Written by Michelle Kretzer
As if a life of suffering on a factory farm that ends with a terrifying death in a slaughterhouse weren't enough, pigs killed for Smithfield Foods, Inc.'s, ham and bacon also face being injured or killed in a traffic accident on their way to slaughter. The latest wreck makes at least the 11th by pork industry drivers since 2004 in southeastern Virginia alone—many of them en route to Smithfield's slaughterhouse.
On April 19, David Earl Lambert was hauling 184 pigs from the Goldsboro Milling Co. factory farm to slaughter when he flipped the truck, sending pigs hurtling through the air. Fifty-five pigs died either on impact or in pain in the hours that followed, as a result of their injuries. The survivors were hauled the rest of the way to slaughter. After many crashes, pigs are dragged or electro-shocked to force them to their feet.
Lambert has a deplorable driving record, which includes charges for speeding, operating a vehicle without insurance, reckless driving, and attempting to evade federal motor carrier safety regulations. And his latest accident occurred on a dry road on a clear day. By putting known-dangerous drivers behind the wheel, some meat industry giants show that they have no regard for the safety of animals or other drivers on the road.
PETA is asking Goldsboro Milling Co. to use common sense and hire only safe drivers, just as we called on Smithfield to do when one of its drivers flipped a truck carrying pigs just three months after he had crashed while hauling cattle. And of course, the safest and most responsible thing that all of us can do to protect animals and our own health is to go vegan.
The Black Friday shoppers who were standing in line at midnight to score deals on video games weren't necessarily parents of teenage boys. Some of them might have been pig guardians.
It's true: Pigs love a good video game. Surprised? Then try this one on for size: Pigs can answer to their names within a week of being born. Yep. That skill takes people, what, two years to master?
Pigs are super-smart. In fact, they're classified as the fourth-smartest animal on the planet—ahead of cats and dogs (who haven't the foggiest idea what a Wii is).
And here are some other things that you may not know about pigs:
Pigs can also suffer from depression, as many on factory farms do. And they don't want to be slaughtered and turned into a centerpiece. This holiday season, serve a hearty and delicious Field Roast and save a pig from your table.
You may just wind up with a new favorite gaming partner.
Written by Jeff Mackey
PETA pal and superhero-for-animals Bob Barker cites PETA's vital work exposing animal mistreatment and neglect on factory farms in his letters urging Missouri state senators to oppose an "ag gag" bill—Senate Bill (S.B.) 695—requiring that abuse documented on farms be reported within 24 hours, effectively preventing investigators and whistleblowers from exposing routine cruelty to animals.
The horrors revealed by PETA's latest factory farm investigation show how important it is that organizations and individuals not lose the ability to uncover cruelty to animals, especially when it's carefully hidden from public view. These sorts of exposés require months of scrutiny to document how the abuse is habitual and systematic, rather than being mere isolated incidents, so the requirements of S.B. 695 would make investigators' work virtually impossible.
As Bob—whose alma mater is Drury University in Springfield, Missouri—stated in his letter to state legislators, "Missouri lawmakers must realize that consumers are demanding better treatment of animals used for food, not for the agriculture industry to cover up illegal acts and penalize those who try to expose routine cruelty. Please show consumers that Missouri has nothing to hide by opposing S.B. 695."
PETA is grateful to celebrities like Bob, Cloris Leachman, and Katherine Heigl for making the public aware of the dangers of "ag gag" legislation because the wealthy industrial-agriculture interests pushing these bills appear to be ensuring that they'll wield influence behind the scenes by making large donations to lawmakers, as seen recently in Iowa and Utah.
If you're a Missouri resident, please join Bob Barker in asking your state senators to vote against this bill and to continue to allow people to expose blatant cruelty to animals.
The TV networks have been notably, um, unenthusiastic about running PETA's Super Bowl ads, so this year PETA is planning to take its message directly to the players and fans by placing billboards in the teams' hometowns of New York and Boston as well as Indianapolis, which is hosting the game, making an irreverent plea for people to put down the chicken wings on Super Bowl Sunday.
Chickens © iStockphoto.com/Sunnybeach
It's estimated that some 600 million chickens are killed for the wings consumed just during the Super Bowl. Yikes! And that's after the abuse they all suffered through on factory farms.
Not only is this wing-eating obsession cruel, it also shows a lack of imagination. After all, there are so many mouth-watering alternatives to the old same-old same-old. For vegan game-day treats that will satisfy the most ravenous sports fan, check out these recipes for fab finger foods that won't cost birds their limbs.
If your party guests insist on being served wings, try the meatless variety, like Gardein's buffalo "wings"—the choice of the NFL's Ricky Williams—or just roll your own!
If your tofu has turned green, you'll probably want to toss it. But the results of a recent study show that our tofu is so green that it's a cause for celebration!
The findings of this new study reveal how vegan foods, such as veggie dogs, tofu, and seitan, contribute little to climate change compared to meat. For example, only 350 grams of carbon dioxide are released for each kilogram of soy "meat" produced, while an equivalent amount of ground meat is responsible for around 7,200 grams of carbon dioxide. If my math is correct, that means a hamburger patty causes more than 20 times more harmful greenhouse gasses to be released than does a veggie burger of the same size.
PETA's always said that "meat's not green" because of the severe environmental damage caused by factory farming—which releases massive amounts of the greenhouse gasses that cause climate change.
With a growing focus on our responsibility for maintaining our planet, there's still no better way to go green than by going vegan.
Written by PETA
When Dutch animal rights group Ongehoord ("Unheard" in English) secretly filmed 26 pig farms in the Netherlands, it found that cruelty was just as prevalent on organic farms—and on those that labeled their meat with the misleading "Better Life" stamp from the Dutch SPCA—as it was on factory farms.
Video taken on a farm belonging to a supposed advocate of humane housing for pigs shows baby pigs left dying, a sick sow left unattended while suffering a miscarriage, a struggling pig who was unable to stand, and pigs as they cannibalize sick cratemates. Ongehoord says that its investigation proves that all types of farmers "create a false picture of the pig industry" and that there is still no such thing as "humane meat."
On organic farms all over the world—including in the U.S.—pigs are crammed into feces-strewn pens, mutilated without being given any painkillers, and sent to slaughter in the same filthy slaughterhouses as factory-farmed pigs. However, the meat can still be called "organic" as long as the pigs were given organic feed and weren't drugged.
Don't be misled by deceptive marketing. The only meats that are truly cruelty-free are the delicious faux varieties.
Written by Michelle Sherrow
As if their lives on an Iowa factory farm weren't wretched enough, nearly 5,000 pigs perished when a fire broke out in what the media accurately calls a "confinement facility." Locked in gestation crates with no possibility of escape, these mothers and babies could only watch as the flames and smoke approached.
Iowa is the number one pig-flesh–producing state in the nation, and in 2008, prompted by a whistleblower's report, a PETA undercover investigation of an Iowa factory farm that supplied pigs for Hormel Foods revealed that workers were beating pigs with metal rods, sexually abusing them with canes, and more.
Hideous cruelty like this will occur out of sight if a bill pending in Iowa's legislature passes. The bill would subject whistleblowers to criminal prosecution for exposing animal abuse on factory farms. Please speak out right now! |
Written by Jennifer O'Connor
The first thing you notice when looking at artist Miru Kim's portraits of her own bare flesh as it touches pigs' skin is how similar they look. The curving lines, the freckles, and the dusting of hair could easily be human or porcine. The New York City–based artist visited factory hog farms and snapped photos of herself alongside the pigs for her exhibit, "The Pig That Therefore I Am."
About her experience on the farms, Kim told The New York Times Style Magazine:
This was the single most frightening experience I've ever had. The clanking of metal grates, the screams and grunts, the smell, the filth, the dreary eyes of pregnant sows confined in gestation crates ….
Once you learn about pigs, it's easy to see how similar we really are, and not just on the outside. Pigs, like humans, love listening to music, getting massages, and even playing video games. They have a complex social structure and language, and mother pigs sing to their babies while nursing.
We would never shoot a 6-month-old baby and immerse him or her into a scalding tank, so why would we do it to a baby pig? You don't have to. Take PETA's "Pledge to Be Vegan for 30 Days" and protect the pigs "that therefore they are."
After nearly a year of campaigning by PETA U.K. and massive opposition from U.K. residents who care about the Earth and animals, Nocton Dairies has withdrawn its application to build a 3,770-cow mega-dairy, which would have been the largest dairy factory farm in the U.K. More than 6,000 of the 14,000 registered objections received by the district council came from PETA U.K. supporters!
This great news means that thousands of cows will be spared the misery of enduring intensive confinement and artificial impregnation year after year, only to have their terrified calves yanked away from them within a day of being born.
According to a Nocton Dairies spokesperson, the factory farming industry's agenda is to "produce more with less"— in other words, to squeeze every last drop of milk from mother cows. Let's show them that they don't need to bother: Sip on tasty, cruelty-free soy, almond, or rice milk instead, and encourage your friends and family to do the same.
Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post
If the heartbreaking pictures of animals suffering on factory farms and in slaughterhouses bring you down (and if they don't, you need to worry), you'll be pleased to learn that scientists at the Medical University of South Carolina are developing a way to give die-hard carnivores an animal-friendly meat fix. With the help of a grant from PETA, the scientists are working on growing "cultured" meat in their laboratory, relying on techniques similar to those they are using in their research on growing human organs for transplant patients.
The list of benefits of bioengineered in vitro meat goes on and on. It is far less likely to be contaminated with bacteria such as E. coli, salmonella, and campylobacter, which are widespread on factory farms. Scientists can control how much fat is added to the meat, which could help people lower their risk for heart disease, cancer, obesity, and diabetes. The production of cultured meat wouldn't generate the tons of animal waste that factory farms do or contribute to climate change and massive water and air pollution. And, of course, if cultured meat became widely available, millions of animals every year would be spared from being scalded, skinned, or hacked apart or having their throats cut open while they are still conscious and struggling.Meat produced safely in a clean, controlled environment could someday make dead animal flesh look about as progressive as The Flintstones.
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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