Archive for November, 2011
Talk Back: The McFib and Cruel Gestation Crates
Last week, The HSUS filed a complaint against Smithfield Foods for claiming that it keeps pigs in an “ideal” environment where their “every need is met,” and not surprisingly, it drew broad media attention and outrage. Many of you were upset by the Smithfield news and wrote in with these comments.
Farm Animal Protection in Jeopardy at the Supreme Court
Today, Supreme Court justices considered a precedent-setting animal welfare case centering on a challenge by a slaughterhouse trade association to provisions of California’s anti-cruelty law relating to the abuse of livestock unable to stand or walk. If the Supreme Court strikes down this law, we may not only see California’s anti-cruelty law gutted, but we may also see anti-horse slaughter laws in California, Illinois, and Texas shot down, too.
Celebrating Animal Shelters, This Week and Year-Round
This week, we’re celebrating the 15th annual National Animal Shelter and Rescue Appreciation Week. Check out our fun new video about shelter pets and find out how you can support your local shelter or rescue group.
How Charlie the Capuchin Found a New Home
The HSUS’s Pets for Life NYC initiative helps people resolve problems that might otherwise lead them to relinquish their pets to animal shelters. This October, we received a call from a New Yorker who wanted to find a new home for her capuchin monkey called Mr. Charlie.
“Ideal” Conditions, or a Big McFib?
If I told you that pigs confined in gestation crates for most of their lives were living in “ideal” conditions where their “every need is met,” you’d probably have a quarrel with that. Yet that’s exactly what Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer and McDonald’s primary pork supplier, asserts on its website.
1 Million Online Advocates for Animals
The HSUS has more than 11 million supporters, and yesterday our Facebook community reached 1 million fans committed to animal protection. We’re celebrating with a pet photo slideshow, and you can submit your own photo on our page.
A Life Well Lived: Sue Farinato
After I found an injured pigeon on a busy Washington, D.C., street in September, I called my colleague and friend Sue Farinato, an experienced wildlife rehabilitator. Sue cleaned the bird’s wounds and cared for her, calling her Geraldine. I didn’t know that my exchanges with Sue about Geraldine would be our last.
Curiouser and Curiouser
A new TV show on the Discovery Channel called “Curiosity” features hosts such as Stephen Hawking and Morgan Freeman exploring what the program calls “the most fundamental questions facing the world today” about science, technology, and society. I was interviewed for the show’s website as a leader in animal protection, and you can watch my responses online.
