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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Plainville Farms turkeys kicked, beaten: Credibility, GAP? redux
Global Animal Partnership-certified farm supplies turkeys to Whole Foods Markets & Publix NEW OXFORD, Pennsylvania––The Pennsylvania State Police have informed media that staff are “currently” reviewing video of alleged extensive abuse of turkeys at Plainville Farms facilities near New Oxford, Pennsylvania. Plainville Farms, advertising that it meets Global Animal Partnership humane standards, supplies turkeys to […]
Making a Thanksgiving place for Tofurky
Eventually live turkeys joined the feast. But not at first. Chloe Sorvino, food and drink editor for the business magazine Forbes, marked Thanksgiving 2020 by looking back 40 years to the invention of Tofurky in 1980, by then-nature educator Seth Tibbott. Described as a “turkey alternative,” blending tofu and wheat with a wild rice and […]
Birds in the mail: U.S. Postal Service changes kill thousands
Trump appointee DeJoy puts animal advocates, factory farmers, cockfighters, & captive bird-shooters all on the same side of the fence WASHINGTON D.C.––Changes to U.S. Postal Service policy and practice implemented by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, appointed in May 2020 by U.S. President Donald Trump, on August 21, 2020 improbably aligned animal advocates, factory-style poultry farmers, […]
Protecting purity from pollution, or protecting pollution from purity?
The Golden Age, Garden of Eden, and Thanksgiving Myth of Origin by Karen Davis Ph.D., president, United Poultry Concerns (See also Turkeys: Sympathy, Sensibility, and Sentience and The “Thanksgiving” turkey: object of sentimentality, sarcasm, & sacrifice.) “The question before us is, which images of the universe, of power, of animals, of ourselves, will we represent […]
The “Thanksgiving” turkey: object of sentimentality, sarcasm, & sacrifice
Each year a litany of sarcasm accompanies the sentimentality of Thanksgiving by Karen Davis, Ph.D., president, United Poultry Concerns “Nothing so unites us as gathering with one mind to murder someone we hate, unless it is coming together to share in a meal.” – Margaret Visser, The Rituals of Dinner, p. 33. The […]