However, I do want to share the following links:
LA Voice: Directors Of Animal Welfare: Helping Los Angeles Communities and The Animals
Kris Kelly, [Director of Animal Welfare] for Beverly Hills and Pacific Palisades, feels the program’s biggest accomplishment to date is the relationship formed with Ed Boks. “I think Mr. Boks and his department no longer feel alienated by the animal community. We’re working together for all of Los Angeles.” The DAW Animal Abuse Committee, which Kelly chairs, was recently asked to join with the new Los Angeles Animal Cruelty Task Force to share ideas and achieve goals. According to Kelly, “The only way we are truly going to make L.A. a no-kill city is by joining hands, not fighting with each other.” Differing groups have varying approaches but their goals are the same, so the DAW Program is serving as a unifying conduit to make things happen -- a sort of “United Nations” of Animal Welfare.Hurray for coalitions!
Yahoo! News | Finance (UK & Ireland): Fresh plea not to resume live cattle exports
Fresh reminder that the dairy industry is no less cruel than the meat industry. The two, in fact, are inextricably entwined here as the beef carcass trade resumes in the United Kingdom:
On average the UK exported 418,000 live cattle a year from 1991 to 1995, a trade worth about £75m annually. Most were bull calves, usually under one week old, from the dairy herd, not needed for breeding and almost worthless - because of poor carcase conformation - for the conventional UK beef trade.
On the continent these calves were reared intensively and slaughtered at a few months old for veal. Loss of that trade made most dairy bull calves worthless - today most are shot on farm.
Hard-pressed UK dairy farmers now see export of live calves for the veal trade, particularly in France and the Netherlands, at more than £50 a head, as a potential income booster.
But Ross Minett, director of Edinburgh-based Advocates for Animals, condemned the idea yesterday. He said: "We are opposed to this trade on two grounds. First, the stress involved in transport, which leaves these animals more susceptible to disease when they arrive.
"Second, many calves will be reared in conditions which are illegal in the UK, with only minimal bedding in the first few weeks."
He added: "Looking at this trade from a calf's point of view, it would be preferable to be shot at birth."
With Peter Singer speaking at the University of Minnesota campus tonight (7 p.m. at Ted Mann Concert Hall), The Minnesota Daily has published a few pieces between yesterday and today that are relevant to factory-farmed animal protection, including a no-holds barred indictment of American consumers, whose purchases power animal abuse, according to writer Matthew Brophy. Peter Singer weighs in as well, with ethical opinions on confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
The paper has also published an excoriating opinion that appears to completely miss the point of Singer's philosophical thinking. That said, Katheryn J. Ware is not the only one who finds Singer's utilitarian approach distasteful, because it comes off in support of abortion and infanticide. But I urge everyone who has only read about Singer and his writings on a second-hand basis to actually visit his works before condemning this approach. There's much within his influential Animal Liberation to provoke you into examining your views.
After you're done there, be sure to look into Tom Regan, Carol Adams, and especially Gary Francione, who extends beyond Singer's utilitarian thinking with the cutting-edge book, Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog?, which addresses more completely the challenge facing animals and AR activists today.
Next from The Minnesota Daily is yesteday's piece on a stymied attempt to switch to cage-free eggs in the University of Minnestota's residence halls.
In other animal welfare news, the L.A. Zoo elephant saga continues as, yesterday, Los Angeles Zoo officials reviewed a conceptual plan for a 3 1/2 -acre space: Los Angeles Times: Giving Elephants Space Won't Cost Just Peanuts
Categories: DAW | director of animal welfare | live export | veal | dairy | Peter Singer | factory farming | CAFO | animal rights | animal liberation | elephants | zoo
