A distressing story of animal abuse hit the news on Tuesday, September 16, and continues to make news, including in a superb Huffington Post piece published today. A PETA undercover investigator has released video taken at an Iowa hog farm that documents both illegal and legal abuse.
The CNN International link to the story is:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/09/16/abused.pigs.ap/?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail OR
http://tinyurl.com/42k8hu
At the top of the page we see a photo of a sow whose face is bright blue, and we learn that she has been sprayed in the face, and up her snout, with toxic paint for more than thirty seconds. In the next photo we see multiple lacerations across a sow's back, made with a rod. The story also links to the PETA video, and we read, "The video, shot by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, shows farm workers hitting sows with metal rods, slamming piglets on a concrete floor and bragging about jamming rods into sows' hindquarters."
There is a discussion in the article as to whether those abuses are aberrations or the norm on such farms. What I personally found the most upsetting was watching the abuse that is legal, and that therefore will not change as a result of the violators being filmed and hopefully prosecuted for other acts of animal cruelty. For example, as the video opens the camera sweeps over the "farm." No voiceover or subtitle comment is made on the scene, but I hope viewers who imagine that the pigs on their dinner table had spent their lives rolling around outside in mud baths, will look, instead, at the rows and rows of individual metal crates. Each one is too small for the sow inside to even lie down with her legs outstretched, let alone turn around. Sows are sentient and intelligent. I am deeply saddened to know the majority of breeding sows in the US live like this. That the immobilizing crates make them "sitting ducks" for whatever abuse the frustrated workers choose to heap upon t
hem just adds another layer to the tragedy.
In the story we read that tail docking and castration without anesthetic are standard industry practice and therefore legal. While that is no fun to read, it is not until you see and hear it that the picture becomes unbearably dark. This isn't a quick chop or snip. The piglet is held upside down shrieking and shrieking as a man rummages around snipping at and pulling out the baby's testicles. It is not quick. It is not something you would ever allow to happen your dog. But it is standard industry practice for pigs.
In another scene, piglets considered to be runts are killed by being slammed against the concrete floor. The camera focuses on a pig in the pile writhing and convulsing, still conscious, because this is not, of course, an efficient manner of killing. If it is, however, standard industry practice, then it is legal. I believe it is, though I am still trying to confirm that. But one would expect so, knowing that killing live male chicks of laying hens by stuffing them into garbage bins to suffocate, or into grinders, is standard practice and legal.
Temple Grandin is an animal handling welfare specialist who is well known for designing slaughterhouses that give animals significantly less horrifying deaths than those that had been standard before her influence. I strongly support much of her work because if my life were to be cut short, I would most certainly care about the manner of my death -- so I can only support those who give that care to the animals I choose to represent. Yet in the Associated Press story posted on CNN, Temple Grandin's comment seems to gloss over the shocking industry standards. She says:
"This is atrocious animal abuse. I've been on many good farms, and the pigs are handled gently. This was blatant, deliberate animal cruelty. These people are sick. They need to be prosecuted. There are certain people that enjoy hurting animals and they should not be working with them -- period."
While few of us would argue with her assessment of the particular people involved, she separates those people from the system itself, which many normal people would judge as equally sick. How can she refer to pigs being "handled gently" if they have their tails cut off, and they are castrated, all without anesthetic, and if they are confined in crates so small that they develop painful injuries due to their inability to move?
This brings us to Kathy Freston's blog today on The Huffington Post, headed "Help Stop Cruelty to Animals." Freston writes that the video brought her to tears, but she urges everybody to watch it. So do I. I choose to use a line often quoted by the wonderful Gretchen Wyler: "We must not refuse to see with our eyes what they must endure with their bodies."
Then Freston ends her blog with:
"We can all bring about positive changes by not buying products that harm animals, by eating a more plant based diet. We can reject cruelty simply by eating veggie dogs rather than hot dogs, or substituting tempeh, or Fakin' Bacon, for bacon. If you live in California, you can vote in favor of Proposition 2, the statewide initiative that would make it illegal for farmers to cram pregnant pigs in small gestation crates and calves into veal crates, and to force six or seven hens to live in tiny cages where they can't do anything that is natural to them.
"No matter where you are in the world, you can do something to make a difference for animals."
I was pleased to see her use this story as a jump off point to urge a switch to plant based diets, and to support California's Proposition 2.
Those of you familiar with my work, particularly if you have read Thanking the Monkey, know that I don't "yell at" people to go vegan; I prefer a measured presentation of the facts upon which people can base their own decisions. Yet I hope I make strong arguments for vegan choices, and I don't hide my belief that humans are evolving towards plant based diets. I am moved again to quote Gretchen Wyler here, and write that "I look forward to the day when animals will have the right to run if they have legs, swim if they have fins, and fly if they have wings."
As I wrote in Thanking the Monkey, I have little doubt that reforms are part of the path to abolition -- history has made that clear. Laws against beating slaves came before, not instead of, laws banning slavery. Granting women the right to vote aided rather than hampered the ongoing battle for equal pay for equal work; it acknowledged the worth of women. That is why agribusiness is pouring millions and millions of dollars into a campaign to fight a law that will only give sows and calves enough room to move around, and hens enough room to stretch their wings. They see the slippery slope. We love a slippery slope!
Our movement's success on California's Proposition 2 -- success in a state which has one of the world's largest economies -- should be of paramount concern to those who hope to see the end of the legal human abuse of other animals. Yet even if one does not wish for the abolition of keeping other species for our purposes, the Prop 2 reforms stand alone in their merit. What decent person wants to see animals housed for life in crates so small they cause physical injury from immobility? The standard industry practice is madness and we have the power to change it. Please go to http://www.yesonprop2.com/ to learn more about the campaign and what we can all do to help.
You'll find Freston's full piece on line at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/help-stop-cruelty-to-anim_b_127967.html OR http://tinyurl.com/4f3ozh
Please leave a supportive comment. Lots of good feedback will make room for more of that kind of coverage on the Huffington Post.
Here is a link to hundreds of media outlets that covered the Iowa hog farm story:
http://tinyurl.com/4dtyoa
If your local paper or TV station is among them, please thank your media for the coverage. If you have any trouble finding the correct email address for a letter to the editor or to a station, please ask me for help.
Check out the endorsement of Proposition 2 from the conservative leaning editorial board of the San Diego Union Tribune. Paul Shapiro of HSUS calls it a "must read." It does a great job of looking at the opposition's arguments against the initiative and quashing them:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080915/news_mz1ed15top.html
If you live in California, please also take a look at the information on the Prop 2 website linked above, and send off a letter to your editor in support of the Proposition. You might use the images of the sows in crates from the undercover video to help make your point -- the video makes your letter doubly topical. You might note that while the other abuses in the video are given more attention, the painful crating goes on day in and day out.
Small papers publish a huge proportion of letters they receive, some close to a hundred percent. The few minutes you take to jot off a note could influence hundreds or thousands -- or hundreds of thousands -- of voters and thereby help to get millions of animals out of crates and tiny cages.
Always include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending a letter to the editor. Remember that shorter letters are more likely to be published. And please be sure not to use any comments or phrases from me or from any other alerts in your letters. These alerts tend to be widely circulated, and editors are looking for original responses from their readers.
Yours and the animals',
Karen Dawn
(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts if you do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line. If somebody forwards DawnWatch alerts to you, which you enjoy, please help the list grow by signing up. It is free.)
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Date: Sun Sep 21 23:36:43 2008
