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1.
ATTEMPTS TO STALL CAGE BAN, LIMIT CONFINEMENT
Animal protection advocates and David
Martin, a Labour MEP (member of the European Parliament)
for Scotland, are fighting to thwart a campaign to
delay a Europe-wide ban on battery cages. Under the
European Laying Hens Directive 1999, a ban on the
cages is due to come into effect in 2012. The British
Egg Industry Council wants to push the ban back another
five years. It expressed reluctance to make the switch
to “enriched” cages (which provide perches,
a nest, some litter, and at least 750 sq cm of space
per bird) until a review, which was due in January
2005, is completed. Claiming that a massive egg shortage
will otherwise result, the Council’s chief executive
stated: “The industry is serious about removing
these cages but needs a little bit more time.”
According to a European Union Commission spokesperson,
“…there are no plans for any relaxing
of the rules.”
A Dutch poultry federation has asked the Dutch parliament
to soften rules, which come into effect today, requiring
poultry be kept indoors in an effort to reduce the
risk of avian influenza posed by migrating birds.
Farmers can choose between keeping birds indoors or
constructing something to prevent contact with wild
birds. The federation said that no other European
country is imposing such strict rules, and that it
believes the risk of contamination from wild birds
is not high enough to warrant them. No wild birds
infected with bird flu have been found in the Netherlands.
The request was responded to dismissively by a majority
of the parliament, with one member asserting ""We
cannot be careful enough."
ACTIVISTS FIGHT TO SECURE CAGE BAN
Sunday Herald, Kirsty Taylor, August 27, 2006
http://www.sundayherald.com/57579
DUTCH POULTRY INDUSTRY REQUESTS SOFTER
RULES ON BIRD HOUSING
World Poultry, August 31, 2006
http://tinyurl.com/f3wpg
2.
CHICKENS: "HAPPY"? "CONTENTED"? "WELL-TREATED"?
Kreider Farms has changed its website’s
description of the chickens it keeps for egg production
from “happy and well-treated” to “contented
and well-treated.” The change was brought about
by a complaint lodged with the Better Business Bureau
by Hugs for Puppies, which charged the description
was false advertising. The action was initiated following
a covert investigation of the operation by the animal
rights group (see: http://farmedanimal.net/faw/faw6-15.htm#2
). Kreider Farms spokesperson Tom Beachler downplayed
the development, noting that the company’s five
sites comply with industry standards. "I see
(the chickens) all the time and hear them clucking
and singing," Beachler said. "I think they're
happy."
CHICKENS 'CONTENTED,' NOT 'HAPPY'
Intelligencer Journal, Patrick Burns, August 24, 2006
http://local.lancasteronline.com/6/25108
3.
FOIE GRAS DEBATE COMES TO NEW JERSEY
New Jersey could be the first state
to ban the force-feeding of poultry to produce foie
gras, thanks to recently introduced legislation that
will take effect immediately if passed (California’s
ban isn’t effective until 2012). Chicago recently
banned foie gras sales, and Philadelphia and New York
state officials have discussed outlawing production
and sale of it (see: http://www.farmedanimal.net/faw/faw6-14.htm#1
). Joan Voss, the New Jersey Assemblywoman who introduced
the legislation, did so to keep foie gras facilities
out of the state. However, she said she has no plans
to outlaw foie gras sales. In response, one reportedly
puzzled restaurateur said, “The definition of
foie gras is a duck with a fattened liver from feeding…
It’s like saying you can make ice but you can't
use water.” Michael Ginor, owner of Hudson Valley
Foie Gras, the country’s largest, concurred,
quipping: "There is no other way. You either
produce foie gras or you don't produce foie gras."
BILL WOULD HAVE NEW JERSEY JOIN ANTI-FOIE
GRAS CAMPAIGN
Home News Tribune Online, the Associated Press, August
28, 2006
http://www.thnt.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060828/NEWS/60828001
FOIE GRAS COULD BECOME FAUX PAS IN NEW JERSEY
The Record, Elise Young, August 27, 2006
http://tinyurl.com/gvrwy
4.
FOIE GRAS: THEN AND NOW
An article by Jeffrey Steingarten in
the Fall 2005 issue of Men's Vogue has been put back
on the magazine’s website. Steingarten distinguishes
foie gras from pate de foie gras, and refers to it
as “the new fur.” He discusses the historical
background of the substance, including when “geese
were blinded and their webbed feet nailed to the floor.”
Steingarten tells of traditional farm family members
“massaging” ducks’ necks while force-feeding
them. He says he considers this to be ethically acceptable,
in contrast to “industrially produced foie gras.”
His proposed solution “is to eat just a little
of this sublime and ancient delicacy. Which is what
most of us are doing already.” In discussing
the American Veterinary Medical Association’s
defeat of resolutions against force-feeding (see:
http://www.farmedanimal.net/faw/faw6-27.htm#1
), he wrote: “Some delegates were influenced
by the argument that if the organization disapproved
tube-feeding, who knew what might follow? Why, next
year they might condemn the confinement of veal calves,
or the batteries of small, mechanized cages in which
egg-laying hens are kept for their entire adulthood.
Not a bad idea.”
During the first half of the last century,
Watertown, Wisconsin was the foie gras capital of
the United States. A page on the Watertown historical
site tells of the “art of noodling” (force
feeding noodles to geese). [It also mentions “the
razor sharp teeth which line the goose's mouth.”
Geese have serrated bills, not teeth.] On-line at:
http://www.watertownhistory.org/Articles/StuffedGeese.htm
STUFFED ANIMALS
Men's Vogue, Jeffrey Steingarten, Fall 2005
http://www.mensvogue.com/food/articles/2006/08/21/foie_gras
WATERTOWN ONCE A FOIE GRAS CAPITAL
The Capital Times, Doug Moe, August 31, 2006
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/index.php?ntid=96994&ntpid=8
5.
ANIMAL AG, POLLUTION & GLOBAL WARMING
While states like Iowa, Missouri, Ohio
and North Carolina are attempting to reduce the number
of intensive farmed animal confinement facilities
in them due to the resulting substantial problems
they create, Indiana is welcoming them “and
encouraging what amounts to a corporate take-over
of local farming.” So tells a lengthy feature
article in NUVO, Indianapolis’s “weekly
alternative newspaper.” According to it, the
vast majority of U.S. pig meat now comes from such
mega-operations, which “are rapidly ensuring
the demise of the family farm throughout the Midwest.”
The article credits U.S. Department of Agriculture
statistics in stating that the total number of farms
raising pigs shrinks by one-third every five years,
while the actual number of pigs produced remains virtually
the same. In 2006, U.S. “factory farms”
generated 291 million pounds of manure daily, while
the U.S. human population produced approximately one-sixth
as much, it notes.
Oklahoma Sues
After four years of talks, Oklahoma is suing eight
firms – including Tyson Foods Inc. – for
pollution caused by chicken waste applied to crops
which the state claims damages the ecosystem and jeopardizes
the tourist industry. "They're not fertilizing,
they're dumping," said Drew Edmondson, the Oklahoma
state attorney general who filed the suit last year.
Poultry farmers in neighboring Arkansas consider the
lawsuit a threat to their livelihood. They profit
from selling the waste as fertilizer and can’t
afford to truck it out of the watershed. The lawsuit
could drag on for years; meanwhile the public relations
battle is equally fierce. Among other things, the
poultry industry has responded with a television and
radio ad campaign touting the virtues of "organic"
chicken litter. The federal government is still determining
which regulations apply to poultry, dairy and pig
production, and existing rules don't apply to those
who purchase animal waste for fertilizer. Some lawmakers
are lobbying to permanently exempt these industries
from even minimal federal oversight. Edmondson faults
Congress for failing to pass a broad law regulating
poultry waste. See also: http://www.farmedanimal.net/faw/faw6-19.htm#3
Global Warming
The production of meat significantly increases global
warming due to the millions of tons of carbon dioxide
and methane released by it annually. The two gases
together account for over 90% of U.S. greenhouse gas
emissions, with 21% of carbon dioxide emissions and
16% of methane emissions come from farmed animal production,
according to recent reports. Rainforests are also
being cut down to pasture cows and grow soybeans for
feed. University of Chicago geophysicists Gidon Eshel
and Pamela Martin have concluded that becoming a vegetarian
does more to fight global warming than switching from
driving an SUV to a fuel-efficient hybrid car. A webpage
about the connection between meat production and rainforest
destruction, citing Greenpeace reports, has been posted
on a PETA site: http://goveg.com/environment-wastedResources-rainforest.asp
FACTORY FARMS
NUVO, Laura McPhee, August 23, 2006
http://nuvo.net/article.php?title=factory_farms
(Thanks to Matthew Penzer for informing us of this
article.)
POLLUTION IN THE WATER, LAWSUITS IN THE AIR
The Washington Post, Juliet Eilperin, August 28, 2006
http://tinyurl.com/md2eo
MEAT IS A GLOBAL WARMING ISSUE
E Magazine, Dan Brook, August 24, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/40639/
6.
CHILDREN, VEGETARIANISM & MORALITY
Harvard Graduate School of Education
doctoral student Karen Hussar has researched 45 children
ages six to ten: a mix of vegetarians from vegetarian
homes, vegetarians from meat-eating homes, and non-vegetarians.
She has found that for most of the children who became
vegetarian, the decision typically had more to do
with morals (e.g., empathy) than with personal choice
(e.g., food preference or health). She explains: “This
means that children are being influenced by other
children and going against the tide in their own homes,
which are meat-eating homes.” Additionally,
non-vegetarian children judged those who made a decision
to refrain from eating meat for moral reasons more
harshly than those who made personal decisions to
be vegetarian.
In the study, all of the vegetarian children disclosed
moral reasons for not eating meat, while the non-vegetarian
children did not acknowledge morals at all. However,
vegetarian children did not judge as being bad those
who chose to eat meat. They were more critical of
those who had once committed to not eating meat for
moral reasons and then broke the commitment. Hussar
plans to continue studying vegetarian children and
moral decision-making while working on her dissertation
this year.
WHY DO YOUNG CHILDREN CHOOSE TO BECOME
VEGETARIANS?
Harvard Graduate School of Education, Jill Anderson,
August 8, 2006
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news_events/features/2006/08/08_hussar.html
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