We need his howl: A male wolf from the Wenaha pack in Oregon was fitted with a radio collar on August 4, 2010. The restoration of America’s wolves has been hailed as one of the biggest successes of the Endangered Species Act since it was passed in 1973. But the important work of wolf recovery is still ongoing. Delisting the gray wolf will halt four decades of progress in its tracks and threaten their recovery by unwarranted and unsustainable killing. That is exactly what has happened in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, where premature delisting—hailed by livestock ranchers—has led to the cruel, senseless and ecologically harmful killing of thousands of wolves. (Photo credit: Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife)Male wolf from Wenaha pack was fitted with a radio collar on Aug. 4, 2010. Aug. 4, 2010. ODFW photo. Download high resolution image.
Defenders of Wildlife: The Department of the Interior is trying to prematurely strip Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections from nearly all gray wolves in the lower 48 states. This—as Idaho’s tragic example proves—could be a death sentence for wolves, who are intelligent, closely bonded animals who play a vital role in nature. We need them more than ever to preserve biodiversity, strengthen ecosystems and reduce disease. They deserve our compassion, respect and legitimate efforts to coexist with them in the remaining places wild enough for wolves to roam. There is still time to speak out against national wolf delisting by adding your public comments by July 15. >>>Tell the Department of the Interior to protect America’s wolves by keeping them on the ESA list.
Lady Freethinker: For a dog, the gruesome dog meat industry is Hell on Earth. The animals are bound, crammed into tiny, rusty cages with dozens of other dogs, and transported to meat markets or slaughterhouses. Hungry, thirsty and suffering disease and broken bones, these terrified animals must then watch their cage mates tortured and killed as they wait for their turn. Because many people believe dog meat is more tender and provides more health benefits if the animal suffers during death, dogs are often hung, beaten or electrocuted by the butchers. While some countries have laws barring killing dogs and selling them for food, many of these regulations are unenforced. A new resolution introduced by the Los Angeles City Council aims to pressure governments throughout Southeast Asia to end the brutally cruel dog meat industry, in which tens of millions of dogs are tortured and killed for food in Vietnam, South Korea, Indonesia, Cambodia, China and other nations. >>>Urge Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to support and work to pass Councilmember Bob Blumenfield’s resolution CF 19-0002-S101 urging governments listed to ban the sale of dog meat and enforce animal cruelty laws.
Citizens for Alternatives to Animal Research and Experimentation: Tucked away in the beautiful Rocky Mountains of Montana, a government laboratory is carrying out painful and sickening experiments, infecting animals’ brains with deadly prions to study Chronic Wasting Disease, which causes great suffering to infected animals and is characterized by emaciation, abnormal behavior, loss of bodily functions and death. In one study, 19 monkeys had holes drilled into their skulls through which infected deer/elk tissue was injected into their brains, while 21 monkeys were force-fed the infected tissue. Most of the monkeys used for the CWD experiments were captured from the wild before they were infected more than 13 years ago, and kept alone in cages, isolated from each other and from the world before they died. After years of misery, the results of these grotesque animal experiments are vague and mixed, summarized by a published scientific review that concluded a “high level of uncertainty” regarding possible transmission of CWD to humans. These atrocious experiments are not only cruel and inconclusive, they are unnecessary. In a new study conducted at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories, a cerebral organoid model made from human cells, or a “mini-brain,” was used to study a deadly prion disease that affects humans known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). >>>Urge the National Institutes of Health to replace these inconclusive and cruel experiments on animals with cerebral organoids.
Cause for concern…
Reality bites: By the end of the century, more than 3 million new cases of dengue fever could crop up in Latin America and the Caribbean every year if global warming isn’t kept below 1.5° Celsius, warn scientists from the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom and the Universidade do Estado de Mato Grosso in Brazil, in a new study. The hotter and wetter conditions that are being ushered in by climate change allow mosquitoes like Aedes aegypti (pictured), a common vector of dengue fever and yellow fever, to thrive. (Photo credit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim/Wikipedia)
Sea battle: Oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill approaches the coast of Mobile, Alabama, on May 6, 2010. Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed three amendments to the FY20 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies funding bill (H.R. 3052), blocking the expansion of offshore oil drilling activities in the Atlantic, Pacific and eastern Gulf of Mexico for fiscal year 2020. The vote “underscores the strength and bipartisanship of opposition to dirty and dangerous offshore drilling, said Diane Hoskins, campaign director at Oceana. “President Trump’s radical offshore drilling plan threatens our fishing, tourism and recreation industries that rely on a clean and healthy ocean. It’s now up to the Senate to follow in the House’s footsteps to protect our coast.” (Photo credit: Petty Officer 1st Class Michael B. Watkins, U.S. Navy/Wikipedia)
When nine lives aren’t enough: Shelter animals in Utah, Missouri, Ohio and Wyoming who don’t end up being adopted must face a horrible death: asphyxiation in a gas chamber. This cruel method of euthanasia is condemned by most animal welfare experts, who recommend the significantly less traumatic method of lethal injection. (Photo credit: Thomas Park/Unsplash)
Care2: In four U.S. states, animal shelters have a special way to dispose of unwanted pets. They cram the animals into gas chambers, where they spend their last moments slowly asphyxiating to death. The process is terrifying, filled with panic and can take 30 minutes or even longer. This inhumane practice is almost universally condemned by animal welfare experts, who agree that the only appropriate option is euthanasia by injection. This alternative, while still extremely upsetting and tragic, is at least fast and minimally traumatic when performed by someone who has received humane euthanasia training. But in the states of Utah, Missouri, Ohio and Wyoming, that final kindness is not guaranteed for any shelter animal. Twenty-eight U.S. states have already banned the use of gas chambers in animal shelters. That’s not enough. >>>Tell Congress to make sure every animal is provided with a humane, dignified death by banning the use of asphyxiant gases to kill shelter animals.
Shark Stewards: Shark finning is the unsustainable and inhumane practice of cutting off a shark’s fins, often while the shark is still alive, and discarding the body into the ocean. The fins are used in shark fin soup and other dishes. Once an expensive dish limited to the nobility, shark fin soup is now widely sold to millions of consumers. As economies grow in Asia, a dish once reserved for the elite is now available to the middle class, and is in huge demand among many communities in China and around the world, including across the United States. Although shark finning is illegal in the U.S., the sale and trade of fins is still allowed in most states and shark fins are imported and re-exported, contributing to shark finning and other illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing of sharks. The shark fin trade is increasing shark catch, placing more pressure on threatened species and driving overfishing of many shark species. >>>Urge Congress to pass HR 737 The Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act of 2019.
Rainforest Rescue: The Caribbean: the name conjures up images of pristine white beaches, deep blue water and breathtaking coral reefs. Yet a local government seems oblivious to the ecological treasure just off its coast: The Cayman Islands want to ramp up mass tourism by building a new port for mega cruise ships—on top of a reef. The project would destroy twelve hectares of coral and other seabed forever. The sand and other solids disturbed by the dredging work would turn crystal-clear waters into an opaque soup, choking stationary underwater life forms as the sediment settles on them. The coral reef that has grown and thrived for centuries as a highly biodiverse ecosystem would be replaced by concrete. >>>Urge the Cayman Islands government to protect the Caribbean marine environment from the cruise industry.
Cause for concern…
Ghost story: A loblolly pine forest lined with dead trees at the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center in Grasonville, Maryland, in 2011. Since the mid-1800s in the Chesapeake Bay area, over 150 square miles of trees have turned into “ghost forests.” These large stands of dead trees—appearing up and down the Mid-Atlantic and Gulf Coast shores—are what Matthew Kirwan, a professor at William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science, calls “the best indicator of climate change on the East Coast.” (Photo credit: Alicia Pimental/Chesapeake Bay Program/Flickr)
Dog days: June is National Pet Preparedness Month. As we head into the start of hurricane and tropical storm season, with an increased threat of tornadoes and extreme weather, pet guardians can protect their dogs, cats other domestic animals during emergencies by being prepared in case disaster strikes. (Photo credit: Sharon McCutcheon/Unsplash)
Lucky few: Nearly 30 dogs were moved from a live dog warehouse in Yulin, China, to veterinary care during a rescue jointly conducted by Humane Society International and China Animal Protection Power on June 12, 2016. Throughout many parts of Asia, stolen pets and street animals suffer terrible abuse for the dog and cat meat trade before being killed through horrific means, such as beating or hanging. Animal rights activists are imploring China—as the country with the largest dog and cat meat trade in the world—to show leadership by ending the annual “festival” in Yulin, as well as the outward display of animal cruelty and officially ban the dog and cat meat trade in the country. (Photo credit: Mai Zi/CAPP)
Humane Society International: Right now across China, pets are being stolen, roaming dogs—owned and unowned—are violently grabbed from the streets and slaughterhouses are filled with terrified dogs. This cruelty supplies the country’s dog meat markets and the annual dog meat “festival” happening this week in Yulin. But this is only the beginning of their suffering. The journey to Yulin is a ruthless and appalling one. Crammed on top of each other and transported in trucks for days without food or water, some won’t make it alive. For those who do, they’ll wait, frightened and helpless, until it’s their turn to be pulled by the neck with iron tongs and beaten to death for someone’s meal. >>>Urge Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang to end Yulin and the dog and cat meat trade once and for all.
Environmental Advocates of New York: New York is on the verge of passing the strongest climate legislation in the country. The Climate and Community Protection Act (CCPA) would rapidly transition the state’s economy off of fossil fuels, invest 40 percent of the state’s climate fund into low-income communities and communities of color, and set high wage standards to make green jobs. >>>New Yorkers, tell your legislators to pass the CCPA.
Cause for concern…
Killer tans: When you swim with sunscreen on, corals can absorb toxic chemicals like oxybenzone, which disrupts their reproduction and growth cycles, causing bleaching, which can kill entire coral colonies. Coral reefs, which contain Earth’s most diverse ecosystems, provide habitats and shelter for countless marine species, protect coastlines from storms and maintain healthy water quality, already face numerous threats, including ocean acidification, coastal development, pollution and over-harvesting for the coral trade. Thankfully, some sunscreens are “coral safe,” as they don’t contain oxybenzone. (Photo credit: chezbeate/Pixabay)
Supporting sodbusters: State lawmakers across the United States have introduced 39 soil health bills this year alone, with more than 250 such bills introduced in statehouses and Washington, D.C., over the past two legislative sessions. These lawmakers are listening to farmers and scientists who understand that regenerative farming practices like cover crops and rotational grazing help prevent soil erosion, lower toxic runoff intro waterways, support biodiversity, improve soil moisture and nutrient content and sequester carbon, while increasing profits. (Photo credit: Binyamin Mellish/Pexels)
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.
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)
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)
“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
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)
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)
“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
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)
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)
“True benevolence or compassion, extends itself through the whole of existence and sympathizes with the distress of every creature capable of sensation.” —Joseph Addison
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 PrisonedChickens, 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.
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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)
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)
“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
Unhappy trails: Repair work being done to the Big Oak Flat road in Yosemite National Park in 2017 following damage to soils caused by severe winter storms. Inconsistent funding from Congress has left the National Park System with a nearly $12 billion repair backlog. (Photo credit: National Park Service)
Pew Charitable Trusts: The U.S. National Park System contains some of the nation’s greatest natural, cultural and recreation treasures that have become beloved destinations for millions of Americans and international visitors. As a result, parks are also a major economic engine for adjacent communities, generating over $18 billion for local economies each year and more than 306,000 jobs annually. Sadly, aging infrastructure, visitor pressures and a history of inconsistent congressional funding has led to nearly $12 billion backlog of repairs. These include crumbling roads and bridges; rotting historic buildings; impassable hiking trails; and deteriorating electrical, water and sewage systems. If unaddressed, these repair needs could threaten visitor access and safety. Bipartisan legislation has recently been introduced in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives to provide dedicated funds to address priority maintenance needs within our parks and on public lands. >>>Urge your members of Congress to support The Restore Our Parks Act (S. 500) and the Restore Our Parks and Public Lands Act (H.R. 1225).
American Heart Association: Children and teens in the United States drink more than 30 gallons of sugary drinks every year, including sports drinks, fruit-flavored drinks and sodas. In March, the American Academy of Pediatrics and American Heart Association announced a set of policy recommendations designed to reduce kid’s consumption of sugary drinks—like sugary drink taxes and less marketing to children. >>>Urge your representatives to support policies to reduce kids’ sugary drink consumption.
Care2: Every year, hundreds of thousands of animals are forced to endure cruel testing procedures by cosmetics companies. Yes, it’s hard to believe, but many cosmetics companies still test on animals prior to releasing products to the market. Animals are rubbed with chemicals to check for irritation and forced to ingest large quantities of chemicals to determine what constitutes a “lethal dose.” And when the animals are no longer needed, they are killed. Thankfully, some American states have made headway in banning the practice. California, New York, New Jersey and Virginia have each banned animal testing for cosmetics, sending a strong message to cosmetic manufacturers that animal testing is not OK. Unfortunately, animals can still be used for testing in the rest of the country. >>>46 states still allow animal testing for cosmetics: Sign the petition to support a nationwide ban.
Humane Society of the United States: An undercover investigation has exposed heartbreaking realities for bunnies in Petland, one of the country’s largest chains of pet stores. The investigation revealed a disturbing lack of concern for the rabbits’ health or safety. There was no veterinary care that investigators could see for any of the rabbits. In the store, sick rabbits were left to die and then stuffed in bags and put in the freezer. The undercover investigator found 14 dead rabbits in Petland’s freezer on a single day in January 2019 alone. One employee stated on hidden camera, “There’s nothing we can do because they don’t get checked by a vet. We just let them die.” Also uncovered was a connection between Petland and a rabbit mill where about 200 rabbits were packed into filthy cages. When an investigator asked an employee about the rabbit breeder, the employee said they came from a good place where the rabbits were treated nicely. This couldn’t be further from the truth. >>>Demand that Petland makes the right decision and stops selling bunnies, kittens and puppies in their stores.
Cause for concern…
Bad air: Children are forced to wear masks due to the toxic smoke from peat land fires. Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan. According to a new major study, the life expectancy of children born today will be shortened by an average of 20 months due to breathing toxic air, with the most severe impact in south Asia. (Photo credit: Aulia Erlangga/Center for International Forestry Research)
Mother nature: A woman works on her cassava field in the Mkuranga district in eastern Tanzania. A new study suggests that environmental conservation goals are better achieved when more women are involved in group decisions about land management. Researchers traveled to more than 30 rural villages near collectively-managed forests in Indonesia, Peru and Tanzania. (Photo credit: Roots, Holly Holmes/Tubers and Bananas/Flickr)
“The ultimate test of man’s conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.” —Gaylord Nelson
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