches and programs for the needy, according to federal documents.

In the 2004-05 school year, the Agriculture Department honored Westland with its Supplier of the Year award for the National School Lunch Program.

In an interview, Mendell expressed disbelief that employees used stun guns to get sick or injured animals on their feet for inspection.

“That’s impossible,” he said, adding that “electrical prods are not allowed on the property.”

Asked whether his employees use fork lifts to get moribund animals off the ground, he said: “I can’t imagine that.”

Asked whether water was sprayed up animals’ noses to get them to stand up, he said: “That’s absolutely not true.”

“We have a massive humane treatment program here that we follow to the n{+t}{+h} degree, so this doesn’t even sound possible,” Mendell said. “I don’t stand out there all day, but to me it would be next to impossible.”

California law and USDA regulations do not allow disabled animals to be dragged by chains, lifted with forklifts, or, with few exceptions, to enter the food supply, all of which happened at Hallmark during the investigator’s time there last fall, he said.
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Video Reveals Violations of Laws, Abuse of Cows at Slaughterhouse

Video images show those activities, as well as a trailer with Hallmark’s name on it.

One reason that regulations call for keeping downers — cows that cannot stand up — out of the food supply is that they may harbor bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease. It is caused by a virus-like infectious particle that can cause a fatal brain disease in people.

Another is because such animals have, in many cases, been wallowing in feces, posing added risks of E. coli and salmonella contamination.

The Humane Society and other groups have for years urged Congress to pass legislation that would tighten oversight at slaughterhouses.

Kenneth Petersen, assistant administrator of the Food Safety and Inspection Service’s Office of Field Operations, whose 7,600 inspectors monitor the nation’s 6,200 slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants for the Agriculture Department, said he had not seen the video. He added that he would have preferred that the Humane Society contacted the agency directly.

But he said use of a Hot Shot — a brand-name electric device used to get dawdling cows to move along — is “not allowed” as a means of getting a downer on its feet.

In the video, handlers repeatedly apply powerful shocks to the heads, necks, spines and rectums of immobile cows.

“That’s certainly not a way to have them stand up or a correct way to move them,” Petersen said.

Raising a cow on the prongs of a forklift is also not allowed, he said.

“We’ve made it clear that mechanical means to try to elevate an animal is not considered humane,” Petersen said.

If he had evidence that the practices in the video were going on at a slaughterhouse, “I would immediately suspend them as an establishment,” he said. “You’re done. You’re suspended. Everything stops. That’s what we call an egregiously inhumane handling violation.”

Temple Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and an expert in slaughter practices, called the Humane Society footage “one of the worst animal-abuse videos I have ever viewed.”

The investigator said a USDA inspector appeared twice a day, at 6:30 a.m. and about 12:30 p.m., to look at each cow to be slaughtered that day. The practices occurred before the inspector’s appearance, he said, with the goal of getting the animals on their feet for the short time the inspector was there.

“Every day, I would see downed cattle too sick or injured to stand or walk arriving at the slaughterhouse,” he said. “Workers would do anything to get the cows to stand on their feet.”

USDA regulations say that if an animal goes down after it is inspected but before it is slaughtered, then it must be reinspected. But that rarely, if ever, happened, according to the Humane Society.

“They wanted to do whatever they could to get them into the kill box, including jabbing them in the eye, slamming into them with a forklift and simulating drowning or waterboarding the animals,” Pacelle said — all practices that can be seen in the video.

Mad cow disease is extremely rare in the United States, but of the 15 cases documented in North America — most of them in Canada — the vast majority have been traced to downer cattle. When the United States had its first case a few years ago, 44 nations closed their borders to U.S. beef, Pacelle said, costing the nation billions of dollars.

To sneak downers past inspectors, Pacelle said, is “penny-wise and pound-foolish.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/29/AR2008012903054.html

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Posted by Paula Erba, ALDF’s Executive Assistant on January 28, 2008 at 10:37 am

Widening the Circle

Recently, while reading the local newspaper, a well-written letter to the editor regarding an environmental issue caught my attention. The author’s name seemed familiar, and since she resides in the same small town as one of my coworkers, I asked him if he knew her. Thinking he probably did and that she must be a like-minded person, I was surprised when he said, “I don’t know her personally, but she’s an environmentalist/progressive-type. However, she is vehemently against animal rights.”

Now I must confess to being (and probably looking) confused at first, since the words “progressive” and “against animal rights” seem like a contradiction in terms. But when he explained by saying, “You know, THAT kind of progressive,” I unfortunately knew exactly what kind of person he meant.

There is a very vocal group of self-proclaimed “progressives” and “environmentalists” who, for reasons I can only guess, are not supportive of most animal protection efforts. I will try my best to describe this group and its overlapping subgroups, as follows:

1. The “progressives” who believe that it’s all about the quantity of animals, not the quality of life for an individual animal. The people in this group are typically located within the larger environmental or conservation groups, and often proudly wear the “environmentalist” badge. The quality of an animal’s life is not important to them, as long as there are still plenty of that species. Apparently, it’s of no consequence that the “one deer” killed by a hunter had a life of his or her own before coming within range of a high powered rifle. This mentality is also found in some established environmental/conservation organizations; an example is the World Wildlife Fund’s “no opposition” stance regarding the bludgeoning of baby seals.

2. The “progressives” who conveniently ignore the devastation that the animal agricultural industry has wrought on the environment. Let’s be honest - these are the people who are terrified you will rip that juicy steak (organic or not) from their dinner plate, so they choose to ignore the blatant animal suffering that takes place within the industry. The irony of it is that by doing so, they don’t even adhere to their own environmental standards. They ignore the fact that it takes far more resources to raise livestock (yes, even organically raised livestock) than it would to use the same land to grow crops for people. Even the United Nations gets it; in a 2006 report, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) states, “The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” The report goes on to say that regarding climate change, “The livestock sector is a major player, responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent. This is a higher share than transport.”

3. The “progressives” who believe that a person cannot care about human rights while simultaneously caring about animal rights. People from this group will criticize any attempt to help animals with comments such as, “You care more about animals than people!” This one really perplexes me. It doesn’t take advanced multi-tasking skills to support human-focused rights groups while still supporting animal-focused rights groups, and most animal advocates favor efforts to improve human rights. The difference is they don’t stop at humans; their hearts are big enough to feel compassion for everyone, whether two- or four-legged.

4. The “progressives” who say that humans are predators just like wolves and bears and hawks – so therefore have the “right” to prey on other animals. This mentality completely ignores the fact that we 21st century humans can choose what we eat, in a way that a hawk or a bear or a wolf cannot. These people also love to point out how gruesome a death the prey animal suffers when killed by wild predators, to justify humans killing animals in brutal, inhumane ways. It’s the “Hey, it’s just nature” defense. My response: what on earth is natural about a factory farm, or a well-fed human who hunts with a scoped, long-range rifle?

5. The “progressives” who say that since there is no way we can avoid killing bacteria and amoebas and insects with every step we take, we should therefore not help any animals at all. Besides being preposterous, this is the saddest justification of all. Talk about defeatism! The thinking is this: since we all end up doing some harm no matter how careful we are, we therefore shouldn’t try to alleviate suffering where we can. A dangerous idea indeed.

So why is this group truly not supportive of animal protection efforts, even efforts that so obviously benefit the environment? I think it all comes down to fear. First and foremost, they are afraid to change their lives. They cling to the “As long as it’s sustainable, I can buy/use/consume it” mentality so they don’t have to think about the suffering they’re supporting, and therefore won’t have to change their habits. I also think they’re afraid of that pesky “tree-hugging hippie” stereotype they’ve worked so hard to overcome. Perhaps they fear that if they show that they care about animals, this stereotype will be perpetuated. So, they go on the offensive and lash out at animal advocates, calling us “overly-sentimental Bambi lovers” (or worse).

I know that the thought of changing one’s personal habits can be daunting, but I and many other people are living proof that it can be done with a minimum of inconvenience. And one can easily combine the following two beliefs – the right of a species to not perish, and the right of an individual to exist free from harm. Many people support both tenets, quite easily - it truly doesn’t have to be either/or!

Our nation recently celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday. Dr. King once said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere…Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” I commend what has been done so far to improve the lives of humans, endangered animals and the planet we all inhabit. But I also issue this challenge to progressives everywhere: we are all connected, so please, try expanding your compassion to include all living beings, not just humans and not just certain populations of wild animals.

After all, if compassion is absent, our progressive ideals become anything but.

By Larry Copeland, USA TODAY

The growing influence of animal rights activists increasingly is affecting daily life, touching everything from the foods Americans eat to what they study in law school, where they buy their puppies and even whether they should enjoy a horse-drawn carriage ride in New York’s Central Park.

Animal activist groups such as the Humane Society of the United States and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) say they are seeing a spike in membership as their campaigns spread.

“There’s been an explosion of interest” in animal welfare issues, says David Favre, a Michigan State University law professor and animal law specialist. “Groups like the Humane Society of the United States and PETA have brought to our social awareness their concerns about animals and all matter of creatures.”

“Animals are made of flesh and blood and bone just like humans,” says Bruce Friedrich, PETA’s vice president for campaigns. “They feel pain just like we do. Recognition of that grows year by year. The animal rights movement is a social justice movement (similar to) suffrage and civil rights.”

Among other initiatives, PETA supports a measure introduced last month by a New York City councilman that would ban carriage horses that haul tourists around Manhattan. Many other cities feature such businesses.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Michael Vick | Atlanta Falcons | Agriculture | Humane Society | People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals | American Bar Association

“I think it’s clear that animal issues are part of the public domain like never before,” says Michael Markarian, executive vice president of the Humane Society, the largest animal welfare organization. “People have started thinking more and more about how we treat animals in our society.”

Food producers say the activists aren’t just concerned about animal welfare but are trying to win them the same rights as human beings.

“Ultimately, their goal is to eliminate animals being used as food,” says Kay Johnson-Smith of the Animal Agriculture Alliance, an industry-supported organization that seeks to educate the public about agriculture. “There’s a real danger when we allow a very small minority of activists to dictate procedures that should be used to raise animals for food.”

Animal rights campaigns are moving on several fronts:

•The Humane Society says it expects 28 state legislatures this year to consider strengthening existing bans on dogfighting and cockfighting; 13 states are considering bills regulating “puppy mills,” mass dog-breeding operations that keep puppies in small crates.

•Massachusetts activists are collecting signatures to get a statewide initiative on the November ballot that would ban commercial greyhound racing by 2010. The Committee to Protect Dogs says state records show that since 2002, 728 greyhounds have been injured racing at the state’s two tracks.

•Over the past three years, 330 colleges have stopped or dramatically reduced the use of eggs from hens in cramped wire crates called battery cages; retailers including Burger King, Hardee’s, Carl’s Jr. and Ben & Jerry’s now use eggs produced by cage-free hens, Markarian says.

•More than 90 American Bar Association-approved law schools now offer courses in animal law, compared with only a handful 10 years ago. Favre compares the growing interest in animal law among incoming law students to an explosion of interest in environmental law in the 1970s.

Monastery under fire

When it comes to food production and animal rights activists, even monks don’t get a pass. After months of protests by PETA, the monks at Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist monastery in Moncks Corner, S.C., announced last month that they were giving up the egg production business that had sustained them for nearly 50 years.

The monks were targeted because their chickens were kept in battery cages, the nation’s most common method of egg-farming but a practice many animal rights advocates consider cruel.

Father Stan Gumula, abbot of Mepkin Abbey, said the monks were reluctant to give up the egg business. “The pressure from PETA has made it difficult for (the monks) to live their quiet life of prayer, work and sacred reading,” he said.

David Martosko, director of research for the Center for Consumer Freedom, an organization supported by restaurants and food companies, says most Americans oppose cruelty to animals. But he says that activists who say animals shouldn’t be eaten or used for medical research or any other purpose won’t find much mainstream support.

“That is a position that very few Americans agree with,” he says.

Martosko also says abandoning some current agricultural practices will drive up food prices. According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, a dozen regular eggs cost $1.56 in mid-2007, compared with $2.89 for cage-free eggs.

Pivotal events unfolded

Animal welfare organizations are riding a wave of popularity. The Humane Society says it has 10.5 million members or supporters, up from 7.4 million five years ago; during the same period, PETA says its rolls have doubled to 1.8 million. The groups attribute intensified public interest partly to three recent events that highlighted the vulnerability of animals:

•New Orleans residents forced to leave pets to die in 2005 when they were evacuated during Hurricane Katrina.

•The recall last year of 60 million containers of pet food after an unknown number of cats and dogs were poisoned, raising questions about pet-food safety.

•The conviction last year of Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick for dogfighting.

“Those were major events that made people realize we have so much power over animals,” says Markarian of the Humane Society. “We can use that power to be cruel and indifferent, or to be kind and careful stewards.”

Johnson-Smith of the Animal Agriculture Alliance says current farming practices have “a scientific basis” and “have been supported by the animal science, research and veterinarian communities.”

Janet Riley, senior vice president of public affairs for the American Meat Institute, whose members produce about 95% of the beef, pork, lamb, veal and turkey consumed in the USA, says the industry is diligent in handling animals humanely. But, she adds, “people have different opinions about what constitutes humane handling.”

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-01-27-animal-activists_N.htm

HERE’S THE BEEF This feed lot in in California can accommodate up to 100,000 head of cattle.

By MARK BITTMAN Published: January 27, 2008

A SEA change in the consumption of a resource that Americans take for granted may be in store — something cheap, plentiful, widely enjoyed and a part of daily life. And it isn’t oil. It’s meat. The two commodities share a great deal: Like oil, meat is subsidized by the federal government. Like oil, meat is subject to accelerating demand as nations become wealthier, and this, in turn, sends prices higher. Finally — like oil — meat is something people are encouraged to consume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial production increases, and becomes increasingly visible.

Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests.

Just this week, the president of Brazil announced emergency measures to halt the burning and cutting of the country’s rain forests for crop and grazing land. In the last five months alone, the government says, 1,250 square miles were lost.

The world’s total meat supply was 71 million tons in 1961. In 2007, it was estimated to be 284 million tons. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over that period. (In the developing world, it rose twice as fast, doubling in the last 20 years.) World meat consumption is expected to double again by 2050, which one expert, Henning Steinfeld of the United Nations, says is resulting in a “relentless growth in livestock production.”

Americans eat about the same amount of meat as we have for some time, about eight ounces a day, roughly twice the global average. At about 5 percent of the world’s population, we “process” (that is, grow and kill) nearly 10 billion animals a year, more than 15 percent of the world’s total.

Growing meat (it’s hard to use the word “raising” when applied to animals in factory farms) uses so many resources that it’s a challenge to enumerate them all. But consider: an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation.

To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius. Similarly, a study last year by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan estimated that 2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.

Grain, meat and even energy are roped together in a way that could have dire results. More meat means a corresponding increase in demand for feed, especially corn and soy, which some experts say will contribute to higher prices.

This will be inconvenient for citizens of wealthier nations, but it could have tragic consequences for those of poorer ones, especially if higher prices for feed divert production away from food crops. The demand for ethanol is already pushing up prices, and explains, in part, the 40 percent rise last year in the food price index calculated by the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization.

Though some 800 million people on the planet now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens. This despite the inherent inefficiencies: about two to five times more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption, according to Rosamond Naylor, an associate professor of economics at Stanford University. It is as much as 10 times more in the case of grain-fed beef in the United States.

The environmental impact of growing so much grain for animal feed is profound. Agriculture in the United States — much of which now serves the demand for meat — contributes to nearly three-quarters of all water-quality problems in the nation’s rivers and streams, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Because the stomachs of cattle are meant to digest grass, not grain, cattle raised industrially thrive only in the sense that they gain weight quickly. This diet made it possible to remove cattle from their natural environment and encourage the efficiency of mass confinement and slaughter. But it causes enough health problems that administration of antibiotics is routine, so much so that it can result in antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threaten the usefulness of medicines that treat people.

Those grain-fed animals, in turn, are contributing to health problems among the world’s wealthier citizens — heart disease, some types of cancer, diabetes. The argument that meat provides useful protein makes sense, if the quantities are small. But the “you gotta eat meat” claim collapses at American levels. Even if the amount of meat we eat weren’t harmful, it’s way more than enough.

Americans are downing close to 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish per capita per year (dairy and eggs are separate, and hardly insignificant), an increase of 50 pounds per person from 50 years ago. We each consume something like 110 grams of protein a day, about twice the federal government’s recommended allowance; of that, about 75 grams come from animal protein. (The recommended level is itself considered by many dietary experts to be higher than it needs to be.) It’s likely that most of us would do just fine on around 30 grams of protein a day, virtually all of it from plant sources.

What can be done? There’s no simple answer. Better waste management, for one. Eliminating subsidies would also help; the United Nations estimates that they account for 31 percent of global farm income. Improved farming practices would help, too. Mark W. Rosegrant, director of environment and production technology at the nonprofit International Food Policy Research Institute, says, “There should be investment in livestock breeding and management, to reduce the footprint needed to produce any given level of meat.”

Then there’s technology. Israel and Korea are among the countries experimenting with using animal waste to generate electricity. Some of the biggest hog operations in the United States are working, with some success, to turn manure into fuel.

Longer term, it no longer seems lunacy to believe in the possibility of “meat without feet” — meat produced in vitro, by growing animal cells in a super-rich nutrient environment before being further manipulated into burgers and steaks.

Another suggestion is a return to grazing beef, a very real alternative as long as you accept the psychologically difficult and politically unpopular notion of eating less of it. That’s because grazing could never produce as many cattle as feedlots do. Still, said Michael Pollan, author of the recent book “In Defense of Food,” “In places where you can’t grow grain, fattening cows on grass is always going to make more sense.”

But pigs and chickens, which convert grain to meat far more efficiently than beef, are increasingly the meats of choice for producers, accounting for 70 percent of total meat production, with industrialized systems producing half that pork and three-quarters of the chicken.

Once, these animals were raised locally (even many New Yorkers remember the pigs of Secaucus), reducing transportation costs and allowing their manure to be spread on nearby fields. Now hog production facilities that resemble prisons more than farms are hundreds of miles from major population centers, and their manure “lagoons” pollute streams and groundwater. (In Iowa alone, hog factories and farms produce more than 50 million tons of excrement annually.)

These problems originated here, but are no longer limited to the United States. While the domestic demand for meat has leveled off, the industrial production of livestock is growing more than twice as fast as land-based methods, according to the United Nations.

Perhaps the best hope for change lies in consumers’ becoming aware of the true costs of industrial meat production. “When you look at environmental problems in the U.S.,” says Professor Eshel, “nearly all of them have their source in food production and in particular meat production. And factory farming is ‘optimal’ only as long as degrading waterways is free. If dumping this stuff becomes costly — even if it simply carries a non-zero price tag — the entire structure of food production will change dramatically.”

Animal welfare may not yet be a major concern, but as the horrors of raising meat in confinement become known, more animal lovers may start to react. And would the world not be a better place were some of the grain we use to grow meat directed instead to feed our fellow human beings?

Real prices of beef, pork and poultry have held steady, perhaps even decreased, for 40 years or more (in part because of grain subsidies), though we’re beginning to see them increase now. But many experts, including Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, say they don’t believe meat prices will rise high enough to affect demand in the United States.

“I just don’t think we can count on market prices to reduce our meat consumption,” he said. “There may be a temporary spike in food prices, but it will almost certainly be reversed and then some. But if all the burden is put on eaters, that’s not a tragic state of affairs.”

If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.

Mr. Rosegrant of the food policy research institute says he foresees “a stronger public relations campaign in the reduction of meat consumption — one like that around cigarettes — emphasizing personal health, compassion for animals, and doing good for the poor and the planet.”

It wouldn’t surprise Professor Eshel if all of this had a real impact. “The good of people’s bodies and the good of the planet are more or less perfectly aligned,” he said.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, in its detailed 2006 study of the impact of meat consumption on the planet, “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” made a similar point: “There are reasons for optimism that the conflicting demands for animal products and environmental services can be reconciled. Both demands are exerted by the same group of people … the relatively affluent, middle- to high-income class, which is no longer confined to industrialized countries. … This group of consumers is probably ready to use its growing voice to exert pressure for change and may be willing to absorb the inevitable price increases.”

In fact, Americans are already buying more environmentally friendly products, choosing more sustainably produced meat, eggs and dairy. The number of farmers’ markets has more than doubled in the last 10 years or so, and it has escaped no one’s notice that the organic food market is growing fast. These all represent products that are more expensive but of higher quality.

If those trends continue, meat may become a treat rather than a routine. It won’t be uncommon, but just as surely as the S.U.V. will yield to the hybrid, the half-pound-a-day meat era will end.

Maybe that’s not such a big deal. “Who said people had to eat meat three times a day?” asked Mr. Pollan.

Mark Bittman, who writes the Minimalist column in the Dining In and Dining Out sections, is the author of “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian,” which was published last year. He is not a vegetarian.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) — Democrat Barack Obama says he won’t just be a president for the American people, but the animals too.

“What about animal rights?” a woman shouted out during the candidate’s town hall meeting outside Las Vegas Wednesday after he discussed issues that relate more to humans, like war, health care and the economy.

Obama responded that he cares about animal rights very much, “not only because I have a 9-year-old and 6-year-old who want a dog.” He said he sponsored a bill to prevent horse slaughter in the Illinois state Senate and has been repeatedly endorsed by the Humane Society.

“I think how we treat our animals reflects how we treat each other,” he said. “And it’s very important that we have a president who is mindful of the cruelty that is perpetrated on animals.”

Compiled by Nedra Pickler

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gyXVIfZ2F2CTuuxH3_93vuTP-ywwD8U74PLG0

Two new studies published in the American Journal of Epidemiology showed a positive correlation between low-fat and nonfat milk consumption and the risk of prostate cancer.

One study looked at questionnaires by 82,483 men in the Multiethnic Cohort Study, 4,404 of whom developed prostate cancer over a mean follow-up of eight years. Whether in the form of food or supplements, there was no association between calcium and vitamin D intake and prostate cancer risk. However, consuming 1 cup or more per day of low-fat or nonfat milk showed a positive association for developing prostate cancer, while whole milk consumption showed a decreased risk for total prostate cancer (includes nonadvanced, advanced, and fatal cases).

The other study assessed food frequency questionnaires among 293,888 participants of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-AARP Diet and Health Study, 10,180 of whom were total prostate cancer cases. Skim milk consumption at two or more servings per day was positively associated with an increased risk of advanced prostate cancer.

Park S, Murphy SP, Wilkens LR, et al. Calcium, vitamin D, and dairy product intake and prostate cancer risk: the Multiethnic Cohort Study. Am J Epid. 2007;166:1259-1269.

Park Y, Mitrou PN, Kipnis V, et al. Calcium, dairy foods, and risk of incident and fatal prostate cancer: the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study. Am J Epid. 2007;166:1270-1279

By DANNY PENMAN - More by this author »

Last updated at 20:57pm on 5th January 2008

The smiling children giggled as they patted the young goat on its head and tickled it behind the ears. Some of the more boisterous ones tried to clamber onto the animal’s back but were soon shaken off with a quick wiggle of its bottom.

It could have been a happy scene from a family zoo anywhere in the world but for what happened next.

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Children feed goats before the ’show’ starts. One that has been ‘bought’ by a visitor is carried off

A man hoisted up the goat and nonchalantly threw it over a wall into a pit full of hungry lions. The poor goat tried to run for its life, but it didn’t stand a chance. The lions quickly surrounded it and started tearing at its flesh.

“Oohs” and “aahs” filled the air as the children watched the goat being ripped limb from limb. Some started to clap silently with a look of wonder in their eyes.

The scenes witnessed at Badaltearing Safari Park in China are rapidly becoming a normal day out for many Chinese families.

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Once the goat is carried from its pen, it is swiftly thrown into the lion enclosure

Baying crowds now gather in zoos across the country to watch animals being torn to pieces by lions and tigers.

Just an hour’s drive from the main Olympic attractions in Beijing, Badaling is in many ways a typical Chinese zoo.

Next to the main slaughter arena is a restaurant where families can dine on braised dog while watching cows and goats being disembowelled by lions.

The zoo also encourages visitors to “fish” for lions using live chickens as bait. For just £2, giggling visitors tie terrified chickens onto bamboo rods and dangle them in front of the lions, just as a cat owner might tease their pet with a toy.

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The ravenous big cats quickly attack the goat and start to tear it limb from limb, all in the name of ‘entertainment’ for the Badaling zoo visitors

During one visit, a woman managed to taunt the big cats with a petrified chicken for five minutes before a lion managed to grab the bird in its jaws.

The crowd then applauded as the bird flapped its wings pathetically in a futile bid to escape. The lion eventually grew bored and crushed the terrified creature to death.

The tourists were then herded onto buses and driven through the lions’ compound to watch an equally cruel spectacle. The buses have specially designed chutes down which you can push live chickens and watch as they are torn to shreds.

Once again, children are encouraged to take part in the slaughter.

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The lions tear the goat to pieces within seconds of landing in the enclosure

“It’s almost a form of child abuse,” says Carol McKenna of the OneVoice animal welfare group. “The cruelty of Chinese zoos is disgusting, but think of the impact on the children watching it. What kind of future is there for China if its children think this kind of cruelty is normal?

“In China, if you love animals you want to kill yourself every day out of despair.”

But the cruelty of Badaling doesn’t stop with animals apart. For those who can still stomach it, the zoo has numerous traumatised animals to gawp at.

A pair of endangered moon bears with rusting steel nose rings are chained up in cages so small that they cannot even turn around.

One has clearly gone mad and spends most of its time shaking its head and bashing into the walls of its prison.

There are numerous other creatures, including tigers, which also appear to have been driven insane by captivity. Predictably, they are kept in cramped, filthy conditions.

!Zoos like this make me want to boycott everything Chinese,” says Emma Milne, star of the BBC’s Vets In Practice.

“I’d like to rip out everything in my house that’s made in China. I have big problems with their culture.

“If you enjoy watching an animal die then that’s a sad and disgusting reflection on you.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by their behaviour towards animals, as the value of human life is so low in China.”

East of Badaling lies the equally horrific Qingdao zoo. Here, visitors can take part in China’s latest craze — tortoise baiting.

Simply put, Chinese families now gather in zoos to hurl coins at tortoises.

Legend has it that if you hit a tortoise on the head with a coin and make a wish, then your heart’s desire will come true. It’s the Chinese equivalent of a village wishing well.

To feed this craze, tortoises are kept in barbaric conditions inside small bare rooms.

When giggling tourists begin hurling coins at them, they desperately try to protect themselves by withdrawing into their shells.

But Chinese zoo keepers have discovered a way round this: they wrap elastic bands around the animals’ necks to stop them retracting their heads.

“Tortoises aren’t exactly fleet of foot and can’t run away,” says Carol McKenna.

“It’s monstrous that people hurl coins at the tortoises, but strapping their heads down with elastic bands so they can’t hide is even more disgusting.

“Because tortoises can’t scream, people assume they don’t suffer. But they do. I can’t bear to think what it must be like to live in a tiny cell and have people hurl coins at you all day long.”

Even worse is in store for the animals of Xiongsen Bear and Tiger Mountain Village near Guilin in south-east China.

Here, live cows are fed to tigers to amuse cheering crowds. During a recent visit, I watched in horror as a young cow was stalked and caught. Its screams and cries filled the air as it struggled to escape.

A wild tiger would dispatch its prey within moments, but these beasts’ natural killing skills have been blunted by years of living in tiny cages.

The tiger tried to kill — tearing and biting at the cow’s body in a pathetic looking frenzy — but it simply didn’t know how.

Eventually, the keepers broke up the contest and slaughtered the cow themselves, much to the disappointment of the crowd.

Although the live killing exhibition was undoubtedly depressing, an equally disturbing sight lay around the corner: the “animal parade”.

Judging by the rest of the operation, the unseen training methods are unlikely to be humane, but what visitors view is bad enough.

Tigers, bears and monkeys perform in a degrading “entertainment”. Bears wear dresses, balance on balls and not only ride bicycles but mount horses too.

The showpiece is a bear riding a bike on a high wire above a parade of tigers, monkeys and trumpet-playing bears.

Astonishingly, the zoo also sells tiger meat and wine produced from big cats kept in battery-style cages.

Tiger meat is eaten widely in China and the wine, made from the crushed bones of the animals, is a popular drink.

Although it is illegal, the zoo is quite open about its activities. In fact, it boasts of having 140 dead tigers in freezers ready for the plate.

In the restaurant, visitors can dine on strips of stir-fried tiger with ginger and Chinese vegetables. Also on the menu are tiger soup and a spicy red curry made with tenderised strips of big cat.

And if all that isn’t enough, you can dine on lion steaks, bear’s paw, crocodile and several different species of snake.

“Discerning” visitors can wash it all down with a glass or two of vintage wine made from the bones of Siberian tigers.

The wine is made from the 1,300 or so tigers reared on the premises. The restaurant is a favourite with Chinese Communist Party officials who often pop down from Beijing for the weekend.

China’s zoos claim to be centres for education and conservation. Without them, they say, many species would become extinct.

This is clearly a fig leaf and some would call it a simple lie. Many are no better than “freak shows” from the middle ages and some are no different to the bloody tournaments of ancient Rome.

“It’s farcical to claim that these zoos are educational,” says Emma Milne.

“How can you learn anything about wild animals by watching them pace up and down inside a cage? You could learn far more from a David Attenborough documentary.”

However pitiful the conditions might be in China’s zoos, there are a few glimmers of hope.

It is now becoming fashionable to own pets in China. The hope is that a love for pets will translate into a desire to help animals in general. This does appear to be happening, albeit slowly.

One recent MORI opinion poll discovered that 90 per cent of Chinese people thought they had “a moral duty to minimise animal suffering”. Around 75 per cent felt that the law should be changed to minimise animal suffering as much as possible.

In 2004, Beijing proposed animal welfare legislation which stipulated that “no one should harass, mistreat or hurt animals”. It would also have banned animal fights and live feeding shows.

The laws would have been a huge step forward. But the proposals were scrapped following stiff opposition from vested interests and those who felt China had more pressing concerns.

And this is the central problem for animal welfare in China: its ruling elite is brutally repressive and cares little for animals.

Centuries of rule by tyrannical emperors and bloody dictators have all but eradicated the Buddhist and Confucian respect for life and nature.

As a result, welfare groups are urging people not to go to Chinese zoos if they should visit the Olympics, as virtually every single one inflicts terrible suffering on its animals

“They should tell the Chinese Embassy why they are refusing to visit these zoos,’ says Carol McKenna of OneVoice.

“If a nation is great enough to host the Olympic Games then it is great enough to be able to protect its animals.”

January 4, 2008

BY MARC CAPUTO

McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — After a goat was raped and killed in a Panhandle town, animal activists, police and citizens were almost as shocked to find out that bestiality isn’t a crime in Florida.

But it might be soon.

A Sunrise state senator and a St. Petersburg representative have filed legislation to make it a first-degree felony to have sex with animals or promote or advertise bestiality.

“It’s true. It’s sick. There needs to be a law,” said Democratic Sen. Nan Rich, a longtime crusader for children and animal rights. “There are 30 states that make this a crime. Florida isn’t one of them.”

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who called the situation “unbelievable,” said Thursday he would sign the bill into law if it made it to his desk.

Rich said she was as shocked as she was disgusted when she learned of the rape and asphyxiation last year of a family pet goat named Meg- who was pregnant with twins-in the town of Mossy Head in rural Walton County.

A suspect in the case, a 48-year-old man, is serving an 11-month, 29-day jail sentence on animal-theft charges in connection with the attempted abduction of another goat in a separate case, according to Walton County Assistant State Attorney James Parker.

Parker said he couldn’t prosecute the suspect in the death of Meg because DNA samples taken with a sheriff’s office rape kit were inconclusive. Parker said he asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement last week to retest the evidence.

But even if there’s a DNA match, Parker said the suspect could only be charged with misdemeanor trespassing and animal cruelty, a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Parker said the suspect could not be arrested for bestiality because it isn’t a crime. The prosecutor added that the man is “definitely a suspect” because he was arrested trying to take another person’s goat Feb. 3 shortly after Meg was choked to death from her collar that had been tightly held around her neck.

Parker said it was the suspect’s second livestock-theft charge. Dee Thompson-Poirrier, of Okaloosa County Animal Services, said Meg the goat was once featured at a 4-H Club, and had been given to a family with small children by a neighbor who had suspected an area man-she wouldn’t say who-of abusing the animal.

Thompson-Poirrier said she was called in to handle the case because Walton County locals believed it would best be handled by someone outside the county. She said Meg’s owner heard a suspicious noise the night of the incident and only later learned that someone had set her dogs free and had left dog biscuits near the fence to lure the animals away from Meg.

While the rape and killing were shocking, Thompson-Poirrier said so was the fact that bestiality isn’t even a crime here. “I found out far more about goats and bestiality than I ever wanted,” she said.

Rich said the prohibition against bestiality is important because studies show that those who abuse animals may also abuse children. She expects the legislation that she’s sponsoring with Democratic Rep. Frank Peterman to pass during the spring lawmaking session, though they might reduce the first-degree felony charge calling for a maximum 30-year prison sentence for committing, promoting, abetting or possessing pornography of bestiality.

Otherwise, the bill is too little, too late.

“The fact that this happens is unconscionable,” Rich said. “And it should be illegal.”

Thompson-Poirrier says her PAWS society spent about $5,000 investigating the case and having the suspect’s DNA analyzed.The odd local publicity helped bring back about $300, when a man from nearby Crestview made a series of $10 goat T-shirts for sale.One shirt depicts a goat saying “Baaa Means No!”

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080104/NEWS07/80104055/1001/NEWS

MIKE WROTE

So, plants don’t feel pain? I have seen several studies indicating that they do. When will you people realize that death is part of life. Why is ok to kill a plant but not a animal ? Everything dies and in turn provides for other creatures. I will agree with you and the large factory farms they way they deal with animals is wrong. I grew up on a farm and we made dam sure that our animals had a good life and when it came time to kill them we made sure it was as quick and painless as possible. But in the end there is no way to make death humane.

MARK HAWTHORNE WROTE

Thanks for chiming in. I’ve heard the “plants feel pain” line many times, and it’s usually from someone looking to justify his or her meat-eating, reasoning that if plants and animals both feel pain, there is no ethical difference between killing plants for food and killing animals for food.

Plants do not have a brain, nerve endings or central nervous system, so they lack the fundamental mechanisms to experience pain – or pleasure, for that matter. Think about it: pain would serve no purpose in plants, since nature has not equipped them to escape the danger pain represents.

If you are genuinely concerned about plants, you should know that the vast majority of grains and legumes raised today are used as feed for cattle; consequently, a vegan diet is better for the environment than a meat-based one. A cow, for example, needs about 16 pounds of vegetation to convert them into one pound of flesh, so you’ll save many more plants’ lives by eating vegetables directly!

As for death being a part of life – I agree. But just because we CAN kill an animal for food doesn’t mean we HAVE to. We have the power of choice, and thankfully many people are choosing to live quite happily without killing and eating animals.

by Mark Hawthorne

Do you believe animal cruelty is wrong? Chances are you do, if you’re like 96 percent of people living in the United States. And if you’re like an estimated 97 percent of this same population, you also eat animals. Deep down, you may feel uneasy about this, especially when confronted by the abundance of evidence demonstrating that consuming animal flesh is bad for human health, is bad for the environment and is especially bad for the billions of animals raised and killed every year for food. In fact, you may feel downright conflicted.

Psychologists call this feeling “cognitive dissonance,” which is defined as the discomfort we experience when holding two incompatible thoughts (cognitions) at the same time. For example, millions of people smoke tobacco in this country, despite knowing that smoking is bad for them.

Activists in the animal-rights movement frequently discuss cognitive dissonance, musing about people who insist they love animals yet eat pigs, cows, chickens, fish, turkeys and sheep as if these beings somehow don’t qualify as animals. We even wonder what could be going on with animal shelters and humane societies that offer meat at fundraisers. They serve hot dogs at dog walks (cute, huh?), sausage at their pancake breakfasts and corpses of all kinds at their annual dinners (well, perhaps no dogs or cats are on the menu). If these “animal advocates” cannot make the connection — if they can’t see they are supporting the very abuse they claim to be fighting — what hope is there for the rest of the world?

Trouble is, many people regard meat-eating as a right, perhaps even a God-given entitlement. Humans enjoy the taste of meat, and they argue that we’ve been eating animals for thousands of years. It’s tradition, meat-lovers claim. Why change?

Well, history is full of traditions that we now agree were repugnant. Indeed, every social movement that had any impact — whether it’s the abolition of slavery, the suffrage movement, civil rights, the child-protection movement or reforms for farm workers — was initially backed by a person or a group thought to represent the minority opinion, and those opposed to them tried to provoke the fear that overturning the status quo would lead to chaos: the end of slavery would result in economic ruin, granting women the right to vote or banning child labor would weaken national strength, passing laws against child abuse would dissolve families and so on.

Animal-rights activists are now hearing the same sort of nonsense from those who profit by abusing animals. According to them, the only way to feed the world, cure diseases or advance scientific knowledge is by using animals. To them, animals are not sentient individuals with their own interests, but commodities to be exploited for human profit, amusement, convenience or taste. Taste, for crying out loud! A fleeting gustatory pleasure versus animal cruelty that includes crushing the skulls of pigs, scalding fully conscious birds and butchering cows while they are still alive. No wonder people feel conflicted.

What would make an otherwise ethical person disregard the indescribable suffering of ten billion animals a year in the U.S.? Is it simply a case of one cognition losing out in the dissonance war?

Part of the answer is habit, which animal agribusiness abets with a huge marketing machine to make people feel good about the Standard American Diet and silence the cognitive dissonance lurking within us. Advertising campaigns, for example, perpetuate the myth that health and even masculinity require meat protein: macho-themed ads tell us that beef is what’s for dinner and steakhouse commercials depict cowboys cooking dead animals over a campfire. So entrenched is animal protein as a nutritional tenet that many people in Europe and North America regard meat eating as fundamental to maintaining physical fitness, even in the face of tremendous evidence to the contrary. Never mind that people throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America have long thrived on diets based on grains and legumes and in which meat is much less common. (That model is sadly changing, thanks in part to fast food; now once healthier populations are succumbing to ailments like heart disease, cancer and obesity in ever-increasing numbers.)

Meanwhile, marketing campaigns telling us that “milk does a body good” are designed to allay any misgivings we may have about drinking the lactations of another species, and ads depicting “happy cows” grazing on green pastures challenge evidence from animal advocates that show how dairy cows suffer — and become hamburger after being abused for five years, a fraction of a cow’s natural lifespan. Not a very “happy” ending.

One theory of cognitive dissonance holds that it is not the result of people experiencing dissonance between opposing cognitions; instead, it surfaces when people view their actions as conflicting with their self-image. For the meat-eater, this means not wanting to see themselves as contributing to animal abuse; they would rather not hear the truth than think they are selfish and cruel. Such was the case with a woman I dined with once who asked about an article I was working on for an animal-rights magazine. When I proceeded to tell her about the lives of egg-laying hens in battery cages, she cut me off — abruptly raising a hand from the roasted chicken breast she was cutting into — and told me: “I don’t want to know about it.” In other words, just thinking about animal cruelty would threaten her desire to eat meat. Unfortunately, as social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson observe in their book “Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts,” many people reduce cognitive dissonance by justifying their behavior rather than making a change.

No social change occurs overnight, however, and cognitive dissonance frequently serves as an agent to reform. The first step in accommodating new ideas — whether it’s abolishing slavery or going vegan — is often holding another view in balance long enough to critically examine it, weighing a new concept against popular opinion. So, for those readers who believe in the primacy of animal flesh and regard eating meat, eggs and dairy foods as the right of every human being, consider for a moment the suffering that is carefully hidden from the public:

* Chickens in factory farms who are bred to grow so quickly that their brief lives are filled with misery: fragile bones, lung congestion, limb deformities and heart failure are common.
* Pigs who spend their lives in crates so small they are unable to even turn around.
* Cows who are strapped into what the dairy industry calls a “rape rack” and artificially inseminated each year so they will give milk. Their newborn calves are taken away, the females going back into the dairy system while many of the males are crammed into small crates and later sold as veal. Mother cows are slaughtered when their milk production declines.
* Ocean-dwelling animals who are scooped from the sea by the billions each year to slowly suffocate or be boiled alive.
* Egg-laying hens who spend about two years packed into wire “battery” cages with other hens without room to spread a single wing. If she doesn’t die from untreated illness or uterine prolapse pushing out an egg, the exhausted hen is slaughtered as soon as her egg production declines.
* Male chicks hatched in the egg industry who are immediately gassed, ground up while fully conscious or flung into garbage bags to eventually suffocate.

The good news is we can all do something right now to improve the lives of animals, as well as help the planet and benefit our health. All we need to do is keep meat, eggs and dairy products off our plates. Yes, that requires we have an open mind and rethink some personal choices. It may mean facing the state of tension that characterizes cognitive dissonance. But before you cut into your next animal-based meal, I challenge you to “meet your meat” at www.meat.org and then ask yourself if your taste for flesh outweighs the terror a cow feels as she’s led to slaughter. Fortunately, it has never been easier to eat delicious, nutritious plant-based foods.

Just think about it.

Mark Hawthorne is the author of “Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism” (O Books).

www.strikingattheroots.com

Mark Hawthorne is the author of “Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism” (O Books). Mark adopted a vegetarian lifestyle soon after an encounter with one of India’s many cows in 1992 and went vegan a decade later. He is now a committed animal activist who has engaged in nearly every model of activism, from leafleting and tabling to protesting and direct action. Currently, he is working with hundreds of other activists on an historic ballot initiative that will ban the use of battery cages, gestation crates and veal crates in California. Mark was a contributing writer for Satya from 2004 until the magazine ceased publishing in June of 2007, and his articles, book reviews, essays and opinion pieces have also appeared in Herbivore, VegNews, Vegan Voice, Hinduism Today, Utne.com and many daily newspapers across the United States. Mark is a volunteer for Animal Place, a vegan education center and sanctuary for farmed animals in northern California, where he serves on the outreach advisory council. He is also involved in rabbit rescue and lives with five rescued rabbits.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mark_haw_080103_i_think_3b_therefore_2c_.htm