Animal Earth Human

By Khaled Aljenfawi

In modern Western societies, authorities usually guarantee protection to animals against abuse. This protection takes form through the application of specific laws and regulations, setting up for example measures and guidelines for appropriate treatment of animals — domestic and otherwise. Many of these laws and regulations actually set very specific procedures through which abusers of animal rights are prosecuted. Ultimately, the culprits of such violations land in jail or have to pay hefty fines. Animal rights have actually become an integral part of the general Western psyche in which many people consider pets and domestic animals as companions and members of their families.

Such intimate relationships between man and animal have actually transcended sometimes human-to-human relationships. Pets, either cats or dogs, do not usually betray their owners nor do they change heart quite easily, and thus deserve to be treated well by human beings. We have in Kuwait some societies and non-profit organizations which have been established by some excellent human beings who appreciate the emotional and moral value of animals. These societies and organizations like their counterparts around the world continue to advocate animal rights through the media or through their printed literature.

However, the overall condition of domestic animals in Kuwait is still below expectations. For example, the numerous pet shops scattered around Kuwait do not seem to have official regulations in place nor do they go through periodical inspections. Many of the animals in those pet shops are usually crammed in a very small space and confined in small cages. Moreover, there is currently a fad in Kuwait or what one might call a temporary hobby centering around buying hunting animals for the sake of showing off among friends!

Many Kuwaiti youngsters have taken lately a particularly curious hobby of keeping falcons for show and not for serious and regulated hunting. One can see many of these falcons in diwaniyas; usually placed in the middle of the room. Guests who frequent some of these diwaniyas expose falcons to smoking, loud and sometimes irritating noise. The Art of Falconry has been a favorite hobby among gentlemen of the desert, (Beduoins) and most current day desert people usually appreciate, continue to respect and usually maintain their falcons quite well. Nevertheless, the kind of falconry we witness these days in Kuwait seems to be just for showing off, a harmful behavior, which can expose falcons to a variety of dangers.

Furthermore, one can witness animal right abuses when visiting Safat, the location where one can buy sheep or lambs. Owners of these animals— usually Bangladeshis —keep these poor animals confined in small cages, barely able to breathe or walk. It is certain that many of these sheep go through mental and psychological suffering and stress because of the way their owners treat them. One can add to this the horrible situation these sheep find themselves in when they are led to the slaughterhouses. They are first tied up with a rope or pliable iron strings. Cuffing the sheep legs with these strings and robes must feel extremely painful to the animals. One can add among animal rights abuses is the way some individuals in Kuwait treat stray dogs and cats. The population of these animals seems to be increasing every year and they are either shot or given poisoned food just to get rid of them.

There are of course many other “humane methods” to deal with stray animals, like keeping them in adoption shelters or ending their lives less painfully. To illustrate this point, while driving on the streets of Kuwait one can witness a cat or a dog being run over by a speeding car. Instead of stopping the traffic and calling the authorities to collect these dead animals or at least try to save them, many drivers choose to ignore them and just drive on! In civilized societies, the authorities have special emergency dispatches to help injured animals. The authorities and public in Kuwait need to show more understanding and acceptance of Animal Rights. How a society deals with its animals can tell us a lot about the level of civility in the local culture.

khaledaljenfawi@yahoo.com

Fri Sep 26, 2008 3:55pm EDT
Reuters

By Martha Graybow

NEW YORK, Sept 26 (Reuters) - A New York state restaurant has sued 13 major U.S. egg producers and three egg trade groups, contending they schemed to artificially fix prices over the past eight years by reducing the supply of eggs.

The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, comes days after the U.S. Department of Justice said it is looking into possible antitrust violations in the egg products industry.

The plaintiff, T.K. Ribbing’s Family Restaurant of Falconer, New York, contends that the defendants participated in a conspiracy that led to a drop in egg supplies and a jump in prices. The suit was filed on Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

The defendants include Pilgrim’s Pride Corp (PPC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Cal-Maine Foods Inc (CALM.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and the trade group United Egg Producers Inc. Representatives at those companies and the trade group were not immediately available for comment.

“The aim of defendants’ conspiracy was to conduct a supply control campaign designed to reduce output and artificially fix and inflate the price of eggs .. ” the lawsuit contends. It says egg companies were able to drastically increase the price of eggs from 2000 to record highs by 2007 and into 2008 through the activity.

The lawsuit accuses egg producers of conspiring in various ways, including agreeing to delay or reduce chick hatching, agreeing to restrain output in the United States, manipulating the export of eggs to reduce supply and agreeing to manipulate the molting of hens to keep egg production low.

Under federal antitrust laws, competitors are not allowed to conspire for the purpose of altering prices.

There are some limited exceptions for agricultural producers, such as the Capper-Volstead Act, a 1922 law that allows for reduced competition among smaller farmers who form a co-operative, said Ted Bolema, an assistant professor of finance and law at Central Michigan University. He is not involved with the litigation.

“Our allegations are that the Capper-Volstead Act does not apply for several reasons,” said one of the lawyers for the plaintiff, James Pizzirusso of law firm Cohen Milstein Hausfeld & Toll.

The plaintiffs argue that the United Egg Producers is a trade group and its activities fall outside the legitimate objectives of an agricultural marketing co-op, and that its members are competitors rather than small farmers banding together to cut out the middlemen who would otherwise market their eggs.

The plaintiff is demanding a jury trial, and wants the case certified as a class action on behalf of other egg buyers who bought directly from the producers.

The lawsuit seeks triple damages as well as other relief under federal antitrust laws, plus attorneys’ fees and costs.

(Reporting by Martha Graybow, editing by Brad Dorfman)

By Steve Bailey Sept. 23, 2008 (Bloomberg) — British farmer Gwyn Jones points at one of 30 newborn black and white Holstein calves in his pen, its rump spray-painted with a bright red “B.”

The “B” means “bull” and is a death warrant: a slaughterman the next day will shoot the animal in the head before incinerating the body.

Even at a time of rising food prices, the animal is one of 150,000 male dairy calves killed within days of birth annually in the U.K. because they don’t produce milk and veal makes up less than 1 percent of all national beef sales.

“It’s a complete waste,” says Jones, who has 750 head of cattle near the village of Plaistow, south of London, and will kill all his 150 bull calves this year. “They keep telling us food is in short supply, and we keep killing healthy cows because there is no market for them. It’s madness.”

The U.K., which has some of the toughest animal-welfare laws in Europe, and Ireland are the only countries in the region that slaughter large numbers — one in three — of new-born dairy bull calves. The same animal-welfare groups whose campaigns led to plummeting veal sales since the 1980s now are enlisting retailers such as Tesco Plc and Marks & Spencer Group Plc in a bid to build a local market to rear the animals for beef and veal rather than export them to Europe or kill them on the farm.

Tesco, the U.K.’s biggest supermarket chain, this year said it would buy the bulls to be reared on Tesco beef farms. London- based Marks & Spencer, a clothing retailer that also sells food, in July started selling only British-raised veal.

Tesco Ban

Rather than killing the calves, some farmers send them to continental Europe, where there is a market for veal.

Tesco banned farmers that supply it with milk from exporting bull calves, the primary concern of animal-welfare groups, which oppose how the calves are transported and reared on the continent. Tesco, based in Cheshunt, England, can’t prevent farmers from killing newborns, spokesman David Nieberg said.

Those moves were inspired by the Beyond Calf Exports Stakeholders Forum, a group of retailers, farmers and activists that includes the Horsham, England-based Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Compassion in World Farming, the Stoneleigh, England-based National Farmers’ Union, and retailers such as Tesco and McDonald’s Corp.

The forum is an attempt to create a market-based solution to the issue of calf exports and killings while avoiding the clashes seen in the 1980s between animal-welfare groups and the farming industry over the use of cramped crates to rear calves for veal. Those protests led to bans on such practices and crushed the veal market in the U.K.

`Dirty Word’

“Veal had become a dirty word,” says Philip Lymbery, chief executive officer of Compassion in World Farming, which is based in Godalming, England.

Farmers say the reputation for cruelty meant veal never became a big seller in the U.K. In continental Europe, such calves are reared for veal and not killed at birth.

Holstein cows, which dominate the British dairy herd, also yield less meat than cattle bred for beef. And British veal meat is pink, not white, another hurdle to consumer acceptance.

Reports in July of tuberculosis among U.K. cows again halted exports and increased the killing of new-born bull calves by thousands, farmers and animal-welfare groups say.

The solution, both sides say, is in developing a domestic market for dairy bull calves.

U.K Imports

The U.K. imports about 23 percent, or 300,000 tons, of its beef a year, according to the retailers and activists. That’s a gap in the market the animal-welfare groups say could be filled in part by beef from British dairy bull calves. Veal sales, by contrast, represented less than 1 percent of all beef sales in the U.K. in 2007, according to TNS, a market research firm.

Animal-welfare groups say they support U.K. veal because the animals are reared in humane conditions there.

Changing British eating habits will not be easy.

British veal sirloin steak was priced at 34.99 pounds ($65) a kilogram, 50 percent more than British beef sirloin steak at a Marks & Spencer outlet in London’s Marble Arch, the first to sell British dairy bull-calf veal.

The label on the beef steaks also reflects consumer preferences: “From beef, not dairy breeds for flavor.”

Although an RSPCA seal of approval was prominent on the veal, shopper Sharon John wasn’t interested. “The cost is prohibitive, and when you think about it, I’d rather not,” says John, 43. “So it is a meat I can do without.”

Estimate Questioned

Robert Forster, who retired a year ago as head of the Tyne Green, England-based National Beef Association, which represents beef farmers, said the estimate of 150,000 newborn calves killed a year, from the Beyond Calf Exports Stakeholders Forum, is too low. There are about 480,000 dairy bull calves born in the U.K. every year.

Jones, 54, who comes from a line of Welsh farmers and has raised dairy cows at Crouchland Farm for 30 years, says no farmer likes to kill newborn bull calves.

“It is against all our natural instincts,” he says. “We struggle to bring these cows into the world and then if it is a male you have to put it down.”

Plus, he adds, “it costs me money” — about 6 pounds a head to dispose of a calf. Some local slaughtermen, he says, refuse to kill healthy bull calves because they find it so distasteful. “It is bloody depressing,” Jones says.

To contact the reporter on this story: Steve Bailey in London at sbailey16@bloomberg.net

9/16/08

WASHINGTON (AP) — An undercover video taken at an Iowa pig farm shows workers hitting sows with metal rods, slamming piglets on a concrete floor and bragging about jamming rods up into sows’ hindquarters.

The pork industry and a Hormel spokesperson say animal abuse is unacceptable and not the norm.

On the video, obtained by The Associated Press, a supervisor tells an undercover investigator for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that when he gets angry or a sow won’t move, “I grab one of these rods and jam it in her [anus].”

The farm outside Bayard, Iowa, about 60 miles west of Des Moines, is a supplier to Hormel Foods of Austin, Minnesota. PETA wants to use the results of the investigation to pressure Hormel, the maker of Spam and other food products, to demand that its suppliers ensure humane treatment of pigs.

Hormel spokeswoman Julie Henderson Craven on Tuesday called the abuses “completely unacceptable.”

The animal rights group also planned to send the video to the sheriff in Greene County, Iowa, seeking prosecution of 18 people on animal cruelty violations. According to PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich, the video shows eight people directly abusing animals.

“Abuse on factory farms is the absolute norm, not the exception, and anyone eating factory-farmed meat is paying to support it,” Friedrich said.

After getting a whistleblower complaint from someone inside the farm, PETA sent two undercover investigators to be hired at the farm and document its practices — one from June 10 to September 8, and the other from July 23 to September 11.

At one point on the video, an employee shouts to an investigator, “Hurt ‘em! There’s nobody works for PETA out here. You know who PETA is?”

The undercover PETA investigator replies that he’s heard of the group.

“I hate them. These [expletives] deserve to be hurt. Hurt, I say!,” the employee yells as he hits a sow with a metal rod. “Hurt! Hurt! Hurt! Hurt! … Take out your frustrations on ‘em.” He encourages the investigator to pretend that one of the pigs scared off a voluptuous and willing 17- or 18-year-old girl, and then beat the pig for it.

Records at the Greene County Assessor’s Office show the property was owned by Natural Pork Production II LLP of Iowa until August 18, and then was transferred to MowMar LLP of Fairmont, Minnesota.

Lynn Becker, an owner of MowMar, called the abuses on the video “completely intolerable, reprehensible. We condemn these types of acts. If any animals were abused in the brief time we’ve owned the farm, if we still employ these people, any attempt will be made to investigate and initiate corrective action immediately.”

Becker said his company provided animal welfare training to the staff when it took over the farm.

Natural Pork Production II referred questions to AMVC Management Services, which managed the farm under its ownership. Mark Jones, AMVC’s network manager, said the video showed “unacceptable practices” and that his company is working with the new ownership to investigate.

Craven, the Hormel spokeswoman, said the farm became a Hormel supplier only after the change in ownership, and that MowMar “shares our commitment to animal welfare and humane handling.”

“We expect all current suppliers to adhere to the proper animal handling standards from day one and continue to do so throughout our relationship. We are working with our supplier to ensure this activity is no longer taking place,” Hormel said in a statement on its Web site.

Craven said it was her understanding that the abuses took place before the change in ownership. But PETA’s Friedrich said the abuses continued, and that the new manager abused animals by shocking and kicking pigs.

Dr. Jennifer Greiner, a veterinarian and director of science and technology at the National Pork Producers Council, said the industry condemns “willful abuse” of pigs and that the video depicts acts that are not acceptable.

“Our industry is committed to handling pigs humanely,” she said. “My industry is full of good people.”

At one point in the video, workers are shown slamming piglets on the ground, a practice designed to instantly kill those baby pigs that aren’t healthy enough. But on the video, the piglets are not killed instantly, and in a bloodied pile, some piglets can be seen wiggling vainly. The video also shows piglets being castrated, and having their tails cut off, without anesthesia.

Temple Grandin, a leading animal welfare expert who serves as a consultant to the livestock industry, said that while those are standard industry practices, the treatment of the sows on the video was far from it.

“This is atrocious animal abuse,” Grandin said after PETA sent her the video. But she disagreed with PETA’s contention that it was widespread in the industry.

“I’ve been on many good farms, and the pigs are handled gently,” she said. “This was blatant, deliberate animal cruelty. These people are sick. They need to be prosecuted. There are certain people that enjoy hurting animals and they should not be working with them — period.”

One of the PETA investigators, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his ability to do further undercover operations, said there was a culture of violence on the farm, and working there was an emotionally and physically exhausting experience that typically involved working 12-hour shifts and walking 15 miles a day.

“So many times, it took all of my willpower not to step up and do something,” he said, adding that he also saw the supervisor shove a cane into a sow’s vagina. “I was just shocked. What do you say to that?”