Animals 24-7

News on dogs, cats, horses, wildlife, zoonoses, & nature

Law prof: more jail time for cruelty does not advance animal rights

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Institutional offenders remain untouched by felony cruelty penalties DENVER––“More prosecution will never lead to greater animal rights.  Longer sentences have not incrementally advanced the standing of animals in society,”  argues Sturm College of Law professor Justin Marceau in the March 20,  2021 edition of the Harvard Law Review Forum. Marceau is also the Brooks Institute Faculty […]

Pig transport truck kills animal advocate Regan Russell outside slaughterhouse

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Accident reprises 1995 death of British protester Jill Phipps             BURLINGTON, Ontario––Regan Russell, 65,  of Hamilton,  Ontario,  was on June 19,  2020 crushed to death by an 18-wheel livestock transport truck delivering pigs to slaughter at Fearman’s Pork Inc.,  the largest and oldest slaughterhouse in Ontario. A local landmark since 1852,  and the scene of […]

Mink & pig massacres due to COVID-19 may help to kill fur & pork industries too

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Netherlands may end fur farming four years before ban takes effect LIMBURG,  Netherlands;  SIOUX CITY, Iowa––The good news,  if it could be called that,  about the scheduled massacre of as many as 30,000 ranched mink on June 6,  2020 is that it may put 10 mink farms owned by eight companies permanently out of business,  […]

COVID-19: Trump order reopening slaughterhouses was not about food

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But preserving profits, “red state” votes,  and keeping workers on the job despite risk were of paramount concern             SIOUX CITY, Iowa––Risk of a U.S. food shortage during the COVID-19 pandemic had nothing to do with the April 28,  2020 decision of U.S. President Donald Trump to invoke the Defense Production Act to keep slaughterhouses running. […]

COVID-19: far more U.S. meat workers hit than Wuhan “wet market” staff

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Infectious as “wet markets” are,  U.S. slaughterhouse conditions appear to be much worse             WATERLOO & SIOUX CITY, Iowa;  SIOUX FALLS,  South Dakota––COVID-19 has infected hundreds of U.S. slaughterhouse workers,  who may have spread the pandemic disease to whole cities,  USA Today reported late on April 22,  2020. The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan,  […]

Will African swine fever make China vegan?

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Whatever happens, most of the world will eat less pork SYDNEY,  Australia;  HONG KONG––Will African swine fever,  a viral disease now projected to kill at least half the pigs in China and a quarter of all the pigs in the world,  accelerate the trend toward vegan eating? Or speed the transition toward factory farming? Or […]

USDA Slaughterhouse Deregulation:  Pigs in Peril

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Guest column by Gail A. Eisnitz In December 2019,  the U.S. Department of Agriculture will implement its “modernization” plan for the slaughter of pigs by turning over key inspection duties to the very industry it regulates. While current regulations allow slaughterhouses to kill a staggering 1,106 pigs per hour – or one pig every three […]

Fair Oaks Farms stepped in the same crap as the rest of the herd

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Cell phone videocams open factory farms to public view Ignoring 30 years of warnings by leading U.S. agribusiness educators and pundits has at last visibly begun to cost the livestock industry consumer confidence,  as evidenced by the explosive growth in sales of plant-based protein foods and steeply declining dairy,  meat,  and poultry consumption among younger […]

Exposé of “Dairy Disneyland” horrors gives agribiz the runs

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Fair Oaks Farms’ Dairy Adventure was recently profiled as “One Farm’s Quest to Save Industrial Agriculture”             FAIR OAKS,  Indiana––Undercover video from Fair Oaks Farm in Fair Oaks,  Indiana,  has exposed extensive abuse of young calves at a facility widely billed as exemplifying a new,  humane approach to factory farming. Animal Recovery Mission,  of Miami […]

Will feral pigs eat Hong Kong before Hong Kong eats the pigs?

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Feral pigs may be poached as African swine fever & trade war cut off pig imports              HONG KONG––A three-way collision among African swine fever,  feral pigs,  and the global pork industry,  U.S. interests included,  may be only days away in Hong Kong. Whatever the outcome,  pigs––both factory-farmed and living free––are already the big net […]