Karen Davis was a frequent ANIMALS 24-7 guest columnist & commentator MACHIPONGO, Virginia––United Poultry Concerns founder Karen Davis, or Karen Davis, PhD., as she always signed her writings, “passed away peacefully on the morning of November 4, 2023 at the United Poultry Concerns sanctuary, surrounded by her beloved birds,” the organization announced, pledging to “continue […]
Birds killing cats? Avian flu hits cats in Poland, FIP hits cats in Cyprus
FIP rages. Avian flu outbreaks among cats are few, but hint at increasing vulnerability of mammals to bird diseases NICOSIA, Cyprus; WARSAW, Poland; HELSINKI Finland––Potentially catastrophic disease outbreaks hitting cats in Cyprus and Poland, and farmed foxes in Finland, have epidemiologists worried about emerging mutant strains of feline infectious peritonitis, a coronavirus best known as […]
Bird flu means “cage free” & “free range” hens can run around indoors in the dark
“Cage free” & “free range” producers protect their “girls” by keeping them in jail Think that “cage-free” or “free-range” label on a box of eggs or meat package amounts to more than bull-feathers? Even if it is certified by any of the major farmed product certification organizations? Amid the current global H5N1 high pathogenic avian […]
“Birds Aren’t Real” ––if only those in poultry barns were not
The good news is, vegan food technology means the birds on the menu need not be real MEMPHIS, Tennessee––The avian advocacy world is still aflutter, a week after CBS News 60 Minutes reporter Sharyn Alfonsi extensively exposed the “Birds Aren’t Real” hoax conspiracy theory orchestrated from Memphis by 24-year-old University of Arkansas dropout and former […]
Will bird flu cut the U.S. appetite for chicken, eggs, ducks, & turkey?
Public notices eagle deaths & higher prices CHICAGO, Illinois––Soaring egg prices, bald eagles dropping from the skies in at least 14 states, and 200 dead birds found at Baker Lake in the Forest Preserves of Cook County, forty miles northwest of Chicago, in mid-April 2022 began to bring the mainstream mass media spotlight to […]
Farmed animal product certifications “lack integrity,” investigators find
Food In-Depth & Farm Forward find antibiotics in “antibiotics-free” meat. Farm Forward cites much else wrong with the American Humane Certified, One Health Certified, & Global Animal Partnership labels SAN MATEO, California; PORTLAND, Oregon––The food testing company Food In-Depth and Farm Forward, a self-described nonprofit “team of strategists, campaigners, […]
USDA proposes to cover birds under the Animal Welfare Act––sort of
Disease outbreaks afflicting poultry producers lend regulatory urgency to protecting birds––some birds, anyhow––that 50 years of activism did not WASHINGTON D.C.––The worst outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza on record, ravaging European flocks both wild and domestic since 2020, now killing birds by the million in poultry barns, especially in the upper Midwest, may soon help […]
H5N1 avian flu: bird culls, food prices, Ukraine war, & cockfighting converge
Waterfowl meeting mostly in the Russian Arctic infect factory farms worldwide AMES, Iowa––Just as the COVID-19 pandemic afflicting the world since January 2020 seems to be letting up, the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Veterinary Services Laboratories are warning everyone concerned about birds, wild or domestic, to beware of the first outbreak of High […]
Moral injury in animal advocates and nonhuman animals
and the commonality of being reduced to “lesser beings” by Karen Davis, PhD, president, United Poultry Concerns “Some people seemed unfazed when witnessing cruelty, but I could feel the pain of every living organism through my bones, as if it were my own.” ––Elin Gundersen, “Understanding the Power of Compassion,”. VEGAN VOICES: Essays by Inspiring […]
Good days in court for chickens, gamecocks, Wisconsin wolves, & feral hippos
Decisions may mean better days for animals, but use & exploitation industries will fight back ROCHESTER, N.Y.; WASHINGTON D.C.; MADISON, Wisconsin; CINCINNATI, Ohio––A flurry of mid-October 2021 court decisions brought good news for plaintiffs against the poultry slaughter industry, cockfighting in Puerto Rico, wolf hunting in Wisconsin, and hippopotamus culling in Colombia. Probably the most […]