In 2015, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved AquaBounty Technologies to sell its genetically modified (GMO) “AquAdvantage” salmon in the U.S., making it the first GMO animal to be approved for sale to U.S. consumers. After the first “harvest” of AquAdvantage in May, the first shipments of GMO salmon were sent to restaurants in eastern U.S. states in June. …
Four Meaningful Legal Victories For Farmed Animals
July 28, 2021 update: On July 28, 2021, Animal Outlook and our coalition partners achieved another courtroom victory for farmed animals. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected another challenge from the meat industry to California’s Proposition 12, a law that bans the intensive confinement of egg-laying hens, mother pigs and calves used for veal. In …
Top Five Misconceptions About Fish & Seafood
The aquaculture and fishing industries have have historically flown under the radar with regard to animal cruelty as many people don’t think of fish as animals like cows or pigs. However, with the recent release of the groundbreaking documentary Seaspiracy, and an overall growing concern for climate change and ocean protection, the truth about these industries is beginning to come …
How to Mainstream Vegan Values and Actions? Science And a Little Practical Common Sense
Science and a little practical common sense can mainstream vegan values and actions In my first three posts in this series on Animal Outlook’s four programs, I talked about specific strategies and tactics to move us beyond factory farming and into a world where people feel empowered by the knowledge of what’s happening to animals and how they can be …
Thinking About the Meaning of Motherhood For All This Mother’s Day
Each Mother’s Day, I think about both my own experience as a mother and the way our society treats the mother-child bond for so many non-human moms. To me, the essence of motherhood is both strength and vulnerability, with the celebration of new life and all of its promise and need for nurturing to realize its potential. Mothers and children …
“Gunda” Director Viktor Kossakovsky Interview With Animal Outlook’s Erin Wing
Viktor Kossakovsky, director of the breakout hit documentary Gunda, speaks with Erin Wing, Animal Outlook’s deputy director of investigations about the making of the film, his childhood experiences that inspired him to stop eating animals when he was just four years old, and much more. Experiential cinema in its purest form, Gunda chronicles the unfiltered lives of a mother pig, …
Does The Law Protect Farmed Animals?
I decided to go to law school because I wanted an end to animal exploitation, and I had the idealistic belief that law plays the unique role in our society of legitimizing moral progress. Historically, the role of law in the fight for the expansion of rights for mistreated individuals and groups has been crucial. Once a moral principle is …
Muddying the Waters: Aquaculture’s Plague on Welfare, Environment & Health
Aquaculture is a rapidly growing form of food production, but that’s not a good thing for animals, the environment or consumers. Aquaculture involves the farming of aquatic animal and plant species. In 2016, global aquaculture raised roughly 110.2 million metric tons of fish for food. As a grim testament to the magnitude of animals slaughtered in industrial aquaculture, the United …
Why Undercover Investigations? My Top Five Reasons
Investigations are our most powerful tool in righting the wrongs inflicted upon billions of animals each year. Here are my top five reasons.