“Horsefeathers,” says Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages founder NEW YORK CITY, N.Y.––Voters For Animal Rights was quick to declare victory on October 30, 2019 when the New York City Council passed a bill banning the sale of foie gras from force-fed ducks and geese and a bill creating a Mayor’s Office of Animal Welfare within […]
More cockfighters than stars in Doris Day/Clint Eastwood country?
Cock-breeding explodes around Carmel-by-the-Sea MONTEREY, California––By the look of it, more might have been done in Monterey County to enforce legislation against breeding gamecocks if California had remained a U.S. territory in 1850 instead of becoming a state, four years after overthrowing Spanish rule. Exulted Humane Society of the U.S. president Kitty Block […]
Rescued dogs overheat––and pigs & chickens, as humane oversight fails
If rescue transporters can’t keep dogs from cooking in crates, what happens to livestock? NEW YORK CITY, TORONTO, LONDON (U.K.)––Again a New York City-based dog adoption transport has come to grief in hot weather, again leaving the rest of the adoption rescue transport to wonder why. Recounted Gabrielle Fonrouge of the New York Post […]
Fair Oaks Farms stepped in the same crap as the rest of the herd
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
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 […]
Cockfighters “win” from delay of hurricane aid to Puerto Rico
Frustration at lack of help fuels defense of cockfighting against U.S. federal “meddling” SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico––Puerto Rican cockfighters and politicians who boast of standing beside them may have been the only winners when U.S. Representative Chip Roy on May 24, 2019 blocked more than $900 million in disaster relief funding for victims of […]
Will birds sing or will they be silent? Our choice is their fate
By Karen Davis, PhD., president, United Poultry Concerns In “How chicken became the rich world’s most popular meat,” The Economist reported on January 19, 2019 that “the total mass of farmed chickens exceeds that of all other birds on the planet combined.” This startling news comprises 1) The unimaginable number and size of chickens suffering […]
Cassowary victim had helped to spur ostrich-&-emu boom
“See the gentle cassowary On the plains of Timbuktu Eating up the missionary Hat and coat and hymn-book too.” Attributed to Theodore Hook (1788-1841) HIGH SPRINGS, Florida––Remembering the cassowary rhyme from childhood, and that “Cassowaries are found mainly in Australia and New Guinea. Never in Africa!”, International Primate Protection League founder Shirley McGreal was […]
More Than A Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality
by Karen Davis, Ph.D. Lantern Books (One Union Square West, Suite 201, New York, NY 10003), 2001. 192 pages, paperback. $14.95 c/o https://www.upc-online.org/merchandise/book.html Reviewed by Merritt Clifton Looking back nearly 30 years to 1990, the two most significant animal advocacy events of the year were––as expected––the first March […]
No apology from Olbermann for selling turkey sandwiches
Apologized for asking Twitter followers to make turkey hunter’s life “a living hell,” but made point of pitching pit bulls KILN, Mississippi––Sports announcer, broadcast journalist, and political commentator Keith Olbermann, 60, on March 27, 2019 apologized “unreservedly” for calling upon his Twitter followers two days earlier to make the rest of Hunter Waltman’s life […]