Kristof on slaughterhouses, animal testing phase-outs, cruelty connection + more 4/13/25

I was on a forced vacation from DawnWatch last week while my computer was in hospital. What a joy to be back on track just in time for Nicholas Kristof’s latest New York Times offering on the horrors of animal slaughter! That paper also has two fiction book reviews likely to be of interest to animal rights folks. Today’s Los Angeles brings us the opportunity to connect animal cruelty with attacks on humans. The Boston Globe shares the wonderful news that the FDA plans to phase-out animal testing. That follows fast on the heels of news breaking last week that the EPA director intends to reinstate the previous Trump administration’s phase-out of animal testing. And NPR’s Weekend Edition today has a couple of stories of interest – on the preservation of wolves in Italy and on a new children’s book focusing on animals and environment.

Before I get to those let me send thanks to all who send letters to the editor regularly. Because editors want to hear from readers – especially local readers but also those who have seen their stories online – and are wary of publishing letters that appear to be part of a campaign, I am myself wary of asking you to write in response to any particular articles, and will certainly never tell you what to write. But as general guidance, I will remind folks that animals badly need our voices in the major media.

Though more and more people are getting their news from alternative sources, major mainstream newspapers are still hugely influential. All of the independent media producers look at them, and legislators and other decision makers see the letters pages as barometers of public opinion. Every time you write, whether or not your letter gets published, it will get read by a highly influential person – a major paper’s letters editor. Remember that it is most likely to get published if it is short, and if it praises rather than slams the paper before making whatever point you hope to make.

If you cannot find time to dash off a letter, a quick animal friendly comment on an article can encourage others to respond similarly. You never know the impact you might have.

In my last alert I noted my concern that the Los Angeles Times had lost letters editor Paul Thornton, who we knew to be sympathetic to animal matters. I am therefore thrilled to thank all of you who wrote in response to the articles I sent out in my last general alert, about the controversial dairies in the Point Reyes area of Northern California, and the salmon fishing season shut down in California, while sharing that the letters page chose to headline and feature both of those issues.

Under the headline, “Should Point Reyes Dairies Stay?” (here‘s how the page looked) the paper included two letters that slammed the dairy industry, one, from Noel Park, on environmental grounds, and one from Tracy Keys, which included:

“A cow must be pregnant for humans to take her milk that is produced to grow a baby cow. Females are artificially inseminated. Not pleasant for them. Point Reyes dairies have done a brilliant job painting a sweet picture of their generational farms. Data do not lie about the fecal runoff, not to mention the damage a herd does to the land. While I am sympathetic to the workers, it’s time to say goodbye to a cruel and destructive tradition.”

Then the paper ran letters from the inimitable Elaine Livesey-Fassel and me under the headline, “An Obligation to Undo our Impact,” (here‘s how those looked on the page). My brief letter ran as follows:

“I was pleased to read that humans are planning to do the right thing and cancel the Chinook salmon fishing season again due to low numbers. I was disappointed that the article didn’t mention the orcas and other animals around the world starving to death for lack of salmon. The endangered Pacific Northwest orcas rely on Chinook salmon. Whales, other marine mammals and birds simply cannot switch to tofu, tempeh, beans and nuts for protein. We can, and should, if we want to save their lives.”

(Let me note that ideally I would have written, “The article might have also mentioned” rather than, “I was disappointed the article didn’t mention” and I am grateful the paper printed it nevertheless.)

Mark Thompson and I discussed that issue – the orcas and other marine animals dying for lack of salmon – on his show last week. We recommended getting vegan omega 3s from algae (just as the fish do) and Mark gave a shout out to Jonathan Balcombe’s superb book, “What a Fish Knows.” I hope you’ll check out the segment! Please don’t forget to give it a thumbs up if you enjoy it. That helps with distribution. Comments help even more!

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Today’s, Sunday April 13, New York Times column by Nicolas Kristof is titled, “Animal That Feel the Slice of the Knife.” (Sunday Review, page 14.) It is a topic Kristof visits every so often in his New York Times columns and I love him more every time he does. I urge you to read, and share widely, the whole piece, which ends with:

“Some day, I suspect, we will wonder how we could have allowed so many animals to endure such profound suffering. As a onetime farm boy who raised sheep, cattle, geese, chickens and other animals, I understand that these aren’t just industrial cogs but animals with personalities not so different from our dogs and cats.

“I’ve written about how the slaughter of pigs can go wrong, causing them to suffocate slowly. I’ve documented how chickens on the assembly line sometimes are scalded to death in boiling water. We have evolved a system that is a triumph of efficiency, providing Americans with cheap protein and holding down grocery bills. But all this comes at a monumental cost in animal suffering.

“Laws and inspections have led to progress in slaughter conditions over the decades, and more could be done: It would help if an inspector was constantly observing animals being stunned and making sure they are insensible when they are hoisted and cut into. By my calculations, that would cost less than one-tenth of a cent per pound of beef.

“What I keep thinking is this: If you torture one animal, you’re arrested and considered a psychopath. But if you abuse millions of animals in a systematic, industrial process, you’re hailed for your business acumen. That’s an uncomfortable contradiction at the heart of modern dining.”

Actually, the online version ends with, “The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.”

Here’s a gift link. (Thanks Teresa D’Amico! And thanks to Jeff Masson and others for making sure we didn’t miss that one.)

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Fiction readers might also want to check out the New York Times book review of The Colony, which includes:

“This is just one strand of Annika Norlin’s first novel, ”The Colony,” a disturbing, engrossing portrait of a tiny community living beyond society. They’re an incongruous group, each so physically distinct it’s clear to any onlooker they belong to no traditional social unit, like family or a team of loggers.

“Among their ranks: the orphaned man, József; his partner, Sara, who was imprisoned for extreme animal-rights protests and exerts a dark magnetism over her peers;…”

And in a review of the novel, The Fact Checker, in the same paper we read:

“Especially in one chapter so gruesome I had to read it through reluctantly parted fingers, “The Fact Checker” argues for a heightened sensitivity to the brutality of the food chain. (In this it reminded me of ‘The Vegan,’ Andrew Lipstein’s 2023 novel about a financier who starts hearing the animals.)”

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Today’s, Sunday April 13, Los Angeles Times includes an article, page B4, titled, “Child abuse suspect assaulted dog, police say.” It opens:

“While detectives were scouring the phone of a Sonoma County man arrested on suspicion of possessing child sexual abuse material, they allegedly found a different form of disturbing media — videos of the man sexually assaulting a small dog.

“Now, the man faces charges for both animal and child abuse.” Here’s a Yahoo link.

No surprises there but a great opportunity to send a letter to the editor! (If you just happen to be inclined.)

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Today’s Boston Globe, page 27, announces, “FDA plans to phase out use of anim­als in drug test­ing.” That article opens:

“In an unexpected move, the US Food and Drug Administration announced plans to reduce — and possibly replace — animal testing with other methods for developing certain medicines in a bid to lower R&D costs and, eventually, the prices for prescription drugs.

“The agency will encourage researchers to use computer modeling and artificial intelligence to predict how a drug will perform, as well as organs-on-a-chip, which are miniaturized devices that mimic organs and tissues. And to determine effectiveness, the FDA will begin using existing, real-world safety data from other countries where a drug has already been studied in humans.

“’For too long, drug manufacturers have performed additional animal testing of drugs that have data in broad human use internationally. This initiative marks a paradigm shift in drug evaluation and holds promise to accelerate cures and meaningful treatments for Americans while reducing animal use,’ said FDA Commissioner Martin Makary in a statement.

“’For patients, it means a more efficient pipeline for novel treatments. It also means an added margin of safety, since human-based test systems may better predict real-world outcomes. For animal welfare, it represents a major step toward ending the use of laboratory animals in drug testing. Thousands of animals, including dogs and primates, could eventually be spared each year as these new methods take root.’”

(I will note that it may be thousands of dogs and monkeys but is is millions of rodents.)

We later read:

“Investors in companies that conduct animal testing for the pharmaceutical industry, though, were alarmed. On Thursday, shares in Charles River Laboratories, a leading contract research organizations that has stirred controversy over its use of non-human primates, plunged 28 percent after the FDA issued its announcement.”

Now that might be considered cause for a happy letter to the editor!

As I noted above, that announcement comes on the heels of the EPA announcing its reinstatement of the phase-out of animal testing. Here is Science.org’s announcement of that:

“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has done a 360 on animal testing. In 2019, under the first Trump administration, the agency announced it would phase out all of its mammal testing of potentially harmful environmental chemicals by 2035. The plan—backed by animal rights and welfare groups—divided scientists, some of whom saw it as a way to turbocharge the development of nonanimal alternatives for such testing, like organ-on-a-chip technology, and others who feared humans themselves would become guinea pigs if potentially dangerous compounds were not properly vetted. Then, under former President Joe Biden, EPA reversed course, saying the 2035 deadline was arbitrary and not supported by science. Now, the agency is changing its tune once again: According to The Washington Times, new EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin plans to reinstate the phaseout. Zeldin has a history of pushing to end animal experiments while in Congress, including an effort to end cat and dog research at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

—David Grimm”

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Today’s Weekend Edition on NPR brought us an encouraging segment on the recovery of wolves in Italy and a particularly sweet segment on a new children’s book, which includes:

“The Littlest Drop is Sascha Alper’s debut children’s book, based on a parable from the indigenous Quechua people of South America. In Alper’s adaptation, all of the animals flee to the river — except the hummingbird, who goes to get one little drop of water, because that’s all she can carry.

“At first, the other animals just watch and shake their heads. After some time, the elephant asks her what she’s doing. ‘You cannot put out that terrible fire,’ he says. ‘You are just a small bird.’ The hummingbird replies, ‘I am doing what I can.'”

Thanks to animal friendly media lover and DawnWatch advisor Elaine Livesey-Fassel for making sure we saw those!

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In other mainstream media animal news, which I have shared recently to the DawnWatch X page and/or the DawnWatch Facebook page:

— Fox 6 Now in Milwaukee covered the cruelty of the puppy mills in which beagles are bred for animal experimentation.

— The BBC gave us strong coverage of the hideous conditions at the Gulf World Marine Park in Florida.

— Meanwhile Bloomberg News let us know that the Dolphin Company, which is the owner of the Miami Seaquarium and other dolphin abusement parks, has filed for bankruptcy!

— And the Agence Free Presse reports that France is seeking a new home for an orca mother and son after a marine park there closed, with Sea Shepherd France (the Sea Shepherd outlier that did not turn on Paul Watson) and One Voice insisting they go to an orca sanctuary instead of another marine park.

— Scott Simon , on NPR’s Weekend Edition last Saturday, discussed a surge in adoption of black cats thanks to the animated film Flow.

— ABC shared the “tragedy” of a young bull-rider’s death. The DawnWatch X post and Facebook post lamented the lack of any animal rights voices in their coverage and questioned how the animal cruelty that is rodeo could still be accepted in society.

— AOL shared a thoughtful piece from A-Z animals on why 97 percent of zoos should be considered substandard.

— AOL also shared a People Mag story, “Horse with ‘No More to Give’ Dies After Collapsing During Grand National Race.”

– Willamette Week brought us, “Animal Rights Activists Call In DOGE to Defund OHSU’s Primate Center.”

— The New York Post covered Peanut’s Law, a bill put forward by State Assemblymember Jake Blumencranz to try to help protect beloved animals from the Department of Environmental Conservation.

— The Washington Times also covered “Zeldin to pursue new ban on animal testing at EPA.” (Thanks to Lew Regenstein for sharing that.)

— Finally, media throughout the UK have covered a story that the Independent reports under the headline, “Tory frontbencher hits out at Lib Dem ‘extremism’ over vegan diets.” It tells us:

“While not explicitly rejecting the possibility of such coalitions, Mr Griffith criticised the Liberal Democrats’ agenda. He highlighted their approach to food choices, framing their encouragement of veganism as an example of their extreme policies.”

Ha!

Yours and all animals’,
Karen Dawn of DawnWatch