I have just watched the undercover video that Mercy for Animals released, this week (Wednesday, May 26) taken at the Conklin Dairy Farm in Ohio. It opens with a worker gleefully stomping on a live calf's head, and doesn't get better from there. If you are slowly heading towards a plant-based diet but finding it hard to give up cheese, I ask you to watch the video. There is a wonderful line, "We must not refuse to see with our eyes what they must endure with their bodies." I don't agree with that in every situation, as watching this kind of horror can be enervating for already committed activists. But I think the line stands without question when we are supporting the industry that causes what the animals endure, as is the case when we consume dairy products. Do consume whatever you feel is right, but don't make that decision without having exposed yourself to all of the information. I know, if you are reading this newsletter, that you wish to make informed choices.
The video is online at www.mercyforanimals.org
In an interview with CNN's Jane Velez Mitchell, MFA's Nathan Runkle tells viewers that what we see in the video is not an aberration-- that any time an investigator is sent into a factory farm with a hidden camera, shocking abuse is uncovered. Unfortunately it isn't just perpetrated by a few sick folks working on the farms. If you missed my Dawnwatch alert from January, showing tail amputation and the burning off of horns, which is standard industry practice without anesthetic, please check it out at http://tinyurl.com/ydjhhjb
That video is similarly hard to watch, and again, depicts standard agricultural practice on dairy farms.
You'll find Jane Velez Mitchell's coverage of the Mercy for Animals investigation, including an interview with MFA's Nathan Runkle and Farm Sanctuary's Gene Bauer, on line at
http://tinyurl.com/256vk2m
Even though Jane cannot show her viewers the worst of the video, I appreciate that she warns them not that it is "disturbing," the usual word in such circumstances, but that it is "sickening." It is. But not nearly as much so as the original version on the http://MercyforAnimals.org site.
Jane also did a video blog on the issue, which is on line at:
http://tinyurl.com/2bgcs5e
Please thank her for her continued fantastic coverage of animal issues. She takes comments at: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?106
Writer Brian Palmer did an excellent article about the video, and the wider issue, for the online magazine Slate, which opens with:
"An animal rights group has released a video showing workers at an Ohio dairy farm punching cows, stabbing them with a pitchfork, and beating them with a crowbar. How violent is a rancher or dairy farmer allowed to get with his livestock?
"In some states, as violent as he likes. Farmers, for the most part, are merely expected to abide by industry standards—that is, to treat their livestock as other farmers do. Lifelong confinement in small cages and using a hot blade to trim a chicken's beak, for example, are widely permitted as customary agricultural practices. (A handful of states, however, have recently prohibited certain confinement systems.) Acts of violence or mutilation are typically illegal only if they are unnecessary and out of the ordinary."
You'll find it on line at http://www.slate.com/id/2255116
You can join the online discussion there. As I send out this alert, the most recent comment is from a gal crying after she watched the video and writing, "I am done with meat." Did it escape her that the video was shot on a dairy farm?
You can thank Brian Palmer for the terrific coverage at explainerbrian@gmail.com . Please do. Positive feedback for good coverage of animal issues will ensure more of it.
The Cincinnati Enquirer has the story on line, including a link to the video, at: http://tinyurl.com/29xq9rf
It tells us that Billy Joe Gregg Jnr., featured in the video, is currently in jail, but has asked to be released to tend to his own animals. And he is hoping to train to be a police officer.
The most important thing you can do is to get in touch with your own local media. Send letters to your editor letting people know about the video. Many small papers publish a large proportion of letters they receive. You can tie your letter to any story about animals, or food, or dairy -- even to a recipe.
And contact your favorite news show, and ask them to cover the story. Guide your media representatives to the Mercy for Animals website to watch the video, tell them that Jane Velez Mitchell covered it on CNN, and let them know that one of the abusers is currently in jail. Inform them that it is part of a wider story as activists are gathering signatures for a ballot initiative this November in Ohio that would outlaw some of the most egregious practices on factory farms.
If you are not sure how to get in touch with your media, after searching around the web a little (including the DawnWatch site) feel free to email me for some guidance. On that note, I must let you know that the wonderful Taking Action for Animals conference is coming up, the weekend of July 24, in Washington DC. I will be doing a workshop there, with HSUS's Erin Williams, on how to harness the media and guide them towards animal friendly coverage. We would love to see you there. TAFA is a wonderful experience -- you'll have a great time and learn loads. Check out the website, www.TakingActionforAnimals.org, including the 2 minute promo video, which at 17 seconds has a close-up of the most beautiful face the world ever saw -- beloved Buster Dawn. I hope seeing his sweet face brings back fond memories for those of you who knew him.
Sign up for TAFA and please come learn everything you can about how to take action for animals, including how to use the media to do so.
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 only if you do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line.)
Please go to www.ThankingtheMonkey.com to learn about Karen Dawn's book, "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals," which was chosen last year by the Washington Post as one of the "Best Books of The Year!"
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Date: Sun May 30 12:32:59 2010
