Written by Jeff Mackey
Confronted by PETA over misleading propaganda, Papa John's has amended its opposition statement to remove outright falsehoods since it's clear that calves suffer miserably when their horn buds are burnt off or developing horns are gouged out or cut off.
What Papa John's really needs to do is to stop opposing PETA's shareholder resolution and take decisive action to stop its suppliers from dehorning cows.
The following was originally published on February 28, 2013:
Owning stock in a company allows PETA to suggest policy changes, attend annual meetings, and propose resolutions to help animals in a way that can't be easily ignored. Unfortunately, this doesn't guarantee that corporate bigwigs won't dig in their heels and refuse to make simple changes that would reduce cruelty to animals nor stop them from trying to mislead other stockholders about PETA's resolution—as pizza giant Papa John's has done in response to a proposal to address the painful dehorning of cows on the dairy factory farms in the company's supply chain. Now PETA is calling on the pizza giant to set the record straight by removing falsehoods and misinformation from its statement of opposition to PETA's resolution.
As shown in PETA's video exposé of dehorning, narrated by Oscar-nominated actor Casey Affleck, workers on dairy farms burn searing-hot irons into calves' heads to destroy horn tissue or use sharp instruments or other tools to saw off, gouge out, or cut off the horn and sometimes the surrounding tissue. Cows struggle desperately during these procedures, which are typically performed without the use of pain relief. Dairy farmers can easily eliminate this cruel, expensive, and labor-intensive procedure by breeding for polled (hornless) cattle, which causes at least half the calves to be born hornless since the polled gene is dominant.
Both common sense and scientific evidence reveal that calves suffer from agonizing pain when their sensitive tissue is burned or sawed off or gouged out of their heads. It's time for Papa John's to stop pretending and come clean about the cruelty of dehorning—and then take decisive action to stop it.
What You Can Do
Cow's milk is vile and unhealthy stuff—don't swallow it. Live (and let live) better, the dairy-free vegan way!
Written by PETA
Update: PETA has filed a lawsuit against the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets under the state's Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) seeking records relating to Adirondack Farms, LLC—the subject of last year's undercover PETA investigation that revealed routine abuse and neglect of cows (see below for details).
© Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals
Despite these abuses, the department certified Adirondack under its Cattle Health Assurance Program, which is meant to protect the health and welfare of cows on dairy farms. Records relating to a farm's participation in this program are supposed to be open to the general public under FOIL, but the department has improperly denied PETA access to many of these records. Since this information is of vital interest to anyone who wants to see farmed animals treated with the respect and care that they deserve, PETA was left with no choice but to sue to obtain the withheld records.
Originally posted on April 11, 2012:
The dairy farm manager who repeatedly electro-shocked a cow in the face and brushed off the fact that his workers hit cows with poles and canes by saying that they sometimes "get carried away" is still employed as a manager at the farm—a month after PETA notified the farm's owners of the cruelty and released video evidence of the abuse.
More Cruelty Caught on Video
The same manager at Adirondack Farms, LLC, in Peru, New York, was recorded jabbing a downed cow in the ribs with a screwdriver and dragging her behind a skid steer. He cursed at her—calling her a "dumb b***h" and asking how the "f**k" she was unable to stand. You may remember that this man stated that when a cow's uterus prolapses during calving, workers simply "put [the uterus] back in and hope she lives … long enough for the beef truck to come get her."
Farm Silent on Ending Abuse
Before we went public with the video footage that we gathered during our undercover investigation, we asked the farm's owners to take immediate disciplinary action, including termination, against the employees who were documented abusing animals. We gave the owners a detailed list of men and explained what they did. We followed up. Four weeks later, the owners remain silent. Even after eye-opening news reports on the case, neither Adirondack Farms nor Agri-Mark, the company that it supplies with milk, has announced taking a single meaningful step to improve their animal welfare standards. And that this manager is still on the job at the farm suggests that it's cruel business as usual there and beyond in the dairy industry.
Written by Michelle Kretzer
Chick-fil-A's so-called "Cow Appreciation Day" involved giving chicken flesh to people who dressed up as cows. We think cows (and chickens) deserve better than that, so here's our new and improved Cow Appreciation Day. We're giving away The Compassionate Cook, our back-by-popular-demand, original vegan cookbook, featuring more than 225 recipes in which no cows, chickens, or any other animals were harmed. Just take the quiz below to learn why intelligent, sensitive cows aren't milk machines and then enter for your chance to win:
1. Just like people, cows are known to ________ when a loved one dies or is separated from them.
2. True or False: Cows' sense of smell is even stronger in some ways than that of most dogs—they can detect scents up to 5 miles away.
3. This picture is of:
A) a pipe cutter
B) one of the torture devices used in the Saw films
C) a guillotine dehorner, used by dairy farmers to chop off cows' sensitive horns
D) a Halloween haunted house prop
4. In nature, cows may nurse their calves for up to _____ years.
5. After years of being kept almost constantly, forcibly pregnant and having their beloved babies repeatedly taken away from them so that their milk can be sold instead, when cows' milk production wanes, they are:
A) put out to pasture on the farm to live out their days
B) retired to a sanctuary
C) feted with cake and alfalfa-flavored ice cream
D) sent to slaughter
6. True or False: A Holstein's spots are like a fingerprint—no two cows' spots are exactly the same.
7. Guys, get ready to squirm: Male calves who are taken from their mothers are usually _______ without so much as an aspirin.
8. True or False: Like people, cows communicate with each other using different vocal sounds, body positions, and subtle facial expressions.
9. A dairy industry study reports that by the time they are killed, nearly _____ percent of cows are lame because of the intensive confinement to the concrete floors of milking barns, the strain of being kept almost constantly pregnant, and being made to stand ankle-deep in their own dung.
A) 10
B) 20
C) 30
D) 40
10. True or False: Bovines love a good brain teaser, such as figuring out how to open a gate's latch to let themselves out, and they get so excited that some even kick up their heels when they figure out the solution.
*****
Check out the answer key below to see how you did, and then repost some of these interesting cow facts to show your friends why it's sour to steal cows' milk.
To enter to win The Compassionate Cook, just leave a comment telling us how you did on the quiz. A winner will be chosen at random. (Your score on the quiz does not affect your chances of winning.)
The contest will end on October 25, 2012, and we'll contact the winner by October 29, 2012. By commenting here, you're acknowledging that you've read and you agree to our contest terms and conditions and our privacy policy and you're also agreeing to our collection, storage, use, and disclosure of your personal info in accordance with those policies as well as to receiving e-mails from us.
Answers: 1) shed tears 2) True 3) C 4) three 5) D 6) True 7) castrated 8) True 9) D 10) True
Did Anne Hathaway purposefully schedule her wedding just before World Farm Animals Day? It's possible, since the committed animal advocate celebrated her nuptials with a vegan feast. To commemorate both World Farm Animals Day and Anne's big day, PETA is sponsoring a steer named Peter, who resides at The Cow Sanctuary in New Jersey, in Anne's name.
© StarMaxInc.com
Peter was just a calf when PETA investigated the filthy Pennsylvania dairy factory farm that he was living on. Cows on dairy farms must be repeatedly impregnated in order for them to produce milk, and their female calves are sentenced to the same fate as their mothers. But dairy farmers consider male calves to be useless byproducts and typically sell them for veal. That would likely have been Peter's fate, but after our investigation, we got cruelty charges brought against the farm and were able to purchase Peter and another male calf, Jerry, and send them to the serene Cow Sanctuary.
Right photo: © Kencredible
The calves were in terrible shape. Peter had pinkeye and ringworm and was infested with lice. After being confined to a pen in which he was drowning in urine and feces, his legs were so weak that he couldn't stand.
It took a lot of veterinary care and a lot more love, but Peter recovered and blossomed into an outgoing, confident steer. From the beginning, he looked out for Jerry, who was left disabled from the calves' ordeal. Peter is very affectionate, and he eagerly awaits his daily chin scratches.
What better day than World Farm Animals Day to recognize Anne Hathaway, a woman whose kind diet spares countless animals and inspires others to follow in her footsteps?
It's also the perfect day to protest cruelty on factory farms by going vegan. Order your free vegetarian/vegan starter kit here!
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First there was Wilbur, then Babe, and now another hero pig is capturing hearts. Watch as an intrepid pig saves a baby goat from drowning.
What's 4 inches wide and pollutes more than an 18-wheeler traveling nearly 150 miles?
When a fire killed 50 cows on a dairy farm in New York, the owner remarked, "We are so thankful that no one was hurt."
Another dairy farm in Colorado was made to pay out $7.5 million to settle a lawsuit in which consumers said the company misled them to believe that its organic milk came from cows who grazed outdoors on small farms, when in reality the cows were crammed onto filthy feedlots, just as they are on many organic dairy farms.
Sales of the limited-edition chalk bag designed by vegan extreme athlete Steph Davis and outdoor apparel company prAna will benefit PETA, but you can enter to win one!
©Tommy Chandler
New Feature
White milk, dark secret: Casey Affleck's new exposé of cow dehorning on dairy farms may make milk guzzlers put down the glass.
New Action Alert
Tell NBC that forcing wild animals to perform is no laughing matter and that you will not be watching the network's upcoming sitcom Animal Practice.
After happening upon a case of mad cow disease at a California rendering plant during its testing of less than 0.5 percent of cows, the U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) is now searching for the infected animal's offspring, where her mother ended up, and her mother's other offspring, as all of them could potentially be infected, too. If an infected cow is slaughtered, the tainted meat could cause a degenerative brain disorder known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in anyone who ingests it. The disease, which is always fatal, causes sponge-like holes in the brain.
Also of concern in this case is the fact that milk from the infected cow may have been sold for human consumption. The USDA claims that vCJD cannot be contracted by consuming the milk of infected animals, but as a Mother Jones article points out, the sheep form of the disease, scrapie, has indeed been shown to pass from mother to offspring through milk.
Groks | cc by 2.0
The Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports, posits that because the number of cows the USDA tests is so low—less than half of 1 percent of the nearly 34 million slaughtered annually—many cases could be and likely are going undetected. Jean Halloran, Consumers Union director of food policy initiatives, stated:
The fact we found one in 40,000 could actually be interpreted as worrisome. Does that mean if we tested 80,000 we'd find two? ... Our testing program is so small it can't give us even a ball-park idea of whether we have a problem here or not.
If the lack of adequate testing makes you think the USDA may be playing Russian roulette with our health, consider that we do the same thing every time we bite into a piece of meat that increases our risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and strokes. And then order a slew of free vegetarian/vegan starter kits for the people you love who still eat meat.
As a result of the latest case of mad cow disease on a dairy farm, PETA is placing a billboard near the Hanford, California, testing facility that found the disease. The billboard is a parody of the ludicrous "real milk comes from cows" ads that the California Milk Processor Board pushes.
No one who eats meat is safe from mad cow disease. Since the U.S. Department of Agriculture tests only a tiny fraction of all the cows killed for food for mad cow disease—including cows from dairy farms who are ground up for hamburger—there's no telling how many animals may be infected. The only way to avoid slurping down a cup of cruelty or a dish of disease is to dump dairy products and meat.
And that won't make cows mad.
With people all over the country honoring their mothers this weekend, we thought it was the perfect time to dip into the archives and share one of our favorite stories about a mother who overcame tremendous obstacles to be reunited with her baby.
Blackie, a 2-year-old cow, was happy just munching on grass and caring for her new baby, with whom she had spent nearly every moment of his young life. She had licked him clean after his birth, nudged him up onto wobbly legs, and watched him take his first tentative steps. But her bliss was short-lived. One day, Blackie and her calf were loaded onto a truck, taken on a frightening ride to market, and sold—separately.
Blackie, as any mother would be, was panicked and grief-stricken. Sometime during her first night in her new home, she broke out of the farmyard, jumped over a hedge, and set off in search of her calf. The next morning, she was found at another farm seven miles away, contentedly suckling her calf. When Blackie's new owner was traced, he was so moved by Blackie's maternal love that he purchased her calf so that mother and son could be together.
Is Blackie's love of her baby unique, or was her sorrow and desperation typical of what millions of other bovine mothers go through—without happy endings? On dairy farms, cows are impregnated every year, and their babies are torn away from them within hours of birth, just so that humans can drink the milk that nature intended for calves. This Mother's Day, you can do much more than send a card and flowers—you can help prevent cows from going through the agony of losing baby after baby, simply by boycotting dairy products and choosing milk made from almonds, rice, or soy instead.
Written by Michelle Sherrow
PETA is launching a new initiative calling for basic animal welfare standards for cows on dairy farms on the heels of disturbing new undercover footage of dairy factory farms. The video footage from Mercy for Animals shows baby calves as they are beaten with pickaxes and hammers and have their budding horns burned out of their skulls without being given any pain relief. A PETA undercover investigation into a Land O'Lakes supplier found similar abuse.
PETA is asking pizza and ice cream chains, grocery stores, and other dairy vendors to commit to buying only from farms that adhere to these minimal standards of animal care:
These standards would dramatically reduce the suffering of cows and their calves on dairy factory farms. You can help them, too, by always choosing one of the many available nondairy options.
Every year, hundreds of discarded cows bound for slaughterhouses from dairy farms are caught under the influence of drugs—illegal levels of antibiotics, that is.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is concerned that those antibiotics are making their way into the cows' milk. The agency had planned to start expanding its testing of milk for unsafe levels of antibiotics and other drugs this month, but—wait for it—the dairy industry threw a fit. Shocker.
Throwing out every cockamamie reason that it could think of, the industry managed to stall the FDA—but hopefully not for long. "The agency remains committed to gathering the information necessary to address … this important potential public health issue," the FDA said in a statement. "F.D.A. is concerned that the same poor management practices which led to the meat residues may also result in drug residues in milk."
Of course, the best way to avoid drinking a drugshake is to avoid cow's milk altogether.
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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