Farm Animals

I am heading over to the state Capitol in Sacramento to testify on legislation to strengthen California’s protection of downed animals. This bill, A.B. 2098 by Assemblyman Paul Krekorian, comes in response to the HSUS investigation of the Hallmark/Westland Meat Co. in Chino for its . . . 

Since the release of The HSUS’s investigation into the abuse of downed dairy cows at a California slaughter plant, readers have been encouraged by the attention being paid to the treatment of animals raised for food. Among the comments we’ve received: This is a huge . . . 

Yesterday, Steve Mendell, the chief executive at Hallmark/Westland Meat Co., appeared before the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.). Mendell declined the committee’s first request to testify, and appeared at this second hearing after receiving a subpoena from the committee. . . . 

When an investigation packs the kind of force that our Hallmark/Westland Meat Co. exposé has, there are bound to be some counterattacks from the industry and regulators whose conduct has been called into question. For the most part, the counterattacks have been limited to the . . . 

The Michael Vick case continues to have a major tail against both dogfighters and cockfighters. Lawmakers in Idaho and Wyoming have passed bills to make dogfighting a felony—and now all 50 states have felony-level penalties. Legislation passed in Oregon makes that state the twentieth to . . . 

Yesterday was a big day for farm animals. © USDA First, Californians for Humane Farms—a statewide ballot initiative committee that The HSUS helped to create—turned in to the state of California nearly 800,000 signatures in support of a prospective November 2008 petition to phase out . . . 

I am heading over to Capitol Hill now to testify at a U.S. Senate Subcommittee hearing, which was called to discuss the recent HSUS investigation into cruelty to downed dairy cows at the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., the subsequent beef recall, and USDA oversight issues (to . . . 

Young advocates are a powerful force in our movement. We saw evidence of this last week, when two teenage boys testified at an Oregon Senate hearing to help toughen penalties for dogfighting. Oregon State Rep. Brian Clem said it best to the Statesman Journal: "This . . . 

The Wall Street Journal reports on its front page today that the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co., with annual revenues of about $100 million, is expected to permanently shut down as a result of the fallout from The HSUS investigation into the dairy cow slaughter plant’s . . . 

Newly appointed Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer was just on his second day at the job when The HSUS released the results of our investigation into a southern California slaughter plant that had made its core business the slaughter of "spent" dairy cows. Obviously, any missteps . . . 

As reaction to The HSUS’s investigation at Hallmark/Westland Meat Co. and news of the massive recall of beef from the plant continues to reverberate, readers continue to write in. Among the comments we received: Thank you to The HSUS for all your hard work with . . .