The Scary New Math of Factory Farm Waste

Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) often store animal waste in massive, open-air lagoons, like this one at Vanguard Farms in Chocowinity, North Carolina. Bacteria feeding on the animal waste turns the mixture a bright pink. (Photo credit: picstever/Flickr)

Factory farms are exempt from reporting requirements under the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. Now a new tool can provide solid evidence of the environmental harm they can cause.

By Tia Schwab, Independent Media Institute

It has been almost a year since Hurricane Florence slammed the Carolinas, dumping a record 30 inches of rainfall in some parts of the states. At least 52 people died, and property and economic losses reached $24 billion, with nearly $17 billion in North Carolina alone. Flood waters also killed an estimated 3.5 million chickens and 5,500 hogs.

A lesser-known impact of the devastating hurricane was revealed through satellite photos released after the storm. Excessive rainfall flooded concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in low-lying areas, carrying riverbed sediment and animal waste previously stored in open-air lagoons into nearby waterways and then into the Atlantic. The difference between the photos, taken just five months apart before and after the storm, is striking.

Before-and-after photos of the coastline near Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune on April 12, 2018 (top), and then on September 19, 2018 (above), after Hurricane Florence dumped near-record amounts of rainfall. The dark brown liquid spilling into the Atlantic captured in the September 19 image is a mix of rainwater, riverbed sediment and waste from those factory farms within the 100-year flood plain that were inundated with more than 20 inches of rain in the matter of a couple of days. (Photo credit: Landsat 8/NASA via Environmental Working Group)

Generally, CAFOs dispose of animal waste by spraying it as fertilizer and storing the excess in massive underground pits or open-air lagoons, where sulfur-eating bacteria often turn the mixture bright pink. Given that cropland can absorb only so much, a good deal of the waste ends up in groundwater, rivers, streams, and the ocean. In fact, agriculture is the leading cause of pollution in the nation’s rivers and lakes, according to the EPA, much of it emanating from large-scale factory farms.

Floods can have even more devastating consequences for water quality. The risk is particularly pressing for North Carolina, a state regularly smacked by hurricanes, because it houses more than 2,200 hog CAFOs and 3,900 poultry CAFOs, and produces up to 10 billion gallons of animal waste a year. These estimates come from the Environmental Working Group.

One problem is that they are just that –– estimates.

The truth is no one really knows how much factory farm waste is escaping into our environment because no federal agency collects consistent and reliable information on the number, size, and location of large-scale agricultural operations, nor the pollution they’re emitting. This means there is considerable variation on how thoroughly states track and monitor CAFOs. Without this information, no one can monitor and hold CAFOS accountable for mismanaged waste and related health and environmental damage.

Stanford Law Professor Daniel Ho and Ph.D. student Cassandra Handan-Nader are hoping to change that. In a paper published in Nature Sustainability in April, they show how a new algorithm can help put CAFOs on the map. Their research focused on hog and poultry operations. The latter can contribute as much nutrient runoff to watersheds as pig operations but are largely unpermitted in North Carolina and therefore much harder to detect.

The Clean Water Act requires permits for CAFOs that discharge pollutants directly into federally regulated waters. However, permits are not required for facilities that may discharge pollutants, say, if there was a break in the manure storage tank or a hurricane. An estimated 60 percent of CAFOs do not hold permits, reported the EPA in 2011, and so monitoring these facilities for unintentional pollution is nearly impossible.

Due to the lack of information about CAFOs and the failure of the government to provide oversight, several environmental and public interest groups have conducted their own studies of the issue. Several of these organizations have hired contractors to manually scan satellite images or physically identify facilities by plane or car. But this process is time- and resource-intensive. For North Carolina alone, contractors need about six weeks to manually scan satellite images on Google Maps, according to the Environmental Working Group.

Ho and Handan-Nader’s automated approach could accomplish the same task in less than two days.

The development is a welcome one in an industry notoriously lacking in transparency. Around 25 states have pushed for “ag-gag” laws, which criminalize undercover filming or photography at factory farms without the consent of the owner. Nine states have passed these laws, and legislation is pending in two additional states, Kansas and North Carolina. In Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming, ag-gag laws were later struck down in higher courts as a violation of free speech and equal protection.

Proponents of ag-gag laws argue that they protect the animal agriculture industry, and farm owners’ privacy. Critics say it gives factory farmers license to continue practices that are dirty, unsafe, and cruel. “This project helps mitigate a dangerous dearth of information about CAFOs,” says Katie Cantrell, executive director of the Factory Farming Awareness Coalition. “Because CAFOs are exempt from reporting requirements under the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, many communities across the United States are subjected to contaminated drinking water and dangerous levels of air pollutants, with little political recourse.”

The Public Health Menace No One Knows About

The health and environmental impact of CAFOs is indeed enormous. “CAFOs are large-scale facilities that house thousands if not tens of thousands of animals in very small spaces,” says Ho. “One CAFO can produce as much manure as a medium-size city in the United States”—with one critical difference: A medium-size city in the United States is required under the Clean Water Act to have a municipal wastewater treatment plant. CAFOs have no such treatment plant.

When animal manure escapes from CAFOs into nearby water sources, it can have devastating health consequences for people and ecosystems. Manure can contain nitrogen and phosphorus, pathogens such as E. coli, growth hormones, antibiotics, chemicals used as additives to the manure or to clean equipment, animal blood, and silage leachate from corn feed, reports the National Association of Local Boards of Health. Ammonia is also often found in surface waters surrounding CAFOs. When exposed to air, ammonium converts into nitrate, and elevated nitrate levels in drinking water have been connected to poor general health, birth defects, and miscarriages. For infants, it can mean blue baby syndrome and even death.

The New York Times recently exposed the devastating effects of nitrate contamination from animal manure in low-income farmworker communities in California’s Central Valley. The widespread application of chemical fertilizers and dairy cow manure has made the water unsafe for drinking, cooking, and even showering. Camille Pannu, the director of the Aoki Water Justice Clinic at the University of California, Davis, likens the situation to the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. “Flint is everywhere here.”

Tying Data Patterns to Factory Farms

To put factory farms on the map, the Stanford team figured out how to teach a computer algorithm to analyze data patterns. They got help from Google’s advances in image learning, the USDA’s National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP), and the Environmental Working Group and Waterkeeper Alliance.

The environmental groups supplied locations of CAFOs they had collected manually. The researchers matched those locations to NAIP satellite images, hand-validating the presence of CAFOs using these same processes. Once CAFOs were confirmed, the team combined this information with open-source image-recognition tools released by Google, which were already trained to identify different types of objects, buildings, people and animals in photos.

In receiving this information, the algorithm was retrained to identify CAFOs by looking for certain visual cues. “Swine farms were identifiable by compact rectangular barns abutted by large liquid manure pits, and poultry by long rectangular barns and dry manure storage,” note the researchers in their report. The algorithm could then be applied to unscanned locations to identify unseen CAFOs.

Handan-Nader explains this process as the retraining of an existing technology. “Instead of working with a baby, we got a toddler, who knows what an arm is, but maybe doesn’t know what an entire person looks like,” says Handan-Nader. In this case, the arm is a building, and an entire person is a CAFO.

To improve the tool’s accuracy, the team also fed the algorithm photos of stadium bleachers, airplane hangars, and mobile home parks, which only appear to match the CAFO visual cues. “Just as humans learn from being tricked, so does a computer,” says Handan-Nader.

There’s another way to look at the research effort, she added. They were “very unglamorously looking at poop for months and months.”

It paid off. Ho and Handan-Nader identified 15 percent more poultry farms than what was found through a manual census. The researchers estimated their algorithm could identify 95 percent of existing large-scale facilities using fewer than 10 percent of the resources required for a manual census.

“Dr. Ho’s work makes my job much easier,” says Soren Rundquist, the director of spatial analysis at the Environmental Working Group. “While humans will always need to validate and quality check computer-generated results, any innovation for locating CAFOs will make the process much more efficient. This is paramount when keeping up with an industry that can grow quickly, having an immediate impact on the environment and public health.”

Replacing Guesswork With Evidence

The tool works with conventional satellite imagery, but future iterations could be trained to identify new spectral signatures, like building materials, lagoons, or actual discharges into waterways. The tool could also help detect other forms of environmental degradation, like oil spills. Stephen Luby, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, is already using a similar technology to track brick kilns, a huge source of air pollution.

Katie Cantrell envisions using the tool to provide solid evidence of the harm done by factory farming. “This mapping project provides an invaluable resource for advocates at the local, state, and national level,” she says. “They can use it to document correlations between the location and density of CAFOs and socioeconomic data, health data such as asthma and mortality rates, and air and water pollution data, that can hopefully help drive better regulation and protection of front-line communities.” Adds EWG’s Rundquist, “The need for this utility is becoming more important as public information around these operations becomes more opaque and unavailable.”

In the meantime, Missouri voted last month to prevent counties from passing more stringent laws regulating CAFOs. Now, local standards for health and environmental protection cannot be tougher than those of the state. In doing so, Missouri joins seven other states this year who have considered strengthening protections for CAFOs, which raises the question: Who is strengthening protections for our environment and local communities?

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Tia Schwab is a news fellow for Stone Pier Press, a San Francisco-based environmental publishing company with a food focus. She recently graduated from Stanford University, where she studied human biology with a concentration in food systems and public health. She was born and raised in Austin, Texas, and she is passionate about using storytelling to create a healthy, just, and sustainable food system.

This article was produced as part of a partnership between Stone Pier Press and Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Notorious Canadian Theme Park Is a Death Trap for Animals | Take Action Tuesday @EarthFoodLife

Death show: An orca trapped at Marineland in Niagara Falls, Canada, just after performing in the “Splash Show,” in 2006. These highly intelligent and emotional animals travel vast distances in the wild and suffer physically and mentally in captivity. Only a few wild-caught orcas have lived past age 30. In the wild, they can live up to 80 years. From orcas to beluga whales to walruses, Marineland has lost numerous animals over the last several years, galvanizing animal rights activists who want the park’s animals released to sanctuaries. (Photo credit: Robin Dawes/Flickr)

Care2: Marineland, in Niagara Falls, Canada, is notorious for its almost constant animal deaths. From beluga whales to walruses, the attraction has lost numerous animals over the last several years. The park recently announced that they were closing their newly reopened deer park after a tragic accident caused the death of two of their herbivores. Weeks before the deer deaths, Apollo, an 18-year-old walrus, died of a heart attack. Apollo is the second walrus to die this year at the park and the tally is sure to rise. In fact, over their six decades of operation, the park has seen the deaths of at least 17 orca whales, 25 beluga whales, and an estimated 22 dolphins.
>>>Demand that Marineland send their caged animals to reputable sanctuaries.

The Action Network: The Williams NESE fracked gas pipeline would endanger local communities and the environment, while further locking New York state into dependence on fossil fuels at a time when it is critical to shift as quickly as possible to 100 percent renewable energy. In addition, construction of the NESE pipeline would have major negative impacts to wildlife habitats due to the destruction of shellfish beds that lay in its path.
>>>Tell the New York Department of Environmental Conservation to deny Williams’ application to construct the dangerous NESE pipeline.

Compassion Over Killing: An investigation has exposed egregious animal abuse and the devastating effects of rapid growth of birds in Tyson Foods’ supply chain. Tyson has still failed to address a major source of suffering in the hundreds of millions of birds it breeds every year: These birds have been genetically manipulated to grow so unnaturally large, so quickly, that they can suffer heart attacks and their fragile legs often collapse under their own morbidly obese bodies—all before they’re just two months old. Now the nation’s biggest poultry company has joined forces with Plug and Play to connect startup companies into its supply chain in its hometown in Arkansas.
>>>Urge Plug and Play’s Global Director of Food & Beverage, Brian Tetrud, to tell Tyson to stop crippling birds with rapid growth.

Consumer Reports: The overuse of antibiotics in food animals is a major contributor to the development of antibiotic-resistant infections in people—23,000 die each year. Ending the routine use of antibiotics in healthy animals is critical to the nation’s health—animals should only get these drugs when they are sick. McDonald’s has already committed to reducing antibiotics in its beef supply. If Wendy’s, the third-largest burger chain in the U.S., does the same, it will become a leader in the fast-food industry when it comes to this important global health issue.
>>>Urge Wendy’s CEO Todd Penegor to commit to reducing the use of medically important antibiotics in its beef supply.

Cause for concern…

Mother Nature weeps: An endangered Siberian tiger photographed in the wild at Bastak Nature Reserve in Russia. Less than 4,000 individuals remain in the world. A landmark new report issued by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warms that nature is declining globally at rates never before seen in human history, with at least 1 million species are now threatened with extinction. Moreover, the rate of species extinctions is accelerating, with serious impacts for people around the world. “The overwhelming evidence of the IPBES Global Assessment, from a wide range of different fields of knowledge, presents an ominous picture,” said IPBES Chair, Sir Robert Watson. “The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.” (Photo credit: Bastak Nature Preserve/Wikimedia Commons)

Round of applause…

Enough is enough: At the recent Nature Champions Summit in Canada, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) signed onto the Oceans Plastics Charter, a landmark agreement meant to end the mismanagement of plastic waste. The plan represents a worldwide commitment at the highest levels of government to reconsider our relationship with plastics and shift economies to zero plastic waste. Signatories, including more than 20 countries and over 50 businesses and organizations across the globe, agree to “resolve to take a lifecycle approach to plastics stewardship on land and at sea, which aims to avoid unnecessary use of plastics and prevent waste, and to ensure that plastics are designed for recovery, reuse, recycling and end-of-life management to prevent waste through various policy measures.” (Photo credit: Krizjohn Rosales/Pexels)

Parting thought…

“We won’t have a society if we destroy the environment.” —Margaret Mead

California Poised to Become First State to Outlaw Fur | Take Action Tuesday @EarthFoodLife

Saving their skins: Dozens of animal rights activists protest inside the “Fur Salon” at Saks Fifth Avenue in San Francisco. On January 1, 2019, San Francisco became the largest U.S. city to ban fur. (Photo credit: Direct Action Everywhere)

Direct Action Everywhere: A historic bill to ban the manufacture and sale of new fur products passed the California Assembly on May 28. This is a first-of-its kind victory that shows the power of the grassroots movement for animal rights. Now, the fur ban must pass through the Senate to officially become law.
>>>Show your support for the California fur ban with an email to the California Democratic Party. Email [email protected] and ask them to support AB 44. Here is a template email you can send.

Pesticide Action Network: Three consecutive juries have found Monsanto (now Bayer) guilty of knowingly exposing people to glyphosate, a probable human carcinogen and the active ingredient in their flagship herbicide, Roundup. Yet the Environmental Protection Agency is poised to reregister the chemical, dismissing science showing it can be harmful to human health. Internal documents revealed during recent legal actions show that Monsanto has had undue influence on the regulatory process.
>>>Tell EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to revise his recommendation that glyphosate be re-registered without restrictions to protect human health and the environment.

PETA: In 2017, a PETA Asia investigation revealed that donkeys in China—some as young as five months old—are bashed in the head with a sledgehammer and their throats are slit so their skin can be boiled down to make gelatin for a traditional Chinese medicine called ejiao. A breaking investigation has found horrific abuse inside Kenya’s donkey slaughter industry, which exists only to meet the demand for this product in China. The footage shows workers at government-sanctioned slaughterhouses mercilessly beating frightened donkeys.
>>>Urge Kenya’s cabinet secretary for agriculture to ban all Kenyan donkey slaughterhouses and to stop supporting China’s cruel trade in ejiao.

Skydog Sanctuary: Recently, Skydog Sanctuary, a wild horse sanctuary in Oregon, was asked to take Elsa, a mustang mare who had given birth to twins, Faith and Hope—an incredibly rare event. However, after traveling to the corrals to take all three of them, Skydog was notified that Elsa was to be part of a spay study in which her ovaries would be removed. It costs the U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars every year to roundup, warehouse and stockpile the nation’s wild horses. This special family unit has an opportunity to have a life of freedom on a beautiful 9,000 acre ranch, where they can live together in peace.
>>>Urge the Bureau of Land Management’s Burns Wild Horse and Burro Corrals to let Elsa, Faith and Hope be adopted by Skydog Sanctuary.

Cause for concern…

Cool pads, hot planet: Air conditioning units poke out of an apartment complex in Montevideo, Uruguay. Hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, commonly used coolants in refrigerators and air-conditioners, are potent contributors to global warming—about 1,000 more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol of 1987, agreed to in October 2016 by delegates from nearly 200 nations at a conference in Kigali, Rwanda, sets hard targets for the worldwide phaseout of these dangerous greenhouse gases. The agreement, which took effect in January, has so far been ratified by 72 nations. But President Donald Trump, who pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, shows no indication that he will submit the deal for Senate approval. (Photo credit: Matt Hintsa/Flickr)

Round of applause…

Changing hearts and minds: Environmental activists take to the streets during the People’s Climate March in London on March 31, 2014. Collective actions like this can have a profound positive impact on bystanders and people not actively engaged in climate activism, according to a new study. A team of researchers at Penn State University found that “people tended to be more optimistic about people’s ability to work together to address climate change and have better impressions of people who participated in marches after the March for Science and the People’s Climate March in the spring of 2017.” (Photo credit: Open Minder/Flickr)

Parting thought…

“If we surrendered to Earth’s intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees.” —Rainer Maria Rilke

After Enduring Government Experiments, Lab Animals Could Get New Lease on Life | Take Action Tuesday @EarthFoodLife

Happier times ahead? Last year, White Coat Waste, a nonprofit, exposed the USDA’s killing of over 3,000 adoptable kittens. Following that campaign and pressure from Congress, the “kitten slaughterhouse” was shut down. Now, the AFTER Act (HR 2897) seeks to amend the Animal Welfare Act to allow for the adoption of certain animals, including cats and dogs, used in federal research. (Photo credit: Laura D’Alessandro/Flickr)

White Coat Waste: Currently, federal government labs experiment on about 50,000 dogs, cats, primates, rabbits and other regulated animals each year (which excludes mice and rats). Virtually all of these animals will be killed—even if they’re healthy at the end of testing. But new legislation introduced by Reps. Brendan Boyle (D-PA) and Jackie Walorski (R-IN) would reduce the number of animals killed after government experiments. If passed, the Animal Freedom from Testing, Experimentation and Research (AFTER) Act (HR 2897)–—nicknamed Violet’s Law after the rescued ex-laboratory dog who inspired it—would require government labs to try to retire survivors to sanctuaries or adopt them out to loving homes. This would be a first in American history.
>>>Urge Congress to pass the AFTER Act to save the lives of tens of thousands of retired laboratory animals.

World Wildlife Fund: Eight million metric tons of plastic end up in the world’s oceans every year. There are already an estimated 150 million metric tons of plastic in the oceans because this problem was ignored for decades. This has serious consequences for people’s well-being and livelihoods and causes injury and death to fish, sea turtles, whales, birds, coral reefs and other marine life. We urgently need a legally binding United Nations agreement to end marine plastic pollution by 2030.
>>>Ask the world’s governments to take immediate action to end the plastic crisis before it’s too late.

Change.org: Poachers kill an elephant every 15 minutes on the African continent. Now, after five years of prohibition, the ban on elephant hunting in Botswana has been lifted, putting some 130,000 elephants—the largest elephant population on the continent—under threat. In 2017, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council, 74% of travel to Botswana was by tourists, generating $686.6 million and contributing to 26,000 jobs that year. A main reason tourists travel to Botswana is to see wildlife. If anti-poaching units are not restored, the number of wildlife will continue to dwindle—endangering the survival of species and negatively impacting the economy.
>>>Urge President Mokgweetsi Masisi to restore the anti-poaching units to protect its elephant population—and its economy.

Compassion Over Killing: Sales of almond, soy, coconut and other plant-based milks are soaring, on track to reach $20 billion by 2020. Meanwhile, consumer demand for dairy is tanking as Americans become aware of just how cruel the dairy industry is to cows, how it has cheated consumers, and the havoc that dairy milk can wreak on our bodies. Big Dairy is desperate, and it’s turning to the FDA to help squash the rise of plant-based milks. In 2010, the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) urged the federal government to block the use of words like “milk” and “cheese” on the labels of dairy-free products. Six years later, that hasn’t worked, so the NMPF is back at it, this time by whipping up members of Congress to write to the Food and Drug Administration about how such labeling is “misleading and illegal.” Truly misleading, however, are current dairy product labels, which do not state what’s really inside: bovine mammary secretions, produced by cows and comprising just the right mix of proteins and hormones for their calves to grow hundreds of pounds in mere months. If it is in NMPF’s own interest in ensuring that labels “clearly identify the true nature of the food,” as noted in its 2010 petition, why not clearly identify dairy as “cow milk?”
>>>Tell the NMPF to make it easier on shoppers to know the “true nature of the food” they’re buying by clearly labeling its products as “cow milk.”

Cause for concern…

Slippery slope: Today’s banana production has environmental and social costs that are not reflected in the prices consumes pay at the register. Those costs are “externalized onto smallholder farmers and the employees of banana plantations, as well as onto the land itself,” writes Joe Fassler of New Food Economy. (Photo credit: Gratisography/Pexels.com)

Round of applause…

Back from the edge? Angalifu, a male northern white rhinoceros at San Diego Wild Animal Park, who died from age-related natural causes in 2014. There are only two known northern white rhinoceroses, both of which are female; unless there is an unknown male somewhere in Africa, this subspecies is functionally extinct. But for the first time, scientists have transformed cells from the northern white rhinoceros into stem cells that could help save this and other species from going the way of the dodo. (Photo credit: Sheep81/Wikipedia) 

Parting thought…

“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.” —E. O. Wilson

Only 15,000 Wild Bonobos Remain | Take Action Tuesday @EarthFoodLife

Our cousins need our help: Along with the common chimpanzee, the bonobo is the closest extant relative to humans. But they are endangered due to poaching for bushmeat and habitat destruction. “I fell in love with these amazing animals a few years ago when I narrated ‘The Bonobo Connection,’” writes actor and activist Ashley Judd. “It is a tragic irony that this peaceful species is only found in one of the most war-ravaged countries on Earth. Now that the Congo is rebuilding after years of conflict, groundbreaking efforts are underway to protect and study bonobos.” (Photo credit: Reflexiste/Flickr)

Ashley Judd and the Bonobo Conservation Initiative: Bonobos are the world’s least-recognized great ape, and humanity’s closest living relative. This endangered species lives exclusively in Africa’s Congo Basin, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Only an estimated 15,000 bonobos remain in the wild—poaching and habitat loss are pushing them to the brink of extinction. Bonobo societies are matriarchal, and unlike our other closest relatives, chimpanzees, are incredibly peaceful. Female-led groups of bonobos are highly empathic, and use affection rather than aggression to resolve conflict and to strengthen social bonds.
>>>Urge the Democratic Republic of the Congo to protect our closest living relatives and their rainforest home.

Change.org: Chickens on factory farms are bred to grow so big, so fast, that they often collapse under their own weight. Many live in constant pain, and they are vulnerable to broken legs and heart attacks. These smart and social birds spend their entire lives in crowded, dimly-lit sheds without even a perch to rest on. Restaurants like Subway, Burger King, Sonic and many more have already committed to criteria that reduce the suffering of chickens. They are switching to healthier breeds and giving chickens more room to roam. If all of these other companies can do it, why can’t McDonald’s?
>>>Urge McDonald’s to stop using chickens who are bred to suffer.

ASPCA: New York has one of the country’s highest number of dog retailers. At any given point, there are approximately 2,000 puppies for sale throughout the state. Pet shops often source their puppies from out-of-state, low-welfare, commercial breeding facilities (a.k.a. puppy mills), then offer them up to unsuspecting customers as healthy, high-quality puppies from responsible breeders. This practice is deceptive and leaves families to bear the costs associated with this cruel industry. New Yorkers have an opportunity to make a huge difference for pets this year by supporting a bill to prohibit the sale of dogs, cats and rabbits in pet stores across the state.
>>>New Yorkers, tell your legislators to support A.6298/S.4234 to End Puppy Mill Cruelty in New York State.

Audubon California: In 2017, the Trump Administration reversed decades of government policy—by both Democratic and Republican administrations—to dramatically weaken the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The MBTA has been the foundation of protections for migratory birds in North America for more than a century, saving billions of birds. The federal government now says it will no longer prosecute unintentional killing—called incidental take—of birds from commercial and industrial activities, including massive avian crises caused by oil spills like Exxon-Valdez or Deepwater Horizon. California Assembly Bill 454, authored by Assembly Member Ash Kalra, will ensure California’s birds are protected. The oil industry’s main lobbying arm in Sacramento has declared its opposition, and is fighting hard to so that polluters and other industries can kill birds without any consequences.
>>>Urge the California Assembly to vote yes on AB454.

Cause for concern…

Imperiled pups: Anti-vaxxers are choosing not to vaccinate their pets against harmful diseases, according to veterinarians. Now, the United Kingdom branch of the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) has issued a warning to pet owners who are endangering their cats and dogs lives by ignoring science and not getting them vaccinated. “There is real concern that we will see an increase in the frequency of these serious and preventable diseases, with resulting animal suffering, if the number of vaccinated animals falls,” RSPCA veterinary director Caroline Allen told The Sun. (Photo credit: Torsten Dettlaff/Pexels)

Round of applause…

Smarter logging: A toucan rests in a tree in Guyana’s Iwokrama Rainforest. The small South American nation is pioneering an approach to protecting the trees that cover nearly its entire area. Armed with an inventory of its trees, the Guyana Forestry Commission makes scientific decisions about which ones can be harvested while maintaining overall ecosystem health. This sustainable approach has helped Guyana decrease its annual deforestation rate to 0.048%, one of the lowest rates across the continent. (Photo credit: M M/Wikimedia Commons)

Parting thought…

“Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they’re in the game.” —Paul Rodriguez


Trump’s Misguided War on America’s Wolves | Take Action Tuesday @EarthFoodLife

Out in the cold: On March 6, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service announced its plan to remove federal Endangered Species Act protections for all gray wolves in the U.S. who are currently protected. “Livestock producers look upon themselves as royalty, believing the natural world to be placed at their disposal by a sort of divine right. The wolf fits into this dominionist worldview, if it fits at all, as a hated fairytale monster, to be driven out or killed at every opportunity,” writes Erik Molvar on The Hill. “Their war on wildlife targets not just wolves, but other carnivores like coyotes, mountain lions, and grizzly bears, ecological keystone species like prairie dogs and beavers, and even elk and deer that compete for forage with their cattle and sheep. This tiny but vocal segment of the public insists on decimating native wildlife for their own profit-driven self-interest.” (Photo credit: Pixabay/Pexels)

Endangered Species Coalition: Hunting, trapping and habitat loss drove gray wolves to near extinction in the 20th century. Conservation efforts made possible by the Endangered Species Act has allowed them to come back and begin to re-establish their former habitats. But the Trump Administration is in the process of preparing a rule that would strip every gray wolf in the lower 48 states of crucial Endangered Species Act protections. “Wolves have only been restored in a tiny fraction of their historic and suitable range,” said Leda Huta, executive director of the Endangered Species Coalition. “Wolf recovery could be one of America’s greatest wildlife conservation success stories if the Fish and Wildlife Service would finish the job it started.”
>>>Urge Department of Interior Secretary David Bernhardt: Don’t take Endangered Species Act safeguards away from gray wolves and support continued efforts to bring wolves back.

Care2: The global shark and ray population is in serious trouble, but, thankfully, legislators in Hawaii are currently considering doing more to protect these creatures in state waters. Currently there’s a bill that would make it a misdemeanor (with up to a $10,000 fine) for killing, capturing or abusing sharks and rays. Sharks and rays need full protection under the law, for their benefit and for the health of our oceans. Rep. Nicole Lowen, who chairs the House Environmental Protection and Energy Committee said, “As apex predators, sharks and rays help to keep the ocean ecosystem in balance, and protecting them from unnecessary harm is essential to the health of our coral reefs.”
>>>Tell Hawaii’s state legislators that you support the passage of HB 808 to outlaw the intentional killing, capture, abuse or entanglement of sharks and rays in the state’s marine waters.

Heal the Bay: An unchecked plastic waste stream is a global threat. We are now finding plastics everywhere they shouldn’t be: our drinking water, seafood, table salt, and even in our soil. Exposure to plastics and associated toxins has been linked to cancers, birth defects, impaired immunity, endocrine disruption, and other serious health issues. California representatives introduced Senate Bill 54 and Assembly Bill 1080 earlier this year to drastically reduce plastic waste for generations to come. The bills set the framework for a 75% reduction of all single-use plastic packaging and products sold in California by 2030, with the rest being effectively recyclable or compostable.
>>>Urge the  the California Senate and Assembly to fast-track the approval of the California Circular Economy and Plastic Pollution Reduction Act.

PETA: Dessert snack company Little Debbie was started by a family and was even named after the founders’ granddaughter, Debbie. So we know how important family is to this business. But humans aren’t the only species to love their families. Mother cows bond with and nurture their young, and hens communicate with and protect their chicks. Yet throughout the years that Little Debbie has been making baked goods—during which time the company has been passed down through four generations of the family—it has exploited and destroyed the families of countless generations of cows and hens for its dairy- and egg-laden cakes, cookies and brownies.
>>>Urge Little Debbie to offer vegan items to its product line.

Cause for concern…

Avocado toast’s true cost: Petorca Valley in central Chile is the epicenter for the nation’s ongoing water conflict, where intensive avocado farming since the early 1990s has damaged the natural environment and encroached on the residents’ water rights. While avocado trees cover some 40,000 lush acres in Petorca to supply the popular fruit, primarily to U.S. and U.K. consumers, local Chileans are forced to drink their water out of trucks. “Large businesses came and started to plant what they were calling ‘green gold,’ but it turned into a nightmare for our valley. We lost our local agriculture, streams and rivers,” Petorca’s mayor Gustavo Valdenegro told KCET. “Our valley was a good place to grow avocados as low humidity levels produce excellent fruit, but there has not been anywhere near enough regulation and they started to plant indiscriminately, brutally destroying the ecosystem.” (Photo credit: Lisa Folios/Pexels)

Round of applause…

No people, please: A baby moose. A 2018 report by the World Wildlife Fund found that populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians have declined by 60 percent in just over 40 years, primarily due to agriculture and overexploitation of wildlife, both driven by human activity. “If we have allowed so many people to live in Colorado that there is not room for the lion, the bear and the moose, then we need to do some serious soul-searching. After all, not only are they sentient creatures [who] feel pain, but they are huge drivers of our Western Slope economies,” writes Frosty Merriott, a member of the Environmental Board in Carbondale, Colorado. He advocates “no people zones,” which he says would be “like no-fly zones where wild animals get to be wild animals without having to interact with people.” (Photo credit: Leyo/Wikimedia Commons)

Parting thought…

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of a difference you want to make.” —Jane Goodall

Historic Legal Victory for Indigenous People and Amazon Rainforest | Take Action Tuesday @EarthFoodLife

Amazonian victory: On February 27, hundreds of Indigenous Waorani elders, youth and leaders arrived in the city of Puyo, Ecuador, to launch a lawsuit seeking to stop the government from auctioning off their ancestral lands in the Pastaza region to oil companies. On April 26, the three-judge panel ruled in their favor, protecting half a million acres of their territory in the Amazon rainforest from being earmarked for oil drilling. (Photo credit: Amazon Frontlines)

Amazon Frontlines: On April 26, the Waorani people of Ecuador won a historic legal victory to protect 500,000 acres of their rainforest from oil extraction. “The courts recognized that the Waorani people have rights over our territories that must be respected. The government’s interest in oil is not more valuable than our rights, our forests, our lives,” said Nemonte Nenquimo, president of the Coordinating Council of the Waorani Nationality of Ecuador–Pastaza, a political organization of the Waorani and plaintiff in the successful lawsuit. The ruling sets a key legal precedent, strengthening indigenous rights and rainforest protection in Ecuador and beyond.
>>>Tell the Ecuadorian government to respect Indigenous rights and the court’s decision: The most biodiverse place on Earth is not for sale.

Change.org: For decades, the Philadelphia Gun Club has held cruel and savage pigeon shoots. The club is based in Bensalem in northeast Pennsylvania, the only state in the nation where pigeon shoots are not illegal. “Pigeon shoots are vile competitions where thousands of birds are shot, killed or suffer terrible wounds and crippling pain,” says Illinois-based animal rights organization Showing Animals Respect and Kindness, or SHARK, calling them “Pennsylvania’s shame.” The pigeons used in these shoots are from New York City, where they are captured and transported across the state line. a new bill introduced by the New York City Council may help protect the city’s pigeons from this terrible fate. The bill would “prohibit the unlawful capture, possession, sale or purchase of wild birds.”
>>>Urge the NYC Council and NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio to pass Int. 1202-2018 to prohibit the trafficking of the city’s wild birds.

Earth Day Network: Around the world, coral reefs are in danger. These fascinating organisms, which provide habitat for thousands of other species and help support global industries with a value totaling as much as $9.9 trillion, are under attack. With their existence threatened by rising ocean temperatures, ocean acidification, chemical pollution and damage from human contact, coral reefs need your help.
>>>Urge the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to remove the coral-killing chemicals oxybenzone and octinoxate from sunscreens.C

MoveOn: On July 16, 2015, the Australian government unveiled its plan to kill two million feral cats by 2020. While the problem they are targeting is real and serious (scientists say that they are a primary factor behind the extinction of at least 29 indigenous mammal species in Australia), the solution of poisoning the cats is barbaric, to say the least. Efforts should be made to find a more humane solution, working with animal rights advocates, agencies, shelters and rescues to spay/neuter and adopt out those that are healthy and spare as many as possible from a horrible death.
>>>Urge Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt to stop the poisoning of feral cats and explore humane solutions to prevent overpopulation.

Cause for concern…

Protecting corporations, not the public: On April 30, the Environmental Protection Agency said that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Bayer-Monsanto’s carcinogenic weedkiller Roundup, is safe, ignoring the growing body of independent research showing a strong connection between glyphosate and cancer in humans. In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization, classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Two separate juries in the past year found that glyphosate caused cancer in two California men who were exposed to the herbicide while handling Roundup. More than 13,400 similar cases have been filed against Bayer-Monsanto. (Photo credit: Mike Mozart/Flickr)

Round of applause…

Bird brains: An American Crow at Carkeek Park in Seattle, Washington. More than four years after Stuart Dahlquist began feeding a family of American Crows in his backyard outside of Seattle, the crows started to leave him what he thinks are gifts. One week, for two days in a row, they left pine twigs that were threaded through aluminum can pull tabs. Dahlquist shared a picture of the twigs on Twitter. “This isn’t only generous, it’s creative, it’s art,” he wrote. It went viral, garnering over 9,000 retweets and some 33,000 likes. Crows are well known for their highly developed intelligence, but Jillian Mock, an editorial fellow at Audubon Magazine, wonders in a recent article, “Is it truly possible that crows crafted these objects and purposefully left them for Dahlquist to find?” (Photo credit: Ingrid Tayla/Wikimedia Commons)

Parting thought…

“True benevolence or compassion, extends itself through the whole of existence and sympathizes with the distress of every creature capable of sensation.” —Joseph Addison

Experiencing Chickens and Restoring Their Earth Rights


Chickens have memory, emotions, empathy and a keenly developed consciousness of one another and their surroundings. They deserve our respect and care.
(Photo credit: Engin Akyurt/Pexels)

By Karen Davis, Independent Media Institute

Most people I talk to are surprised to learn that chickens evolved in a rugged, tropical forest habitat filled with vibrant colors and sounds to which they contribute their share to this day. Many are surprised to learn that chickens are endowed with memory and emotions and a keenly developed consciousness of one another and their surroundings.

A newspaper reporter who visited our sanctuary was astonished to discover that chickens recognize each other as individuals after they’ve been separated. A friend and I had rescued a hen and a rooster in a patch of woods alongside a road in rural Virginia. The first night we managed to get the hen out of the tree, but the rooster got away. The next night after hours of playing hide and seek with him in the rain, we managed to snag the rooster, and the two reunited at our sanctuary. When the reporter visited a few days later, she saw these two chickens, Lois and Lambrusco, foraging together as a couple, showing that they remembered each other after being apart.

Chickens form memories that influence their social behavior from the time they are embryos, and they update their memories over the course of their lives. I’ve observed their memories in action at our sanctuary many times. For instance, if I have to remove a hen from the flock for two or three weeks in order to treat an infection, when I put her outside again, she moves easily back into the flock — they accept her as if she had never been away. There may be a little showdown, a tiff instigated by another hen, but the challenge is quickly resolved. Best of all, I’ve watched many a returning hen greeted by her own flock members led by the rooster walking over and gathering around her conversably.

The purpose of our sanctuary in Virginia is to provide a place for chickens who need a home, rather than adding to the population and thus diminishing our capacity to adopt more birds. For this reason, we do not allow our hens to hatch their eggs as they would otherwise do, given their association with the roosters in our yard. All of our birds have been adopted from situations of abandonment or abuse, or else they were no longer wanted or able to be cared for by their previous owners. Our two-acre sanctuary is a predator-proof yard with the wooded areas and soil chickens love to perch and scratch in all year round.

I broke our no chick-hatching rule on one occasion. Returning from a trip, I discovered that Daffodil, a soft white hen with a sweet face and quiet manner, was nestled deep in the corner of her house in a nest she’d pulled together from the straw bedding on the dirt floor. Seeing there were only two eggs beneath her, I left her alone. Not long after on a day in June, while scattering fresh straw in her house, I heard the tiniest peeps. Thinking a sparrow was caught inside, I looked to guide the bird out, but those peeps were not from a sparrow: They arose from Daffodil’s corner. Peering into the dark place where she sat, I beheld a little yellow face with dark bright eyes peeking out of her feathers.

I knelt down and stared into the face of this tiny chick who looked intently back at me before hiding himself and peeking out again. I looked into Daffodil’s face as well, knowing from experience that making direct eye contact with chickens is crucial to forming an affectionate bond with them.

From the first, a large red rooster named Francis visited Daffodil and her chick in their nesting place, and Daffodil acted happy and content to have him there. Frequently, I found him sitting quietly with her and the little chick, who scrambled around both of them, in and out of their feathers. Though roosters will mate with more than one hen in the flock, a rooster and hen may also form bonds so strong that they will not mate with anyone else.

Could it be that Francis was the father of this chick and that he and Daffodil knew it? He certainly was uniquely and intimately involved with the pair, and it wasn’t as though he was the head of the flock, the one who oversaw all of the hens and the other roosters and was thus fulfilling his duty in that role. Rather, Francis seemed simply to be a member of this particular family.

For the rest of the summer, Daffodil and her chick formed a kind of enchanted circle with an inviolable space all around themselves, as they roamed together in the yard, undisturbed by the other chickens. Not once did I see Francis or any of the other roosters try to mate with Daffodil during the time she was raising her frisky chick — the little one I named Daisy who grew up to be Sir Daisy, a large, handsome rooster with white and golden-brown feathers.

Daffodil and Sir Daisy (Photo credit Karen Davis)

When I first started keeping chickens, there were no predators, until a fox found us. We built our fences after eleven chickens disappeared rapidly under our nose. The fox would sneak up in broad daylight, raising a clamor among the birds. Running outside I’d see no stalker, just sometimes a soul-stabbing bunch of feathers on the ground at the site of abduction. When our bantam rooster Josie was taken, his companion Alexandra ran shrieking through the kitchen, jumped up on a table, still shrieking, and was never the same afterward.

It was too much. I sat on the kitchen floor crying and screaming. At the time, I was caring for Sonja, a big white warm-natured, bouncy hen I was treating for wounds she’d received before I rescued her. As I sat on the floor exploding with grief and guilt, Sonja walked over to where I sat weeping. She nestled her face next to mine and began purring with the ineffable soft purr that is also a trill in chickens. She comforted me even as her gesture deepened the heartache I was feeling. Did Sonja know why I was crying? I doubt it, but maybe she did. Did she know I was terribly sad and distressed? There is no question about that. She responded to my grief with an expression of empathy that I have carried emotionally in my life ever since.        

I do not seek to sentimentalize chickens but to characterize them as best I can, based on my observations and relationships with them over many years. In the 1980s, I discovered a crippled chicken named Viva all alone in a shed. My experience with her led me to found United Poultry Concerns in 1990. Little did I know as I lifted her out of the shed to take her home with me that it was the first day of the rest of my life advocating for chickens and their rights.

May 4 is International Respect for Chickens Day and May is International Respect for Chickens Month. We urge people who care about animals to do a positive action for chickens that illuminates who they are and how we can help them.

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Karen Davis, Ph.D., is the president and founder of United Poultry Concerns, a nonprofit organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl including a sanctuary for chickens in Virginia. Inducted into the National Animal Rights Hall of Fame for Outstanding Contributions to Animal Liberation, Karen is the author of Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry; More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality; The Holocaust and the Henmaid’s Tale: A Case for Comparing Atrocities and other works including her children’s book A Home for Henny and Instead of Chicken, Instead of Turkey: A Poultryless “Poultry” Potpourri, a vegan cookbook. A volume of Karen’s writings, For the Birds – From Exploitation to Liberation: Essays on Chickens, Turkeys, and Other Domestic Fowl, will be published in 2019 by Lantern Books.

This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and animal/nature rights, and champions action; specifically, how responsible citizens, voters and consumers can help put society on an ethical path of sustainability that respects the rights of all species who call this planet home. EFL emphasizes the idea that everything is connected, so every decision matters.

Click here to support the work of EFL and the Independent Media Institute.

Questions, comments, suggestions, submissions? Contact EFL editor Reynard Loki at [email protected]. Follow EFL on Twitter @EarthFoodLife.

The Plastic Crisis: 4 Key Reads From Earth | Food | Life

More than an eyesore: Plastic trash collected on a remote stretch of coastline in Rekvik, Troms Fylke, Norway. “Global consumers now use a million plastic bottles every minute, 91 percent of which are not recycled,” writes Earth | Food | Life reporter Mary Mazzoni on Truthout. “The staggering 9.2 billion metric tons of plastic produced since the 1950s isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.” (Photo credit: Bo Eide/Flickr)

The plastic crisis is so overwhelming that it’s hard to fathom. Researchers estimate that more than 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic are floating on the surface of the world’s oceans. Scientists even found plastic fibers in 100 percent of tiny marine organisms called amphipods that were collected in the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean—some seven miles beneath the surface of the western Pacific. And plastic isn’t just threatening wildlife and marine ecosystems on a global scale. A growing body of evidence is revealing that it is also harming our health. Adding to the worry is the fact that the vast majority of plastic isn’t even recycled.

Through the work of its writing fellows, reporters and expert guest contributors, Earth | Food | Life has been covering the global plastic crisis from multiple angles. Mary Mazzoni explores the complex and frustrating reality of recycling plastic. Lorraine Chow examines the impact our plastic trash has on wildlife. Robin Scher investigates how plastic endangers human health. Lydia Chodosh offers ways that you can help leave the world less cluttered with plastic trash.

Scroll down for excerpts.…

Mary Mazzoni on Truthout: Around two-thirds of the plastic that enters the ocean from rivers is carried by only 20 waterways—the majority of which is on the Asian continent, where access to waste collection and recycling is often limited. But even in countries with established waste management infrastructure, the picture remains bleak: Less than 10 percent of the plastic used in the United States is recycled. (12 min read: The Complex and Frustrating Reality of Recycling Plastic)

Deadly diet: This Laysan albatross chick starved to death because his parents fed him too much plastic flotsam, which filled his stomach, creating a feeling of being full when in actuality he was getting no nutrition. (Photo credit: Duncan/Flickr)

Lorraine Chow on EcoWatch: In 2015, a study by Australian and British scientists determined that 90 percent of seabirds living today have ingested some form of plastic, mistaking it for food. If plastic consumption continues at its current rate, 99 percent of seabirds will carry plastic in their guts by 2050. Only 9 percent of plastic is recycled and 12 percent is incinerated, leaving the vast majority of plastic waste accumulating in landfills or in the natural environment. (9 min read: 99% of Seabirds Will Have Plastic in Their Guts Within Decades)

Robin Scher on Salon: Modern living has made it so that there’s no escaping contact with plastic—and the various extra chemicals it contains. Take Bisphenol A (BPA), which gives plastic its shape and structure, and the phthalates that make plastic soft and flexible. We end up ingesting a fair amount of these chemicals when plastic comes into contact with our food or even our skin. In turn, this affects our hormone levels, which is why, for the most part, chemicals such as BPA are heavily regulated. There is a growing body of research showing that exposure to industrial chemicals commonly found in plastics may help contribute to metabolic disorders like obesity and diabetes. (9 min read: Plastic Is Probably Harming Your Health—Here’s How)

Lydia Chodosh on AlterNet: However much you may hope they’re recyclable, those disposable coffee cups and greasy pizza boxes aren’t going to make the cut. Neither are plastic bags. Not only are they notorious for killing wildlife, but they also constantly gum up multimillion-dollar machinery at recycling plants. In fact, materials of this sort can contaminate a whole load, making it challenging, if not impossible, to find buyers interested in repurposing what’s been broken down. (6 min read: Want to Leave the World Less Cluttered? Stop Relying on Recycling and Do This Instead)

Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and animal/nature rights, and champions action; specifically, how responsible citizens, voters and consumers can help put society on an ethical path of sustainability that respects the rights of all species who call this planet home. EFL emphasizes the idea that everything is connected, so every decision matters.

Click here to support the work of EFL and the Independent Media Institute.

Questions, comments, suggestions, submissions? Contact EFL editor Reynard Loki at [email protected]. Follow EFL on Twitter @EarthFoodLife.

Trump Seeks to Bypass Courts and Fast-Track Keystone XL | Take Action Tuesday @EarthFoodLife

Taking a stand: Activists protesting the Keystone XL pipeline in front of the State Department building in Washington, D.C., on August 12, 2013. (Photo credit: Rick Reinhard/NoKXL/Flickr)

NRDC: President Trump just took the extraordinary step of issuing a new permit intended to bypass a federal court ruling and fast-track construction of the dirty, climate-busting Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The Keystone XL pipeline would carry up to 830,000 barrels of dirty tar sands oil each day from Canada’s boreal forest through America’s heartland, threatening our land, climate, and drinking water. It would shackle us for decades to the dirty fossil fuels of the past instead of moving us toward a clean energy future.
>>>Urge the Trump administration to drop its misguided attempt to fast-track the Keystone XL pipeline yet again.

Audubon: What do comical Atlantic Puffins, elegant Least Terns, and majestic Bald Eagles have in common? Besides being beloved by many, they are all also dependent on forage fish—anchovies, sardines, and other small schooling fish—to fuel their diets. Today, there are three hundred million fewer seabirds in the world than there were in 1950, a shocking population decline of seventy percent. Seabirds such rely on fish as their primary food source, and overfishing means they can’t always find enough to eat. But, there is hope: A new bill would help fish populations rebound—good news for the birds, people, and economies that depend on them.
>>>Urge your representative to protect the fish that seabirds need to thrive.

PETA: In late 2018 and early 2019, a PETA eyewitness worked in Alaska’s dog sledding industry. He found dogs denied veterinary care for painful injuries, kept constantly chained next to dilapidated boxes and plastic barrels in the bitter cold and biting wind, and exhausted, dehydrated dogs forced to run hundreds of miles. Dogs deserve far better than a lifetime of isolation, cruelty, suffering, and death on the Iditarod Trail.
>>>Urge Chrysler, Millennium Hotels and Resorts, and Alaska Airlines to sever ties with the Iditarod immediately.

Change.org: Adding plant-based protein options at McDonald’s will appeal to workers out for a quick lunch, families with health-conscious members out to dinner, children on field trips, and anyone looking for something different than the current menu at McDonald’s where even the french fries contain beef flavoring (they don’t in Europe, incidentally). According to a recent survey, more than one-third of Americans already buy meat substitutes for reasons that range from health to ethics. So why not make a meatless option available at one of America’s favorite restaurant chains for everyone to enjoy? Healthy living should be about progress, not perfection, and this is an easy step that McDonald’s could be taking.
>>>Urge McDonald’s to add a healthy, meatless option to their menu.

Animal Recovery Mission: ARM investigators entered into Jaipur, India, to document the abuse behind its extravagant elephant rides that are offered as tourist attractions and transportation. Thousands of enslaved elephants are crammed in tiny 10’x10′ prison cells and shackled by chains with painful spikes that tear into their legs. Holes are drilled into their tusks to hang jewelry for the tourists. They are frequently denied water even in the scorching Indian heat.
>>>Urge the Indian government to end the abuse of elephants used in tourism and prosecute the abusers.

Cause for concern…

Critical condition: Composed of nearly 3,000 individual reefs and stretching for more than 1,400 miles, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia is the world’s largest coral reef system. Oceanic warming due to climate change has caused mass coral bleaching events in recent decades that threaten the reef’s future survival. New researchhas found that, following the death of half the reef’s corals in 2016 and 2017, the survivors aren’t having enough babies to repopulate this important marine ecosystem. (Photo credit: Kyle Taylor/Flickr)

Round of applause…

Peak pollution: A base camp set up at Mount Everest. The route to the top of the world’s tallest mountain has been littered with trash, as climbers regularly leave empty oxygen tanks, food cans and battered tents on their way to the summit. The Nepali military, in one of the nation’s biggest clean-up campaigns, recently removed more than two tons of trash from the mountain. (Photo credit: ilkerender/Flickr)

Parting thought…

“For many of us, water simply flows from a faucet, and we think little about it beyond this point of contact. We have lost a sense of respect for the wild river, for the complex workings of a wetland, for the intricate web of life that water supports.” —Sandra Postel