Mourning Pope Francis, egg industry horrors, pig shows, anti-wolf coverage 4-21-2025

Today’s news that Pope Francis has died brings animal advocates sorrow along with an opportunity for letters. Today’s New York Times has a piece, by Sy Montgomery on the horrors of the egg industry, while yesterday’s, Sunday’s, had an unfortunate fluff piece on a teenager who shows pigs. And sadly, today’s Los Angeles has a front-page story that seems intended to rile up hatred against wolves.

–

Pope Francis, who took his name from Francis of Assisi, known for his patronage of animals and nature, devoted his first encyclical to the environment. He wrote that we must “forcefully reject the notion” of a right to “absolute domination over other creatures” and that the bible has “no place for a tyrannical anthropocentrism.” I have shared those lines and far more today on a DawnWatch X post and DawnWatch Facebook post you can check out. While there is much discussion today of his groundbreaking stands on other issues, for example an attitude to homosexuality that led to his choice as The Advocate’s person of the year in 2013, the stand for animals that made him PETA’s person of the year in 2015 is less well covered. His passing will be in every paper tomorrow, giving each of us an opportunity to lend animals our voice by sharing his words.

—-

Sy Montgomery is known for her voice for animals, due to beautiful books such as The Soul of an Octopus and, most recently, What the Chicken Knows. Today’s, Monday April 21, piece by her is titled “The true cost of eggs.” (Page A 23.) Online it is titled, “What I didn’t know about the egg industry horrified me.”

What she didn’t know about was the “gruesome fate shared by 6.5 billion male chicks around the world each year.” She writes, “These male birds can’t lay eggs but also aren’t raised for meat. Because they come from egg-laying breeds, they don’t grow big or fast enough to be used for food. So they are ground up alive or gassed to death.”

Most of the piece is not that gruesome, and it is important to read and share. I can share this gift link (with thanks to Teresa D’Amico, who shared with her understandable frustration that Montgomery continues to eat eggs) and with the reminder at the end of the piece:

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.

—

The Sunday New York Times story, “In Pig Show Circles, Her Icy Stare Is the Star” (page ST8) is gruesome in its own way, to those of us who care deeply about animals. It celebrates the showmanship of Karis Dadson, a 14-year-old who shows pigs.

The only mention of animal welfare is:

“Despite occasionally being attacked in comments by animal rights groups, the Dadsons say they work hard to treat the animals well.

“Given their visibility, the Dadsons sometimes feel like piñatas for animal-welfare advocates. Mr. Dadson said he had stopped reading the comments on their social media posts. Mrs. Dadson mines them for material so that she can correct misconceptions.

“’It’s constant,’ Mrs. Dadson said. ‘They don’t understand how well we take care of them. We like to think that they got to live out their best lives.”

Meanwhile “animal rights” comes up only in the photo caption:

“Despite occasionally being attacked in comments by animal rights groups, the Dadsons say they work hard to treat the animals well.”

It’s frustrating. I will share this DawnWatch gift link for those of you who wish to respond, but ask you not to share it widely as I don’t think we help animals by spreading this take on pig shows and animal welfare advocates “misconceptions” and attacking animal rights advocates.

I will gently remind us all that we will help animals most as we correct misconceptions without attacking anybody, especially a potential ally as powerful as the New York Times, which has, in the past, championed animal rights on the front page.

It isn’t always easy, but we advocate most effectively when we speak for animals, without speaking against fellow humans and against the media, which has the potential to help animals immensely.

—

That advice can be even harder to follow when a front-page story seems aimed to rile up hatred against a species on behalf of ranchers.

Today’s, Monday, April 21, Los Angeles Times huge front-page story is titled, “Ranchers confront an old nemesis: Despite efforts to push wolves towards deer and elk in California, the protected predators find cattle easier prey.”

It discusses horrendous ways in which cattle ranchers (now there’s an unbiased group) say wolves kill cows, and ascribes to the wolves the worst human attributes:

“’It’s fun for [the wolves]; it’s like an adrenaline rush,’ said Torres. ‘You can tell it really excites them.’”

And we read:

“And while wolf attacks on people are almost unheard of, many in those counties are worried about potential risks to children and pets as the wild predators wander ever closer to houses and show signs of becoming accustomed to humans.”

Sigh.

It can be particularly hard not to go into full-out attack mode when the Los Angeles Times runs a front-page story painting cattle ranchers as cow-loving folks who want to defend the gentle animals against those awful wolves. But studies have shown that papers print about one tenth of the number of letters that criticize them, as compared to those that praise them, so I strongly advise responses that question the ranchers, and discuss their questionable contributions, instead of challenging the paper, which is usually superb on all things animal.

I share this copy of the article with the hope that you might be moved to send letters to the editor that defend both the wolves and the cows against the ranchers’ depictions of the situation.

—

In other mainstream media animal news, which I have shared on the DawnWatch X Feed and/or DawnWatch Facebook page over the last week:

–           The El Pason Times brought us the story of the last twenty-one chimpanzees, many in their 50s and 60s, to be relocated, finally, from the Alamogordo Primate Facility to Chimp Haven sanctuary. Get out your hankies!

–           The Guardian was one of countless papers that covered an “alert circle” formed by elephants (held captive) in the San Diego zoo around an elephant calf to protect the baby during an earthquake last week.

–           Mlive gave important but upsetting coverage to a situation in Michigan, heading the story, “As some say ‘don’t gas geese,’ Michigan will forge ahead with new lethal roundup.”

Now that makes you miss a pope who devoted his first encyclical to animals.

Yours and all animals’,
Karen Dawn of DawnWatch