THE VEGETARIAN BLOG

Walk For Farm Animals is the day when compassionate people take to the streets of tens of American and Canadian cities to raise awareness on the plight of farm animals, whose lives are spent in concentration camp-like conditions before being sent to a gruesome slaughterhouse. Organized by Farm Sanctuary, the walks also help raising funds for the organization’s rescue, education and advocacy work.The walks have attracted an increasing number of people each year, bringing together people who care about what factory farming is doing to animals, people and the environment.If you would like to join the Walk For Farm Animals, which take place between September and October, please check this page  to find out whether there is one taking place near you.

If you like good music and helping animals at the same time, here’s an opportunity. Continue Reading »

Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s leading farm animal protection organization, is coordinating a series of nationwide events for Earth Day (April 22) that will encourage people to “eat green” by reducing or eliminating their consumption of meat and other animal products. The group will be involved in nearly two dozen outreach and education events from coast to coast raising awareness about factory farming’s negative impact on the environment, and that choosing a plant-based vegan diet is the most ecologically sustainable way for people to eat. As it’s been widely reported, the animal exploitation industry is cruel to animals and very harsh on the environment.

* Resource Depletion: Raising billions of animals for meat wastes massive amounts of resources because feeding plants to animals raised for food is many times less efficient than feeding plants directly to people. Overall, the animal agriculture industry consumes more than half the water and over one-third of the petroleum used in the United States. In addition, two-thirds of the planet’s land surface is used by the agriculture industry to house, graze and grow grain for farm animals, driving the extinction of endangered species.

* Climate Change: A 2006 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report indicated that about 18 percent of total greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere are produced by animal agriculture — more than all the cars, trucks, trains, planes, boats, and other forms of motorized transportation combined. Livestock also generate large amounts of methane and nitrous oxide, and methane is 23 times more potent than CO2, while nitrous oxide is nearly 300 times as potent as CO2.

* Pollution: Every year, farm animals excrete half a billion tons of manure, which is three times the amount of waste produced by the entire human population. This waste is typically stored in gigantic lagoons that leach toxic substances (such as nitrogen, phosphorous and heavy metals) into ground and surface water. According to Environmental Protection Agency estimates, farm animal excrement has polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and contaminated groundwater in 17 states.

According to Farm Sanctuary President and Co-Founder Gene Baur, there is an unmistakable connection between factory farms’ exploitation of the environment and abuse of animals. “The system of industrialized animal agriculture is based on maximizing short term profits,” said Baur, “and producers that raise and process animals in the cheapest, fastest way make the most money, while animals and the environment pay the price. People need to know how their food choices impact the planet, so during Earth Day, Farm Sanctuary will be getting the word out, and promoting vegan lifestyles as a key part of the solution to our environmental crisis.”

Farm Sanctuary is coordinating volunteers around the country to leaflet and table at Earth Day festivals and celebrations, where they will speak with people about meat’s devastating impact on the environment and hand out literature promoting a healthy, sustainable vegan diet. Attendees will also get a taste of vegan fare, as volunteers distribute coupons for Tofurky products from Turtle Island Foods, and soy jerky donated by Vegan Dream. Other events include lectures and workshops presented by Farm Sanctuary staff members. Details about these events can be found at www.farmsanctuary.org/get_involved/actionalerts.html.

Yesterday was World Animal Rights Day and all over the world people were sending out the message that our treatment of non-humans has to improve and they must be included in the moral sphere that humans currently exist. A lot of people work incredibly hard to make it happen and one of them is Lorri Bauston (pictured), who co-founded Farm Sanctuary in 1986 and founded Animal Acres in 2005. Bauston is a true animal rights heroine, whose life is dedicated to the cause. Here you can read an interview with Ms Bauston.

You can help too.

How about signing this petition that asks president-elect Barack Obama to ppoint an animal-friendly Secretary of Agriculture and Secretary of the Interior? Obama is working to fill key positions in his administration and these two roles have a tremendous impact on the treatment of animals and the enforcement of a broad range of laws - including those covering puppy mills, animal fighting, and wildlife. Among the candidates being considered for these two positions, there are several who have taken a strong stance on animal protection, but Obama needs to hear from the people that this is what they want – no hunters, please!

Talk about a complete lack of pedagogical sense. Following a year-long campaign to persuade Canandaigua Academy (a high school in upstate New York) to eliminate a project in which students butchered chickens in an ecology course, United Poultry Concerns last week learned that the Education Department has instructed Canandaigua Academy administrators to stop the slaughter project under NYS Education Law, Section 809 - Humane Treatment of Live Vertebrate Animals, which prohibits studies that employ “termination of life.” The surviving chicks of the last batch to be raised and killed were taken to Farm Sanctuary.

Previous birds were not so lucky: In December 2007, students illegally slaughtered 21 chickens in Eric Cosman’s ecology class, despite the pleading of Canandaigua activist, Joel Friedman, urging school administrators to show mercy and spare the birds. It was subsequently disclosed that under NYS Education Law, Section 809, a school seeking to harm and kill animals must submit a waiver application to the Education Department for review. The department promptly suspended the project, following a letter from attorney Elinor Molbegott, legal counsel for the Humane Society of New York, on August 5, 2008, advising the department of the project, which had not been applied for or approved.

The school district submitted the waiver application, a copy of which was obtained by Molbegott under a Freedom of Information Law request. The application showed that the school offered no legal justification for killing the chickens. The goals set forth did not meet waiver approval standards, and the application was denied. At this time, it appears that the Canandaigua Academy chicken slaughter project is dead for good.

“United Poultry Concerns is deeply gratified that the Education Law protecting live vertebrate animals in the State of New York was upheld,” said UPC President Karen Davis. “It gives confidence to the humane community, which increasingly is all of society, that laws protecting sentient creatures from preventable harm are enforced, and that the animals themselves, be they chickens or dogs, are gathered within our circle of compassion where they belong.”

I’m glad about the outcome of this terrible story and I wonder how the hell all this came to happen in the first place. I mean, how could school staff even think about killing animals in the classroom?

Good news from Peaceful Prairie. Remember the post about the organization’s plea for money in order to some extra land? Well, after some initial hiccups, Peaceful Prairie has managed to put an offer that the sellers could not refuse and so more animals and volunteers will be housed in the expanded area (that’s 35 acres and a 4,000 square foot building). “That land will NEVER again be used to enslave and exploit animals as it had in the past. We will be able to welcome more farmed animal residents, human visitors, and provide better accommodations for our incredibly hard-working and dedicated volunteers”, the organization said in a statement. Congratulations to PP and all the generous people who helped this dream come true. Another victory for animals exploited by the meat, dairy and egg industries.

Join the Peaceful Prairie folks for an afternoon of scrumptious food, relaxed ambiance and great company all while supporting Colorado’s only Farmed Animal Sanctuary and Education Center.

Enjoy an all-vegan, all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet at Boulder’s popular Tsing Tao Restaurant while supporting the rescued animals at Peaceful Prairie! Feast on vegan Eggrolls, Hot & Sour Soup, Salad Bar, Fried Rice, Sesame “Chicken”, Szechuan “Beef”, Kung Pao Tofu, Eggplant with Garlic Sauce, Almond “Chicken”, Mongolian “Beef” and much more.

Sunday, November 23rd
The Vegan Buffet begins at 12:00 Noon and ends at 3:00

Tsing Tao Restaurant

607A Broadway, Boulder
(Table Mesa Shopping Center)

By the way, the organization is seeking to raise funds in order to buy more land, to house more animals and educate more people. Give them your support via Just Give .

I have written before about the myths related to the so-called ‘humane meat’ label, a cunning marketing device to give consumers a moral anesthetic to continue exploiting animals. The free-range egg industry employs a similar strategy to deceive customers into believing the lives of free-range birds are ‘better’. Fool yourself not.

According to Peaceful Prairie, an animal sanctuary in Colorado, ‘free-range’ hens are also debeaked with a hot bloody blade at one day old with no anesthetic; they are force molted, that is, intentionally starved to shock the body into another laying cycle. The hens are violently packed into a semi and trucked hundreds of miles to an agonizing slaughter when considered “spent” (unable to keep laying eggs at a fast enough pace). All of their brothers (roosters) are brutally killed as baby chicks simply because they can’t lay eggs. Can you call this humane? I don’t think so. See the video the Prairie made and you’ll see what free-range hens really look like. It’s a wake-up call to veganism.

The only way to spare the lives of our battery and ‘free-range’ hen friends is to avoid eggs altogether. The Vegan Society has a great page on egg substitutes , including some vegan-licious recipes.

This is Dylan, a calf who was rescured from a dairy farm in New York state exactly three years ago. The picture shows him at one week of age, beginning his new, happy life at Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, one of the several refuges for animals rescued from the horrors of animal farming exploitation, where they are treated as mere commodities. So this August Dylan has turned three years old, which is lucky - if he had not been rescued, he most likely would have lived alone and tethered in a dark pen for up to four or five months, subsisting on an iron-defficient liquid diet and then killed for veal. I’m very happy that he’s still around, as a living proof of the beauty of compassion. Happy Birthday Dylan and thanks to Woodstock Farm Sanctuary for giving Dylan and many other animals a safe haven.