animal abuse

By Paula Moore

Red meat in the morning, diners take warning. Red meat at night — nope, that’ll kill ya, too.

As if anyone needed another reason to eat their veggies, here’s one: According to a new Harvard School of Public Health study, eating red meat increases your risk of early death. OK, here’s one more: Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the World Health Organization, recently warned that antibiotic resistance could bring about “the end of modern medicine as we know it.” In other words, if the hamburgers don’t kill you, the superbugs spawned on factory farms will.

Unless you want to eat yourself into an early grave, maybe it’s time to go vegan.

After analyzing nearly 30 years of data collected from 121,000 participants, the Harvard researchers found that people who regularly eat red meat are significantly more likely to die prematurely from multiple causes, including heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

The saturated fat in beef, pork and lamb; the nitrites found in processed meats; and the carcinogens that form when meat is cooked at high temperatures all make red meat a health hazard.

How bad is it? According to the Harvard study, eating just one serving of unprocessed red meat (such as hamburger or roast beef) per day increases your risk of early death by 13 percent. One serving is about the size of a deck of cards. Hot dogs, bacon and other processed meats are especially dangerous. One daily serving of processed red meat increases your risk of premature death by 20 percent.

Chicken and fish aren’t so hot, either, so simply replacing red meat with other animal foods isn’t the answer. Even at its leanest—white meat, no skin—chicken gets nearly one-quarter of its calories from fat, much of it the bad kind (saturated). Many types of fish are surprisingly high in saturated fat as well. Fifty-five percent of the calories in salmon come from fat; for swordfish, that figure is 30 percent. In both cases, about 25 percent of the fat is saturated.

In an editorial accompanying the Harvard study, Dr. Dean Ornish (the man who persuaded Bill Clinton to go vegan) reminds us that what’s bad for our health is also bad for the planet. Raising animals for food is a leading contributor to climate change and wastes precious resources. Almost half of the world’s population is malnourished, yet 40 percent of the world’s grain is fed to livestock, not to people.

And remember those superbugs mentioned earlier? Farmed animals are fed a steady diet of drugs—including 80 percent of the antibiotics used in the U.S.—to fatten them up and keep them alive in unsanitary, stressful conditions that would otherwise kill them. As a result, factory farms are breeding grounds for antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

So how can we keep from slowly killing ourselves and Mother Earth every time we sit down to dinner? According to the Harvard researchers, eating plant-based foods such as nuts, beans and whole grains instead of red meat can significantly lower our risk of dying young. Replace one serving of red meat with one serving of whole grains, for example, and the risk drops 14 percent.

“Plant-based foods are rich in phytochemicals, bioflavonoids, and other substances that are protective,” explains Dr. Ornish. “In other words, what we include in our diet is as important as what we exclude, so substituting healthier foods for red meat provides a double benefit to our health.”

Eating vegan foods also reduces your carbon footprint. To feel better, live longer and help protect the planet, trading in your burgers for black beans would be a good place to start.

Good news!    Click below. – R. T.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/26/pink-slime-beef-plants_n_1380111.html

By Rosalie Tirella

… She thanked me for the support I gave to her get-the-pink-slime-out-of-our-school-meat lunches crusade.

As you all know, we have taken ol’ Tracy to the wood shed for her not-so-smart (some would say brutal) crusade to fire WPSchools Superintendent Dr. Melinda Boone, Worcester’s first female African American superintendent. Dr. Boone cares about kids and knows her stuff.

But I digress … .

I want to say: When it comes to animals/factory farming/vegetarianism (and inner-city kids’ health), anyone who comes out in favor of the animals/kids, gets a thumbs up from us.

We have written (for a decade) about the brutal living conditions of cows, chickens, all “farm animals” often literally stacked in huge, concrete, sunlight deprived, fresh-air deprived, warehouses. Torture chambers – not farms.

The insanity must stop.

If WPS committee member Tracy Novick makes it her mission to create MEATLESS MONDAY’s in our public schools, reduces the amount of meat WPSchools students are eating, works to get our school buyers to work with organic farms where animals are allowed to roam freely in meadows, etc, before they meet their Maker, then she has our support.

If Novick can bring in vegetarian dishes – or at least get city leaders to see meat as a garnish, as opposed to a main dish – then she can run for President of the USA and we will give her free ads until she wins.

This issue is so dear to my heart!

So I say: Good job, Tracy Novick!

************** AND HERE ARE SOME GREAT STORIES ON ANIMALS  ….

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/us/death-and-disarray-at-americas-racetracks.html?_r=1

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/16/isle-royale-gray-wolves_n_1352568.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/17/aqueduct-horse-track-deaths-cuomo-letter-luck-hbo_n_1353724.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/16/alec-baldwin-peta-ad-elephant_n_1353790.html

By Daphna Nachminovitch

A recent Washington Post article about safety concerns in the food industry revealed that the plants that process dairy products are inspected, on average, once every decade. You read that right: once every decade.

While the FDA, which regulates dairy plants, is under pressure to overhaul its inspection procedures, a new undercover investigation by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) shows that more oversight is also needed on the farms themselves.

A PETA investigator spent three months working at a New York dairy farm that supplies Agri-Mark, which makes Cabot and McCadam cheeses. Cows on this farm were jabbed and struck, even in the udder, with poles and canes. Young calves bellowed and thrashed as workers burned their horn buds—without providing any pain relief—in order to stop their horns from growing. Such atrocities should make any caring person think twice about buying cow’s milk and cheese.

PETA’s investigator documented one farm manager as he repeatedly electro-shocked a cow in the face. The same man also jabbed another cow, who was unable to stand, in the ribs with a screwdriver and used a skid steer to drag her 25 feet.

Supervisors failed to provide veterinary care or euthanasia to cows who were suffering from bloody vaginal prolapses. One boss said “we do nothing” for such cows, and indeed, the animals’ exposed, pus- and manure-covered tissue was left untreated for months. He added that when a cow’s “whole uterus comes out” during calving, farm workers simply push it back in and hope that the animal lives “long enough for the beef truck to come get her.”

Another manager, a layperson, laughingly admitted that he had plunged a long needle into “the wrong organ” of one cow when trying to penetrate her stomach. Twelve days later, evidently not having recovered and no longer useful to the dairy farm, the cow was loaded onto a truck and sent to a slaughterhouse.

Some of the abuses that we documented are standard practice in the dairy industry. For example, workers wrapped tight bands around calves’ tails in order to cause the tissue to die and fall off, a cruel procedure that results in acute and chronic pain. Workers used “guns” to artificially inseminate cows and injected cows with bovine growth hormone, or BGH, to increase their milk production. BGH contributes to an extremely painful udder infection called “mastitis,” and cows tested positive for it almost daily. Click to continue »

By Rosalie Tirella

The story in the T & G re: Southwick’s getting a truck-load of raw meat for its big cats – and their photo of a tiger eating the “gift” – was depressing. It was a humiliating story/picture- everything that good people are against: Southwick’s and their pretend “animal sanctuary” label and the degradation of gorgeous wild animals who should be hunting and living and procreating in the wilds of Africa or Asia.

Let me tell you about Southwick’s Zoo: They have been shut down by the govt many a times, mostly for the poor housing they provide their wild animals. It used to be called (correctly) “Southwick’s Wild Animal Farm” – a much more honest name to describe exactly what it is: Wild animals that are born to roam hundreds of miles in a week crammed into fenced/penned-in areas.

About 12 years ago, I went down to Southwick’s to do some investigating. I found a chimp (some of the brightest animals on earth) sitting on a bale of hay in a “pretend” cricus car. I cried.

Then: a wasted (utterly skin and bones) lion lying on concrete in the middle of the place. A small fenced in area, like a playground was its “home.” I cried again.

I tried to get a story going – to no avail (which is one of the reasons I started InCity Times a few years later – so I could write about all the animals that I love so much!). But then one of the Boston TV stations received a complaint re: Southwicks, did an investigation and the place was shut down by officials. The govt demanded that the animals living areas (I won;t call them habitats) be more humane. Southwicks built better quarters (not by much) and in a savvy marketing move changed their name.

Cruel, cruel, money-grubbing Southwick’s!

Here is more information on places like Southwick’s that go parading as animal “sanctuaries” but are in fact hell holes for wild animals. Even the best zoos are mere theater – the animals “habitats” are painted/fake rocks, fake foliage a few real trees. It is all made to look like the animals’ natural habitat, when it all really smoke and mirrors set up for zoo visitors.

Why trap a beautiful thing to shove it away somewhere in a cage away from everything it loves? Everything that God intended it to be?

Please boycott Southwick’s this spring and summer! Families, take your kids to other places during vaca times! Here’s the PETA piece:
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When an animal ‘sanctuary’ isn’t

By Dan Paden

Acquiring an animal means making a lifetime commitment. But what if illness, economic hardship or some other unforeseen circumstance forces you to give up a cherished animal companion? Many well-meaning people unwittingly turn to pseudo-sanctuaries that promise loving care for their animals, but as a new PETA undercover investigation reveals, giving animals away to strangers—even those who make big promises on polished websites and national TV and have celebrity endorsements—is never an acceptable option.

Caboodle Ranch, Inc., was a self-proclaimed “cat rescue sanctuary” in Florida that claimed to give cats “everything they will ever need to live a happy healthy life.” PETA’s investigation found that the “ranch” was essentially a one-person “no-kill” operation that subjected some 500 cats to filth, crowding and chronic neglect.

Cats at Caboodle were denied veterinary care for widespread upper-respiratory infections and other ailments. Obviously ill cats with green and brown discharge draining from their eyes, noses and mouths were allowed to spread infection to other cats. During the course of PETA’s investigation, some cats died of seemingly treatable conditions.

Some cats, like Lilly, whose iris protruded through a ruptured cornea, were left to suffer month after month. PETA’s investigator offered to take Lilly to a veterinarian, but Caboodle’s founder refused, apparently scared that he might “get in trouble” if a cat in Lilly’s condition were seen by others. Lilly eventually died after months of neglect.

Cats are fastidiously clean animals, but at Caboodle they were forced to use filthy, fly-covered litterboxes. Maggots gathered in cats’ food bowls and covered medications and food kept in a refrigerator inside a dilapidated trailer teeming with cockroaches. Cats frequently escaped the ranch, putting the surrounding community’s animals at risk of disease. Prompted by PETA’s evidence, officials seized Caboodle’s animals, and its founder and operator faces cruelty-to-animals charges.

Perhaps the most shocking aspect of this case is that it is not an isolated incident. In 2011, a PETA investigation revealed often fatal neglect of disabled, elderly and ailing animals at Angel’s Gate, a self-proclaimed animal “hospice and rehabilitation center” in New York. Our investigator documented that animals were allowed to suffer, sometimes for weeks, without veterinary care. Paralyzed animals dragged themselves around until they developed bloody ulcers. Other animals developed urine scald after being left in diapers for days. Angel’s Gate’s founder was recently arrested and charged with cruelty to animals.

In another case, in South Carolina, some 300 cats were kept caged, most for 24 hours a day, in an unventilated storage facility crammed with stacks of crates and carriers. PETA’s investigator found that the operator of this hellhole, Sacred Vision Animal Sanctuary, knowingly deprived suffering cats of veterinary care—including those plagued with seizures, diabetes and wounds infected down to the bone. When Sacred Vision’s owner was asked if sick animals could be taken to a veterinarian for help at no cost to her, she refused, instead attempting to doctor the suffering animals on her own. The cats in that case were seized by authorities, and the owner, who was in the midst of sending about 30 of her cats to Caboodle as authorities closed in on her, now faces cruelty charges.

Our animals count on us to do what’s best for them at all times. Unfortunately, there will always be purported “rescues” and “sanctuaries” that deceive people into giving them unwanted animals, who are often left to languish and die, terrified and alone. PETA’s files are full of letters from people grief-stricken over having left animals at these hellholes.

If you truly have no choice but to part with your animals because of circumstances beyond your control, try to enlist trusted friends and family to care for them temporarily until your situation improves. If no other suitable arrangement can be made, taking animals to a well-run open-admission shelter is the kindest option.

Whatever you do, never, under any circumstances, simply hand off unwanted or sick animals to a smooth-talking stranger and hope for the best. The animal companions you love so dearly will pay for it with their lives. And you will be left with a broken heart full of regret.

Dan Paden is a senior research associate for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

By Paula Moore

Excuse me for stating the obvious, but racists are dumb. That’s not just my opinion. It’s the conclusion of a provocative new study published in the journal Psychological Science. Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario, and his colleagues found that children with low intelligence are more likely to grow up to be racist adults. A previous study examining homophobia showed that people who are less adept at abstract reasoning are more likely to be prejudiced against gays.

All of this got me thinking: Does the link between brains and bias apply to how we view animals too? Are “speciesists”—people who believe that humans are superior to other animals—just not all that bright?

“There may be cognitive limits in the ability to take the perspective of others,” explains Hodson. In other words, the less intelligent you are, the harder it may be for you to put yourself in another’s shoes—and the more likely you are to hold prejudiced beliefs about other groups.

If someone is unmoved by the plight of elephants shackled, beaten and forced to perform in circuses or of animals poisoned and blinded in laboratories, perhaps they similarly lack the ability to consider the animals’ point of view. Click to continue »

By Jennifer O’Connor

Recently, a powerful lobby spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat a bill that would have enhanced public safety, safeguarded the environment and curtailed cruelty to animals. Who is this giant wielding such influence? BP? The NRA? Halliburton? Nope, it’s none other than the U.S. Association of Reptile Keepers, which fought a bill that would have made some species of dangerous snakes illegal to import and sell. The group griped and hyped for three years until the list was gutted by more than half—four species have been banned rather than nine.

The ban will stop imports and interstate commerce in Burmese pythons (who, as a new study shows, are eating their way through Florida’s Everglades), yellow anacondas and northern and southern African pythons. Yet anyone can still go out and buy, breed, sell and trade in boa constrictors, reticulated pythons and three other species of anaconda.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar—whose job it is to protect our natural resources, not animal dealers—unabashedly defended the watered-down version of the bill, assuring Americans that the compromise wouldn’t “suffocate” commerce. Click to continue »

By Lindsay Pollard-Post

Americans and Afghans alike are rightly outraged over a video circulating on the Internet that allegedly shows U.S. Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. Pentagon officials are scrambling to do damage control, fearing that the video will hinder peace talks, and military officials are promising that those involved will be punished to the highest extent. But another video that surfaced recently also merits outrage and action: It shows a soldier viciously beating a sheep with a baseball bat while other soldiers laugh and cheer.

Blow after metallic, stomach-churning blow rains down on the terrified sheep’s skull. The convulsing and kicking animal tries in vain to rise and flee, but the man with the bat just keeps swinging. A local boy in the background jumps up and down in apparent delight while the sheep struggles on the ground. Despite a letter and phone calls from PETA to high-ranking Army officials, no action has been taken on this case after more than a month.

Animals don’t start wars. They don’t have political views, militaries or weapons. Yet they are often the victims of cruelty in combat zones. In 2008, video surfaced of a smiling Marine who hurled a live puppy off a cliff while another Marine laughed. Thankfully, after a massive public outcry and pressure from PETA, the puppy-tossing Marine was expelled, and another Marine in the video faced disciplinary action.

The same year, video that was allegedly taken from a CD found in Baghdad’s Green Zone depicts what appear to be U.S. soldiers taunting and tormenting a dog whose back legs were apparently crippled. The laughing men threw rocks at the dog, who snarled and yelped in pain before making a desperate attempt to flee on two legs. One of the men in the video said the dog’s attempt to run was “the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” Many other similar incidents of abuse have been recorded on video, and many more likely never see the light of day. Click to continue »

Massachusetts Ranks Fourth in Country, Ties with Illinois

WASHINGTON―The Humane Society of the United States, the nation’s largest animal protection organization, has released its third annual “Humane State Ranking,” a comprehensive report rating all 50 states and Washington D.C. on a wide range of animal protection laws, including animal cruelty codes, equine protection standards, wildlife issues, animals in research and farm animal policy.

Earning the highest scores are California (first place), New Jersey and Oregon (tied for second place), and Illinois and Massachusetts (tied for fourth).

“Massachusetts has a proud history of animal protection. The Commonwealth was the first state in America to pass animal cruelty legislation. Click to continue »

By Heather Moore

2011 was tough—when people weren’t bemoaning budget cuts, lining up outside job fairs or fretting over the stagnant housing market, they were listening to worrisome news about the war in Afghanistan, political shootings and natural disasters. But things weren’t all bad. There were signs of progress and reasons to be positive, especially when it comes to issues that impact animals. As we head into the new year, let’s reflect upon some of the things that made 2011 memorable for animals.

Eight of the nation’s largest financial institutions, including MetLife, Goldman Sachs, PNC Financial and U.S. Bank, stopped using glue traps after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) explained that animals who get stuck in them often suffocate and die slowly. The Social Security Administration, Georgia Institute of Technology and Toronto District School Board—the fourth-largest school district in North America—also agreed to use more humane methods of rodent control.

While this is hardly revolutionary, it is indicative of a larger social movement to reform practices that harm animals. Many people are now less likely to accept activities that cause suffering—and it shows in our laws and business practices.

In 2011, West Hollywood became the first city in the U.S. to ban the sale of fur. City council members in Toronto and Irvine, Calif., banned the sale of cats and dogs in pet stores. Rodeos and circuses that feature exotic animals were also prohibited in Irvine, and Fulton County—the most populous municipality in Georgia—banned the use of bullhooks, sharp steel-tipped devices that are commonly used to beat, jab or yank on elephants.

The American Zoological Association (AZA) announced that bullhooks will be forbidden at all AZA-accredited zoos by 2014. The Toronto Zoo decided to close its elephant exhibit and send its remaining elephants to a facility that does not use bullhooks. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture slapped Feld Entertainment, the owner of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which routinely uses bullhooks to “discipline” captive elephants, with a $270,000 fine—the largest settlement of its kind in U.S. history—for repeated violations of the Animal Welfare Act.

Also in 2011, eight top advertising agencies pledged never again to feature great apes—who are often torn away from their mothers shortly after birth and beaten in order to force them to perform on cue—in their advertisements. Capital One pulled an ad featuring a chimpanzee and pledged not to use nonhuman primates in its advertisements again. The blockbuster film Rise of the Planet of the Apes featured CGI animation to create realistic-looking apes without exploiting and abusing animals.

U.S. Army officials announced that monkeys will no longer be used in a cruel chemical nerve-agent attack training course at Aberdeen Proving Ground. The University of Michigan, Primary Children’s Medical Center in Salt Lake City and Naval Medical Center San Diego began using sophisticated simulators instead of live cats for intubation training. And the world’s largest tea-maker, Unilever—maker of Lipton and PG tips—stopped experimenting on pigs and other animals just so that it could make health claims about its tea.

Aspen, Colo., became the first city in the U.S. to launch a comprehensive Meatless Monday campaign—local restaurants, schools, hospitals and businesses are now promoting plant-based meals on Mondays. The board of commissioners in Durham County, N.C., also signed a “Meatless Mondays” resolution, and several more celebrities, including Russell Brand, Eliza Dushku and Ozzy Osbourne, went vegan in 2011. The Rev. Al Sharpton also ditched meat from his diet.

Many of these developments were brought about, at least in part, by PETA, but everyone can bring about change simply by resolving to be kinder, greener and healthier in the coming year. By taking simple steps such as buying cruelty-free products, choosing meatless meals, wearing animal-friendly fashions and enjoying animal-free entertainment, we can all help make 2012 even better than 2011.

Heather Moore is a staff writer for the PETA Foundation.