vegansaurus!

Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use!  »

It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! Yay, Paul! Yay, Animals!

To all my Arizona peeps out there who worked so hard on Prop 204 six years ago (the ballot measure banning veal and gestation crates), the historic law you helped enact takes effect in a couple weeks. The state’s largest paper editorialized this week telling you how awesome you are for ushering in this important law—check it out.

The Wall Street Journal had a large feature this week about the fact that US milk consumption has declined nearly 30% since 1975, and how the industry is responding.

I’ve got a couple new online pieces this week, one for a sustainable ag site about the need to reduce per capita meat consumption and another on the Civil Eats site about the pork industry’s Onion-like defense of indefensible animal abuse.

P.S. Video of the week: If you’ve ever wondered what your party would be like with a cat DJing it, wonder no more. (Related: Yes, it exists, and yes, we sell it.)

Animal News You Can Use!  »

Paul Shapiro weekly dose of all things animals! Yes!

Especially the week after Thanksgiving, it’s good to remind ourselves of the undeniable fact: demand for meat continues to fall in the US. Check out my friend Harish’s latest post on the topic.

In that vein, here’s a cool piece about the Hunts Point Alliance for Children (in NYC) working with HSUS to implement Meatless Mondays.

In last week’s post, I mentioned an interview in Forbes about our work in China. This week, check out this hopeful article in China Daily about the very nascent farm animal protection movement there.

And in that vein, Temple Grandin has some advice for US pork producers still defending their immobilization of pigs in tiny cages. She argues in this interview: “For example, look at sow-gestation stalls. So many companies have stopped using them, and others are moving away from it, but you have those people out there who are still defending it. It’s going away, it needs to go away, let it go away.”

Video of the week: Caught on tape—breaking undercover video clandestinely shot just yesterday of my felines.

It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use!  »

It’s Paul Shapiro’s weekly dose of all things animals! Yes!

Pork Magazine editorialized this week about what a “tough year” HSUS created in the US with its “laser focus on pork production.” Pork’s editor concludes: “Now, HSUS won’t go away; in fact it has gained strength. It has the formula down and will replicate its strategies within the pork sector as well as across the agriculture sector.”

Related: Metz Culinary Management is the latest major pork buyer to demand that its pork suppliers end their use of gestation crates…

On the other side of the world, Forbes has a sobering yet hopeful look at the challenges the animal movement faces in China and how Humane Society International is working to move the ball forward there. This interview is really worth the read.

Finally, check out this interesting new article on how the rise in demand for vegetarian food is largely coming from meat-eaters who are reducing the number of animals they’re eating.

Six years ago this week, Arizona voters made their state the first in the US to ban veal crates, and second to ban gestation crates. And four years ago this week, Californians banned both of those practices, as well as cramped cages for laying hens. Congratulations and happy anniversary to the thousands of awesome animal advocates who labored so tirelessly on those campaigns!

Video of the week: Ever feel like someone else is freeloading off your hard work? This cat may feel the same!

It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use!  »

Paul Shapiro is back with all the animal news you need. Let’s go:

Ever wonder what the meat industry’s tired of? Well, Pork Magazine’s editor wrote this week, “I am getting tired of the constant barrage of announcements driven by the Humane Society of the United States against the U.S. pork sector, and I know you are too.”

One thing you may not be tired of is good news like this: industry publication Feedstuffs has a story this week about a formerly pro-gestation crate animal scientist who now concludes that a transition away from the crates will indeed work, and that producers seem to be getting dragged “kicking and screaming into another inevitable change.”

Other good news: HSUS is proud to be named this year as VegNews magazine’s “Nonprofit of the Year!”

A new undercover investigation by Mercy For Animals documented egregious cruelty at a large dairy producer.

Finally, an interesting story about how more and more black men are getting into veganism. One guy in particular is a pretty good example, I’d say!

Video of the week: Rescued ducks hit water for the first time! [Ed.: UGH THIS IS TOO AWESOME]

It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use!  »

It’s Animal News You Can Use from Paul Shapiro! Yay, Paul! Yay, animals!

Pork magazine started a column this week off by lamenting, “Sadly, the list of companies announcing they will force their pork suppliers to move away from sow gestation stalls continues to grow longer.” Since last week’s email, both Brinker and Bruegger’s Bagels added themselves to that list. How sad, indeed…

Huffington Post has a great profile this week on HSUS’s litigation efforts, with animal law professor David Wolfson noting of HSUS’s attorneys, “They are generally extremely disciplined, focused and professional. I would also characterize them as extremely pragmatic and realistic.”

On the other end of the spectrum, BEEF magazine has a couple good stories about HSUS this week. One warns factory farmers, “HSUS has made it clear – oppose us and you will pay a price.” Another notes, “HSUS has the motive, the money and the momentum. What are we going to do to defend ourselves?”

P.S. Video of the week: Walter the wild crow adopts a human family. Seriously must-watch.

It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use!  »

It’s Animal News You Can Use from Paul Shapiro! Yay, Paul! Yay, animals!

The latest beef in the battle between the pork industry’s leadership and HSUS is a newly filed lawsuit. HSUS charges that the National Pork Board struck an unlawful “ham scam” backroom deal with the National Pork Producers Council to purchase the “Pork: The Other White Meat” slogan. The purchase is bankrolling a third of the NPPC’s annual budget, which includes waging anti-animal lobbying efforts.

Both ConAgra and Dunkin Donuts announced in the past week that they’re eliminating gestation crates from their supply chains. Despite ConAgra being based in Nebraska, true to form, the head of the Nebraska Farm Bureau derided the company’s move and assured the public that “The use of gestation crates is really a better way to care for hogs.” The dude may as well be defending the NFL replacement refs…

In non-NFL news, my esteemed coworker at HSUS, Dr. Michael Greger, has a piece that was on the CNN home page about the public health dangers of factory farming.

Finally, the New York Times had a good feature last week on how mainstream vegan eating is in Southern California. Check it out!

Video of the week: Dog meets trampoline:

Pork lawsuit extravaganza! HSUS and a pig farmer sue pork lobbyists and the government!  »

Not pictured: interested parties in layer-hen living conditions legislation

Big Pork is having a hell of a week.

On Monday, the Humane Society, along with pig farmer (“pork producer”) Harvey Dillenburg, filed a lawsuit against the NPCC because “the National Pork Board ‘struck an unlawful backroom deal’ with the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) in purchasing the marketing message “Pork: The Other White Meat” from NPPC” in 2001.

Essentially, a case of massive, deliberate money mismanagement and lack of government oversight. All pig farmers have to give some of their profits to the NPPC, which has been, this lawsuit alleges, illegally taking money from the NPB and double-charging its funders/creators of the product it’s selling. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack is named as a co-defendant because the government is supposed to monitor how the NPB spends its money.

Why is HSUS involved? According to a press release, because of

… glaring legal violations, conflicts of interest, and an exorbitantly over-inflated $60 million price tag associated with the deal. Much of the extraordinarily inflated value of the slogan resulted from 20 years of promotional campaigns funded entirely with pork producers’ own checkoff funds: roughly half a billion dollars. In essence, NPPC charged pork producers twice: once to make The Other White Meat successful, and again to pay for the value of that success.

Park Wilde of U.S. Food Policy blog explains further: HSUS is trying to protect its recent agreement with egg producers over “ethically acceptable” cage sizes for layer hens.

Although the leading trade association for egg producers is now working with HSUS to get this balanced policy approved by Congress, the agreement faces implacable opposition from the NPPC. The egg agreement causes no harm to pork producers, but the NPPC is worried that the precedent of a successful egg agreement will generate unrealistic hopes for similar good-faith negotiations about gestation crates for pork.  It is not surprising that HSUS has been looking into how the federal government’s pork board—which is not supposed to support lobbying—helps fund the NPPC’s efforts to spoil the egg agreement.

See why you, animal-rights enthusiast, should care about this? The NPPC is a bunch of money-grubbing, anti-agriculture-reform jerks who are trying to scuttle HSUS’s effort to make life less shitty for farm animals, outside of their own species jurisdiction. The NPPC is fighting egg production reforms because it sees similar reforms in its future, and it fears them. HSUS alleges that NPPC can’t legally use its funds to fight this battle, pig farmers agree that this is a terrible use of their money, and so we have this lawsuit.

Wilde calls the suit “well written, with astonishing details,” so maybe you want to take a look [pdf]. We’re not surprised that lobbying entities are misusing funds, but it’s especially gross when they misuse funds to fight animal welfare reform.

Adorably, NPPC CEO Neil Dierks responded to the lawsuit by calling HSUS a bully. It’s cute when the people in power feel threatened and immediately appropriate the language of the oppressed. Meat industry supporters are such crybabies.

[Photo by Valerie via Flickr]

(Source: usfoodpolicy.blogspot.com)

It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use!  »

It’s Animal News You Can Use from Paul Shapiro! Yay, Paul! Yay, Animals!

We started last week’s email with a good court ruling about California’s Prop 2, and now this week, a federal judge told foie gras producers what time it is in ruling that California’s ban on force-feeding ducks for foie gras will remain intact. In response to the ruling, the LA Times had a nice smack-down of the chefs fighting for force-feeding.

Speaking of smack-downs, the Wall Street Journal had a pro/con debate in the paper this week entitled, “Would We Be Healthier With a Vegan Diet?“ T. Colin Campbell represented the “yes” side.

In case you’ve not yet read your latest issue of Meat & Poultry…there’s a good article about the success of HSUS’s gestation crate campaign. The conclusion: “This is no longer a debate about the viability of gestation crates in hog production, but rather a discussion about how producers will respond to meet expectations.” (And check out this op-ed on the topic in Pennsylvania’s second largest paper.)

Have a nice weekend. If you live near me, I hope to see you at the DC VegFest tomorrow!

P.S. Video of the week: Pig saves goat!.

(Bonus video: HSUS works with Project Empower in teaching kids about Meatless Monday.)

It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use!  »

It’s Animal News You Can Use from Paul Shapiro! Yay, Paul! Yay, Animals!

Huge news this week: Big agribusiness lost another round in its continued assault on Prop 2, the ballot measure we waged four years ago in California to ban various factory farming practices. A federal judge in Los Angeles ruled in HSUS’s favor and threw out a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law.

Also big news is that meat consumption is in significant decline in the US. Here’s a new piece from me looking at the trend and the reasons behind it. And here’s a nice segment from the ABC San Francisco TV affiliate about HSUS helping a local school district implement Meatless Monday.

Speaking of big, my friend Big Bruce Friedrich has a good new essay about how the pork industry’s leadership is both anti-science and anti-animal.

P.S. Video of the week: Man apologizes to cat by building him an amazing gift.