From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “A Hen’s Space to Roost” (Week in Review, Aug. 15):

We are glad to see an article describing the intensive confinement of egg-laying chickens, but we disagree when it says that animal advocates and consumers are “driving big changes” in the treatment of chickens.

Thus far, the state ballot initiatives and agreements that will expand space for chickens (as well as for gestating pigs and veal calves) are really very minor. At most, chickens will be guaranteed room to spread their wings. They will still lack the freedom to engage in natural behaviors like foraging and nesting. Most will never know sunlight, breezes, plants or soil.

At our farm sanctuary, we see how much chickens rescued from factory farms delight in these experiences. Like humans, animals have a right to enjoy life.

Bill Crain
Ellen Crain
Poughquag, N.Y., Aug. 15, 2010

The writers are co-founders of Safe Haven Farm Sanctuary.

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “A Hen’s Space to Roost” (Week in Review, Aug. 15):

I have one very simple piece of advice for consumers interested in higher-quality eggs from humanely treated chickens: stop buying eggs at the grocery store. I distribute locally produced, free-range eggs from my home to a small group of friends, but these kinds of eggs are widely available through farmers’ markets at prices that range from $2 to $3.50 a dozen.

The eggs we eat come from chickens that spend their days outside, scratching and eating grubs. In addition to allowing me to feel good about eating the fruits of their labor, they are the most delicious eggs—with shockingly rich, bright-yellow yolks—that have ever graced my lips. I’ll never go back.

Josh Miner
La Crosse, Wis., Aug. 15, 2010

The writer is farm-to-school coordinator for the La Crosse County Health Department and a former W. K. Kellogg food and society policy fellow.

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Disgusting but Not Illegal” (editorial, Aug. 2): We disagree with your contention that the First Amendment protects animal “crush” videos.

In United States v. Stevens, the Supreme Court last year overturned a 1999 law banning depictions of animal cruelty on the grounds of overbreadth. The justices were legitimately concerned that the law could impede valid speech. But they explicitly reserved judgment on a statute narrowly tailored to crush videos.

These videos, the subject of House legislation and of a bill that we plan to introduce, are beyond “disgusting”—and go beyond conventional conceptions of animal cruelty. They depict truly extreme forms of animal cruelty—often involving young women torturing small animals—and are created for the prurient interest of a small sick segment of society.

While all 50 states and the District of Columbia have animal cruelty laws, the anonymity of the perpetrators in the videos severely frustrates enforcement efforts, so we need to ban the sale of these videos.

We share your opposition to tinkering with the First Amendment. And the Supreme Court’s decision is a reminder of the importance of narrowly tailoring this legislation, but it has not determined that these crush videos constitute protected speech. We believe our new legislation will pass constitutional muster.

Jon Kyl
Jeff Merkley
Richard Burr
Washington, Aug. 5, 2010

The writers are United States senators.

Statistics

There were 2,003 visits to this blog during July, which is an average of 64.6 visits per day.

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

In your July 12 editorial “A Humane Egg,” you disparage the modern, sanitary housing systems for egg-laying hens, which have improved chickens’ health and well-being, improved consumer food safety and kept eggs a nutritious and economical staple on kitchen tables and restaurant menus nationwide.

These modern systems allow hens to stand up, turn around, lie down and walk to clean water and nutritious food troughs. Groups like the American Veterinary Medical Association support these modern egg-laying housing systems.

The California law adds an arbitrary and unscientific requirement that chickens be prohibited from touching one another or the side of any enclosure. Yet there is no scientific proof that the requirement will improve chicken well-being or food safety.

The new law will cost American family farmers, and ultimately California consumers, hundreds of millions of dollars.

Gene Gregory
President, United Egg Producers
Alpharetta, Ga., July 13, 2010

To the Editor:

Today tens of thousands of American farmers don’t even own the livestock they raise, and the conditions they raise animals in are dictated to them by a handful of extremely powerful companies that are concerned only with the bottom line.

So while The Times is to be commended for continuing to highlight the many terrible aspects of factory farms, including inhumane confinement practices, let’s not forget that because of the extraordinary consolidation and vertical integration of American agriculture over the last 60-plus years, American farmers are enduring extraordinary suffering as well.

Inhumane confinement, illegal anticompetitive practices and factory farming hurt animals, the environment, the consumer, the public health and the farmer. Reversing the agricultural trends of the last half century is a policy area where almost everyone’s interests are aligned.

Regina Weiss
Brooklyn, July 12, 2010

Henry S. Salt (1851-1939) on Progress

Does Vegetarianism progress? Yes and no, according to the expectations, reasonable and unreasonable, that its supporters have been cherishing. If we have fondly hoped to witness, in the near future, the triumph of the humaner living, it must be allowed that the actual rate of progress is extremely disheartening; but if, on the contrary, we work under a rational understanding that a widespread change of diet, like any other radical change, is a matter not of years but of centuries, then we shall not find in the slow growth of our movement any reason for dissatisfaction. Revolution in personal habits, be it remembered, is even more difficult than revolution in political forms, and needs a greater time for its fulfilment; and looked at in this light, Vegetarianism has made as much progress, during the past half-century, as any other cause which aims at so far-reaching a change.

(Henry S. Salt, The Logic of Vegetarianism: Essays and Dialogues [London: The Ideal Publishing Union, 1899], 114)

From Today's New York Times

A Humane Egg

The life of animals raised in confinement on industrial farms is slowly improving, thanks to pressure from consumers, animal rights advocates, farmers and legislators. In late June, a compromise was reached in Ohio that will gradually put an end to the tiny pens used for raising veal calves and holding pregnant sows, spaces so small the animals can barely move.

In California last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law requiring that all whole eggs sold in the state conform to the provisions of Proposition 2, the humane farming law that was embraced by state voters in a landslide in 2008. By 2015, every whole egg sold in the state must come from a hen that is able to stretch her wings, standing or lying, without touching another bird or the edges of her cage. This requirement would at least relieve the worst of the production horrors that are common in the industry now.

Since California does not produce all the eggs it eats, this new law will have a wider effect on the industry; every producer who hopes to sell eggs in the state must meet its regulations.

Heartening as these developments are, there is also strong resistance from the food industry and from fake consumer-advocacy groups that are shilling for it.

In fact, there is no justification, economic or otherwise, for the abusive practice of confining animals in spaces barely larger than the volume of their bodies. Animals with more space are healthier, and they are no less productive.

Industrial confinement is cruel and senseless and will turn out to be, we hope, a relatively short-lived anomaly in modern farming.

Statistics

This blog had 2,066 visits during June, which is an average of 68.8 visits per day.

J. J. C. Smart on Ethical Progress

If there has been progress in ethics recently it has been through the realization of some ethicists that animal happiness and suffering has to be considered equally with that of human beings. I should draw attention here to the remarkable book Animal Liberation by Professor Peter Singer of Monash University. Christian ethics has been deficient in this respect, since animals have been regarded as things made by God for the use of men. However, utilitarianism has been mindful of animals. Unlike Kantians, who are primarily concerned with the rationality of those with whom we deal, Bentham, for example, was clear that the important question was not whether animals were rational, but was whether they can suffer. At any rate, the increased attention to the sufferings of animals is one of the most notable examples of progress in ethics over the last hundred years or so. We should, of course, be equally mindful of extra-terrestrial consciousnesses, should we come across any such and have to interact with them.

(J. J. C. Smart, "Ethics and Science," Philosophy 56 [October 1981]: 449-65, at 450 [footnotes omitted])

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There were 2,566 visits to this blog during May, which is an average of 82.7 visits per day.

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Freedom of Speech

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment protects depictions of animal cruelty. This does not mean that it protects animal cruelty, which is (and ought to be) illegal in every state.

Animals

Sunny

I'm a dog person, not a bird person, but I understand the loss suffered by my friend Peg today.

Slaughter

This is a few years old, but everyone should read it.

Statistics

This blog had 4,003 visits during March, which is an average of 129.1 visits per day. It's the fourth-best month in the blog's history.

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Animal Abuse as Clue to Additional Cruelties” (news article, March 18):

As someone who deals with dozens of cruelty-to-animals cases every week, I applaud states that are imposing stricter penalties on people who hurt animals and that are working to establish online registries of animal abusers.

Animal abusers are cowards who take their issues out on “easy victims”—and their targets often include their fellow humans. I cannot begin to say how many incidents I’ve seen involving animal abusers who commit violent acts against humans, and animal neglecters who have also neglected their children or other human dependents.

Treating cruelty to animals with the seriousness it deserves doesn’t only protect animals, it also makes the entire community safer.

Martin Mersereau
Norfolk, Va., March 18, 2010
The writer is director of the Emergency Response Team, cruelty investigations department, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Animal Rights

Here is a New York Times blog post about legal rights for animals.

Statistics

This blog had 3,399 visits during February, which is an average of 121.3 visits per day.

A Look at Humane Farming

The film Partitions (running time: 14 minutes) by Audrey Kali gives an intimate glimpse of the ethical struggles that five small-scale meat farmers face when their animals are slaughtered. In this film, we see farmers interacting with the animals they will eventually transform into food (chickens, pigs, and cattle). The farmers in the film confront very difficult questions posed by the filmmaker about why they think their approach to processing of meat is different from that of factory farming. Although the farmers can easily answer that their animals are treated more humanely whilst alive, their discomfort about being asked questions regarding the slaughter process is visually and audibly obvious.

This film provides an accurate portrayal of small-scale, non-intensive animal farming. This is as humane as "humane farming" gets. One of the farmers interviewed says: "We give our pigs and our chickens many weeks of relatively happy life." The farmer fails to note that the natural lifespan of pigs is 11-15 years and the natural lifespan of chickens is 5-11 years, depending on breed. After watching the film, the viewer can decide whether giving these animals a few weeks of "a relatively happy life" is humane enough to justify taking these animals' lives for products that no one needs.