Whether it’s television, print news, radio, film, or music, media has the power to shape—and change—social attitudes as well as our behaviors for the good. To celebrate the important role that news and entertainment media play in raising awareness about animal protections issues, the Humane Society of the United States hosts the annual Genesis Awards.
Imagine the misery of being intensively confined day in and day out inside a tiny, overcrowded space with barely enough room to move. Now imagine being stuck there starving and thirsty without any food or water, and there’s no way you can escape.
While factory farmers, food manufacturers, and retailers play the blame game in Europe over the discovery of horse DNA in various beef products, a significant number of British consumers are responding by not just avoiding the possibly tainted beef, but eating less meat overall.
Earlier this year, The Humane Society of the United States released a graphic undercover video revealing extreme cruelty to mother pigs and their piglets inside the Wheatland, Wyo.-based Wyoming Premium Farms.
The footage – which shows downright sadistic scenes of animal abuse including mother
pigs repeatedly punched and kicked in the face, piglets swung around by
their back legs or kicked like soccer balls – was turned over to local authorities who announced this week that further action will be taken.
“The reality of food processing can be off-putting… There is always a percentage of dead birds [and] chicken houses that will inherently contain a level of fly and rodent activity.” – Ron Kreider, President of Kreider Farms, responds to new undercover video
Just a few short weeks after Iowa shamefully enacted an “ag-gag” bill in an effort to stop undercover investigations inside factory farms, Utah is now joining the list. Yesterday, Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed an “ag-gag” bill into law that makes “agriculture operation interference” a crime, punishable by up to one year in jail. What exactly is “agricultural operation interference”?
Agribusiness interests in Iowa desperately don’t want you to see this COK video: In fact, Iowa Ag has been feverishly pushing through a state-level ”ag-gag” bill aimed at criminalizing undercover investigations, like COK’s, that shine a bright light on the cruel and inhumane treatment of animals rampantly found on factory farms. Shamefully, Iowa’s Governor signed this dangerous bill into law late last week.
Ever wonder why the pork and beef industries routinely cut animals’ testicles out without painkiller? Well, you might be surprised by what one industry journal is recommending factory farmers tell you.
That’s right. After watching COK’s new undercover footage taken inside a pig breeding factory farm in Iowa, the National Pork Board proclaimed “the practices shown in the video are not abusive.”