Rabbit Advocacy Animal Matters

Farm Sanctuary 20 years later....

Bringing Moos and Oinks Into the Food Debate

July 25, 2007 Kim Severson, New York Times

Watkins Glen, N.Y. The first farm animal Gene Baur ever snatched from a stockyard was a lamb he named Hilda. That was 1986. She's now buried under a little tombstone near the center of Farm Sanctuary, 180 acres of vegan nirvana here in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. Back then, Mr. Baur was living in a school bus near a tofu factory in Pennsylvania and selling vegetarian hot dogs at Grateful Dead concerts to support his animal rescue operation.

Now, more than a thousand animals once destined for the slaughterhouse live here and on another Farm Sanctuary property in California. Farm Sanctuary has a $5.7 million budget, fed in part by a donor club named after his beloved Hilda. Supporters can sign up for a Farm Sanctuary MasterCard. A $200-a-seat gala dinner in Los Angeles this fall will feature seitan Wellington and stars like Emily Deschanel and Forest Whitaker.

As Farm Sanctuary has grown, so too has its influence. Soon, due in part to the organization's work, veal calves and pregnant pigs in Arizona won't be kept in cages so tight they can't turn around. Eggs from cage-free hens have become so popular that there is a national shortage. A law in Chicago bans the sale of foie gras. And earlier this month, the New Jersey Supreme Court agreed to hear a case concerning common farming practices that a coalition led by Farm Sanctuary says are inhumane.

All of these developments reflect the maturation and sophistication of Mr. Baur and others in a network of animal activists who have more control over America's dinner table than ever before.

Among animal rights groups, the 1980s were considered the decade of grass-roots activism. The 1990s saw the rise of court actions and ballot initiatives. This decade is about building budgets, influencing policy and cultivating elected officials, all with a deliberate focus on livestock.

Farm Sanctuary and other groups still know how to make the most of gory slaughterhouse footage from hidden cameras. The animals they call "rescued" - some abandoned, some saved from natural disasters, some left for dead at slaughterhouses - clearly started life as someone else's property. But in recent years they have adopted more subtle tactics, like holding stock in major food corporations, organizing nimble political campaigns and lobbying lawmakers.

While some groups, like the Animal Welfare Institute, work with ranchers to codify the best methods of raising animals for meat and eggs, most, like Farm Sanctuary and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, ultimately want people to stop using even wool and honey because they believe the products exploit living creatures.

But all of these believers have learned that with less stridency comes more respect and influence in food politics. So they no longer concentrate their energy on burning effigies of Colonel Sanders and stealing chickens. They don't demonize meat - with the exception of foie gras and veal - or the people who produce it. Instead, they use softer rhetoric, focusing on a campaign even committed carnivores can get behind: better conditions for farm animals. In some ways, it's simply a matter of style.

"Instead of telling it like it is, we're learning to present things in a more moderate way," Mr. Baur said. "When it comes to this vegan ideal, that's an aspiration. Would I love everyone to be vegan? Yes. But we want to be respectful and not judgmental."

Certainly, concerns over health and food safety, and a growing interest in where food comes from among consumers and chefs, has made animal welfare an easier sell. Technology has helped savvy activists deliver their message, too - specifically mass e-mail, easily concealed cameras and the ability to quickly distribute images online, like footage of slaughterhouses and the 2004 spoof "The Meatrix."

They have also learned to harness the power of celebrity in a tabloid culture, courting as spokespeople anyone famous who might have recently put down steak tartare in favor of vegetable carpaccio. "I think there is a shift in public consciousness," said Bruce Friedrich, vice president of international grass-roots campaigns for PETA. "When Cameron Diaz learns that pigs are smarter than 3-year-olds and she's like, 'Oh my God, I'm eating my niece,' that has an impact."

The image makeover has been so successful that a 2006 survey of 5,000 people ages 13 to 24 showed that PETA was the nonprofit organization most would like to volunteer for, according to the market research firm Label Networks. The American Red Cross was second.

Beyond image polishing, animal rights groups also learned how to marshal resources and set up a classic "good-cop, bad-cop" dynamic to put farm animal welfare on legislative agendas. The Chicago foie gras ban was passed because the nation's largest animal rights groups coordinated their strategies, according to several who were involved. A Chicago alderman, Joe Moore, read an article about the fight over foie gras between the chefs Charlie Trotter and Rick Tramonto and proposed a ban. Word spread quickly among local and national animal rights groups, some of whom Mr. Moore invited to play a leading role.

The game was on. Farm Sanctuary put one of its lobbyists on the case. The Humane Society of the United States paid for large ads in the city's newspapers. The activists gave Mr. Moore a controversial video supposedly showing life inside a California foie gras operation made by the Animal Protection and Rescue League and PETA. He screened it at a city hearing.

PETA, whose over-the-top protests are considered divisive by some animal rights groups, stayed away on the day of the vote. The law is now being reconsidered, and PETA has unleashed its supporters. PETA uses more than half of its $30 million budget to poke the meat and fast-food industry in the eye with shock-based educational campaigns. PETA protesters have handed out Unhappy Meals filled with bloody, dismembered toy animals and miniature KFC buckets filled with packets of fake blood and bones.

As factions in the animal rights movement continue to grow and splinter, sometimes using violence to make their point, the Humane Society, which is 30 years older than PETA, has emerged as the reasonable, wise big brother of the farm animal protection movement.

The arrival of Wayne Pacelle as head of the Humane Society in 2004 both turbo-charged the farm animal welfare movement and gave it a sheen of respectability. As the organization's first vegan president, he quickly sharpened the group's focus to farm animals. He also absorbed smaller organizations, merging with the 180,000-member Doris Day Animal League and the Fund for Animals. The budget has jumped to $132 million from $75 million, Mr. Pacelle said.

Like PETA, the Humane Society has purchased enough stock in corporations like Tyson, Wal-Mart, McDonald's and Smithfield's to have the legal clout to introduce resolutions.

Mr. Friedrich said PETA had some early success pressuring stockholders when it was fighting to stop companies from testing soap and beauty products on animals. It then began buying stock in McDonald's, attending a shareholder's meeting for the first time in 1998.

Like Mr. Baur, Mr. Pacelle understands that not everyone is going to stop eating animals, so he focuses on what he calls the three R's: refinement of farming techniques, reducing meat consumption and replacement of animal products. That way, he hopes, the Humane Society tent is big enough to include both ardent meat eaters and hard-core vegans.

The broader-umbrella approach is working. Take the case of Wolfgang Puck. In March, he announced that he would stop serving foie gras and buy eggs only from chickens not confined to small cages. Veal, pork and poultry suppliers will have to abide by stricter standards, too.

For five years before the announcement, Mr. Baur's group had been pressuring Mr. Puck to change his meaty ways. Mr. Puck, in an interview in March, said that had nothing to do with his new policies. He simply came to the conclusion that better standards were the best thing for his customers, his food and the animals. But he did credit the Humane Society for his education.

Mr. Puck met Mr. Pacelle through Sharon Patrick, a branding consultant he had hired. Ms. Patrick, the former president of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, believed animal welfare could be an important component in her plan for Mr. Puck. She brokered a meeting between the two men, and eight months later Mr. Puck presented his new animal welfare plan. But farmers and corporations are only gingerly endorsing animal rights groups - if at all.

The flurry of corporate animal welfare policies that began in 1999 with McDonald's are simply sound corporate strategy, company representatives say. The genesis was likely the 1993 E. coli outbreak at Jack in the Box restaurants, which sickened hundreds and killed four children. Companies realized they had to get a better handle on where their meat was coming from. And they say it had nothing to do with PETA.

"Ask them and they will tell you they are the sole responsible party for bringing all these changes, but I have yet to see one of their campaigns produce results where they affected the company in terms of customer traffic or profitability," said Denny Lynch, a spokesman for Wendy's.

Like other big fast food companies, Wendy's has been a target of animal activists' campaigns. Earlier this month, it announced a strengthened animal welfare policy.

Burger King executives say that at their company, too, change is driven by consumers, not activist pressure. "If we think consumers are a little more engaged in this, then so are we," said Steve Grover, vice president for food safety, quality assurance and regulatory compliance. "I look at it like a hockey player. I want to be there before the puck gets there."

Cattle ranchers say pressure from PETA and Farm Sanctuary are not the reason they have started handling animals with more care. As the owners of Niman Ranch and Coleman Natural discovered, people are willing to pay more for meat from animals that are better cared for and whose origins can be traced from birth through processing.

"The groups that don't want us to eat any animals at all are so radical and off-the-wall that we don't even worry about them," said Scott Sell, the owner of Quail Ridge Ag and Livestock Services, a Georgia cattle company. "In our industry we are the original animal welfarists. We take care of the animals because they take care of us."

But Temple Grandin, the animal science expert from Colorado State University who first led McDonald's executives on a tour of their suppliers' slaughterhouses, believes that activists had plenty of impact on changes in how farm animals are cared for. "Activist pressure starts it because heat softens steel," she said. But she also offered some friendly advice. "What the activists' groups have to be careful about is that you want to soften the steel and not vaporize it."

Activists have only slightly warmer relations with chefs, despite their recent fascination with farming. For example, Mr. Trotter said animal welfare has become more important because American gastronomic consumers increasingly want to do right by the animals they eat. "You don't just have to be a card-carrying PETA member anymore to go that route," he said in an e-mail message.

The chefs Mario Batali and Adam Perry Lang, along with the restaurateur Joe Bastianich, are creating a company called BBL Beef Brokers to produce humanely raised meat that is pampered from the farm to the slaughterhouse. "From the chef's perspective it comes down to, 'Yeah, the steak looks good but why is it not performing?' " Mr. Perry Lang said. "It's because of how the animal was raised and handled. That's not animal rights, but it is animal welfare."

Although animal rights groups and chefs might agree that farm animals need to be treated with more care, one side wants to put those animals on the grill and the other wants to simply hang out with them.

The chasm between the two groups spilled over into the August edition of VegNews, a glossy magazine that is a mix of People and Real Simple for the meatless set. The magazine printed a publisher's note taking the international gastronomic group Slow Food to task for not including more vegetarians. The story carried the headline "The Developmentally Disabled Food Movement" and called the organization's leaders "human-centric food snobs."

Erika Lesser, executive director of Slow Food U.S.A., said that kind of jab keeps the two sides apart. "There is a place at the Slow Food table for vegetarians, for omnivores, whatever your 'itarian' persuasion is, but I haven't met many vegetarians who are willing to sit at the table with omnivores," she said. The gap between animal lovers and animal lovers who love to eat them is exactly what Mr. Baur, a man who eats noodles with margarine, soy sauce and brewer's yeast and has only barely heard of Chez Panisse, would like to close. "We're not really in philosophical alignment," he said. "But I like to think we're in strategic alliance."

The steer who escaped into our conscience?

July 22, 2007 Ralph R. Acampora for New York Newsday
Ralph R. Acampora is an associate professor of philosophy at Hofstra University.

The story many Long Islanders have followed during the past few weeks of an escaped steer on the North Fork whose notoriety landed him a refuge away from the abattoir gets more perplexing the more you think about it. From a strictly agribusiness point of view, of course, the fugitive livestock presented only the problem of recapturing an ornery investment before its due harvest. Bad cow - get back into the pen.

But from the perspective of animal rights, the tale takes on a different tone altogether. "Moo," as he came to be nicknamed, represented the fiery spirit of independence even domesticated animals still harbor. He broke free in a bid for liberation, impressed the public and was rewarded with sanctuary in the end. Good cow - move on to greener pastures.

Listen to animal advocates' viewpoint, and you'll be forced to confront what we normally prefer to leave hidden and forgotten: the ultimate destiny of farm animals, namely (dis)assembly-line slaughter. If you have the stomach, you can visit a slaughterhouse or else watch the recent documentary "Earthlings" (at isawearthlings.com) to reacquaint yourself rather graphically with the gruesome details.

Interestingly, once we remember or first learn of this reality, it's not so much that Moo gained some unfair advantage over his tamer brothers (as some have been tempted to think), but rather that none of these unfortunates deserve the treatment their demise typically entails. Indeed, the bottom line of supermarket meat-eating is that the consumer buys and ingests something for the sake of taste that cost its original owners their very lives!

Put this way, and realizing that vegetarianism is a healthier option for dietary nutrition, it's a wonder that we don't close the slaughterhouses and wind down the livestock industry in a massive display of collective shame or gustatory grief.? And yet we don't. Instead, we usually suppress the knowledge and keep a tight lid on our conscience.

This willful ignorance manifests in all sorts of ways, from the careful tucking away of killing and corpse-processing plants to the renaming of animals' body parts once they are offered for consumption: steak and beef - never steer or cow; sausage, pork, bacon - not pig.

Still, quite inconsistently, we are capable of empathetic identification when a story such as Moo's develops. Is this just a temporary lapse of civilized reason, a childlike indulgence in anthropomorphism? I think not. There is something more profound at stake, and at steak if you will.

"Those who become guilt-ridden about the productive beasts we cannot humanize feel a corresponding yearning to reconnect" with wild animal energies, historian Richard Bulliet has suggested.? I think Moo tapped into this desire of ours to rediscover some indomitable force that survives even our best efforts at control, that can't be expunged even by the machine of exploitation to which farmed animals are routinely subjected.

Bulliet calls this paradoxical mind-set "post-domestic," because it shows that we no longer accept the project of domestication wholeheartedly - we have now attached a touch of irony to it and thus become somewhat confused in our feelings and thoughts regarding the entire enterprise.

I would argue that such confusion is part of a larger conundrum that haunts late-modern civilization, namely that we live in the kind of society made possible economically through the subjugation of nature and other life forms, and yet we are troubled ethically by that very conquest of nonhuman being(s). The predicament to which I refer is not new to humanity - it's an old story, really: Domination breeds alienation in the master, which in turn makes him anxious and ambivalent about his underlings and himself.

Through technology and quite a bit of bravado if not outright hubris, humankind has cast itself in the role of biological lordship. It should not be surprising, then, if we suffer the psychological maladies endemic to that position. So what are we post-domestic people to do? There are two main options available: full-speed ahead with our program of biotechnical mastery and the mental pathologies that go with it - or else ease up, tread lightly on or with our fellow earthlings, and maybe the species-schizophrenia will evaporate. Our reaction to Moo is a hint that the second alternative is probably worth a try.

April 2011 Animal abusers don’t want you knowing what goes on behind closed doors. The realities of the cruel day-to-day factory farming practices are being exposed and that has the industry worried. Worried to the extent that the agribusiness lobbies from Iowa, Florida and Minnesota are fighting back and have crafted bills that would make it a felony to take photos or videos of farming operations without written permission from the owners. That’s right, criminalize those activists, those “eco-terrorists,” who dare shed light on the atrocities committed to the innocent victims reared for human utility. Undercover investigations by the Humane Society, Mercy for Animals and other groups have exposed systemic animal cruelty at factory farms. The video footage has led to criminal convictions in Iowa, voter referendums in Florida, and consumer outrage at the most egregious animal welfare abuses. Corporations and politicians are protecting the bottom line – nothing should interfere with greed and profits. That’s why we must continually fight for our rights and freedoms and for all society’s oppressed and voiceless creatures.

Some Canadian farming groups say they want to be open and transparent: “We’re going the opposite way of this legislation,” said Crystal Mackay, executive director of Ontario Farm Animal Council. “We encourage farmers to open their barn doors. We’re here to have a conversation with you.” However, we’d be naïve to buy into this. Commodity groups for rabbits have yet to step forward with any Voluntary Codes of Practice for the keeping of these animals. Tiny, barren battery cages, just like those for poultry, are standard. This is inexcusable, but government, corporations, and wealthy interest groups band together to protect their self-interests and bottom line.

Canada is lagging far behind many countries, such as European nations, when it comes to animal welfare and rights. In fact, government and the Canada Revenue Agency is trying to stifle free speech by preventing evolution of the law. They have said that “an animal charity may only advocate policies and practices which benefit humans more than animals." Arrogant and archaic – but with a groundswell of public support for animal protection and the recognition of the benefits of a vegan lifestyle there will dawn a new day.

May 9, 2011 Florida’s ag-gag bill is dead. The legislative session ended with it failing to pass. Update Jan. 26, 2012: The Florida ag-gag bill is now dead. The bill, S.B. 1184, has been amended in committee and the provisions pertaining to undercover investigations have been removed and are no longer pending.

June 30, 2011 Similar bills that would have criminalized the filming of cruelty to animals on factory animals in Minnesota, New York, and Iowa have also died, despite the meat industry’s desperate and aggressive attempts to push them through. However, they can be reintroduced. Bills remain active in Utah, Nebraska, Minnesota, Missouri, Illinois, New York and Indiana.

March 2, 2012 Iowa is first state to pass ‘ag gag’ law. It is yet another blow to animal activists, to the animals themselves, to whistleblowers, to citizens concerned about food safety, to journalists, to those charged with upholding environmental laws, to free speech and democracy, to pretty well all of society, while another victory for agribusiness and the police state. Iowa is the nation's leading pork and egg producer, and Republican Governor Terry Branstad has strong ties to its agricultural industry, so it was no surprise that the bill was passed.

Iowa Approves Nation's First 'Ag-Gag' Law

March 26, 2012 Utah Governor Signs Harmful Ag-Gag Bill

May 10, 2012 MN ‘ag-gag’ bill has died

The bills that would make it a crime to videotape and to show footage shot inside puppy and kitten mills and factory farms (SF 1118/HF 1369) were introduced in April 2011. The bills encountered strong opposition from the media, the public, and many animal advocacy organizations, and did not advance during the 2011-2012 biennium. Thanks to the thousands of people who spoke out against the bill, contributing to the demise of the legislation.

Comment: Food libel laws, also known as food disparagement laws and informally as veggie libel laws, are laws passed in 13 U.S. states that make it easier for food producers to sue their critics for libel. These 13 states include Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas. Many of the food-disparagement laws establish a lower standard for civil liability and allow for punitive damages and attorney's fees for plaintiffs alone, regardless of the case's outcome. Twelve of the statutes are civil and one is criminal, Colorado.

March 22, 2013 Cattlemen aiming to kill messenger; several states have ag-gag laws

2015: Ag-Gag Legislation by State

Update: March 6, 2014 "Ag Gag" Bill becomes reality in Idaho; law ruled unconstitutional, violates First Amendment protections for free speech

Why Hide the Brutalization of Farm Animals?; Shedding Light on Secretive Industry

The Facts About Farm Animal Welfare Standards (PDF)

August 15, 2011 U.S. Lags Far Behind Europe in Protections for Farmed Animals

August 28, 2011 Animal Welfare a Significant New Force in AU Legal Circles

*******************

November 29, 2019 Draconian new Alberta law will further conceal animal abuse on farms. This provision may well violate the freedom of expression provisions guaranteed under section 2(b) the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is nearly identical to various state-level restrictions passed in the United States termed “ag gag” laws. They have been struck down in states like Iowa, Idaho, & Utah as unconstitutional.

December 3, 2019 Last week, the Alberta government (led by Premier Jason Kenney & his Conservative Party) passed Bill 27, the Trespass Statutes (Protecting Law-Abiding Property Owners) Amendment Act, which ups fines for individuals trespassing on farms to $10,000 for individuals & $200,000 for organizations. This allows the powerful animal agriculture industry to keep operations secret, hidden behind closed doors. Camille Labchuk, lawyer and Executive Director of Animal Justice, is considering options to challenge any unconstitutional provisions in court.

In Ontario, Animal Justice is working to have the proposed legislation struck down before it is passed. The Security from Trespass & Protecting Food Safety Act was introduced yesterday by the Conservative Party, with the intent of stopping activists and whistleblowers from exposing abuses in slaughterhouses, during transport, and on farms. Read more from Jessica Scott-Reid in The Star: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2019/12/03/new-gag-law-prevents-exposing-animal-abuse-on-farms.html?fbclid=IwAR1CicTFiy0wde-6KOwOn8fEpeCmrT-jd8VDlH4c3yrx4dd1VHA6xvXndug

December 4, 2019 UPDATE Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government quietly tabled Bill 156, in the legislature. An Act to protect Ontario’s farms and farm animals from trespassers and other forms of interference and to prevent contamination of Ontario’s food supply. It speaks to the power of the industry. It also speaks to how vulnerable that industry feels.

December 17, 2019 Proposed animal law turns whistleblowers into the bad guys

Reporters shouldn’t be penalized for doing their job, and neither should well-intended people who can’t turn a blind eye to animal abuse. But new legislation tabled at Queen’s Park would punish journalists and citizens for revealing abusive and neglectful farm practices by imposing huge fines for trespassing on farms and livestock operations. Their reporting reminded me of columns I did a decade ago about a farm on Ma Brown’s Road near Port Perry, where Jack the Donkey endured abuse until he lit out for the homes of neighbours to get away from his owner.

My questions inevitably led to the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (OSPCA) for Durham Region, which had issued many compliance orders to the owner but did almost nothing to enforce them. Read more from John Lakey, The Star: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/the-fixer/2019/12/17/proposed-animal-law-turns-whistleblowers-into-the-bad-guys.html

June 17, 2020 UPDATE Ontario government’s Bill-156, also known as the “Ag Gag” bill, passed in the legislature on June 17, 2020 with a vote in favour of 68-22 despite widespread opposition from animal protection organizations, the legal community, and journalists. It will likely be challenged on the basis that it violates our right to “freedom of expression” and “peacefully assemble” as protected in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

We must all do what we can to see that this bill is overturned.!!

August 25, 2021 Victory: Bill C-205, Canada’s proposed federal ag-gag law, dies in Committee A proposed ag-gag law in Canada, Bill C-205, died in committee after news broke that a federal election will be held in September. LCA would like to thank all supporters who took action against Bill C-205.

Last Chance For Animals – End ag-gag laws! Protect animals & whistleblowers.

June 7, 2019 Factory Farming: Shedding Light on the Highly Secretive Industry. Torturous labor conditions and systemic animal abuse are well hidden by the industry. That is until investigators show up. Sentient Media. https://sentientmedia.org/factory-farming-shedding-light-on-the-highly-secretive-industry/ They operate in the dark.

In a world where most animals are worth more dead than alive…those that kill them are protected…and those that protect them are incarcerated. Who is the real terrorist?

*******************

Until every animal is free ----- we won't back down. No justice. No peace.