Stunning front page on “Confined Swine” + coyotes + alternative meats 9/29/24

Given the mission of DawnWatch is to encourage better coverage of animal issues in the mainstream media, so that people can make informed choices in line with their values, there is little that could delight me more than the headline “Confined Swine,” with a close-up of a sweet pig face taking up most of the front page of The Oklahoman this Sunday, and a four-page spread, mostly on gestation crates, from pages 9-12. The Oklahoman! Meanwhile we had coyotes on the front page of Friday’s Wall Street Journal, and the current edition of Nature has a strong piece on plant-based and cell cultivated meat.

Before I share those, let me thank all who wrote to the Los Angeles Times regarding human/bear encounters. The paper ran two delightful letters, which pointed to the relative safety of an encounter with a bear as compared to with a human, and to the responsibility humans have, for example, to lock up if we don’t want bears in our houses.

Now more on letters:

Tuesday is World Vegetarian Day. It also happens to be my birthday. Isn’t that fortuitous?

I have mentioned before that the New York Times prints one or two percent of letters it receives. I strongly encouraging people to write there regularly because the paper is so influential, and if the editor receives numerous strong letters on a topic it can greatly increase the odds that one will be printed. Our odds are a little better at the wonderfully animal friendly Los Angeles Times, especially for Angelenos, but it still isn’t easy. Smaller papers, however print a much higher proportion of letters they receive, with some local papers printing close to 100 percent. Which brings me to a birthday request:

If you jot off a quick note, on Monday morning, letting your local paper know that you will be celebrating World Vegetarian Day on Tuesday, and why, there’s a decent chance your letter will get printed. If you’re inclined to write to your small weekly paper, where there’s a much higher than decent chance you’ll get printed, you might note that October 1st is World Vegetarian Day while November 1st is World Vegan Day, making October the perfect month to explore plant-based eating!

If you are not a natural born letter writer, please don’t hesitate to send me a draft of whatever thoughts come to mind, which I will happily edit into a perfect letter for your editor. That really would be the best possible present for me. While I am happy that activists use this newsletter as a source of information, it was created to inspire activists to contact media, so in honor of my birthday, and World Vegetarian Day, would you consider it?

Of course, if in honor of the same you think it’s the perfect time to make your annual donation to DawnWatch, well that would be profoundly appreciated!

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Now to the Oklahoman:

Once I saw the front page photo with the headline, “Confined Swine” I knew it would be worth subscribing to the paper (just $1 per month) to access the story so I did, but I am frustrated that my subscription does not give me gift links to give you access. I can, however, show you what the front page and four-page spread look like, as I have posted them both on X and on Facebook.

The paper’s newsletter touted the main feature with, “Pork is one of Oklahoma’s biggest industries. But are companies doing enough for animal welfare?”

That newsletter opens similarly to the article itself with:

“Beloved fictional characters like Wilbur or Porky, from the classics like ‘Charlotte’s Web’ and ‘Looney Tunes’ or perhaps even the eponymous ‘Babe,’ are not far off from the real thing, scientists say. Pigs are often deemed to be some of the smartest animals in the world.

“But animal advocates across the country are continuing to raise questions regarding the confinement of animals, with concern over laying hens, veal cattle and pregnant and nursing pigs leading the way.

“The stakes are high in Oklahoma, which is among the nation’s largest producers of pork products, the state’s second-largest agricultural industry. The industry accounts for about $1.2 billion contributed to the state’s economy.

“For some, animal welfare and conscious care should be first priority, while others believe that sacrifices to the comfort of animals must be made for farms to turn a profit. For those in the restaurant industry, questions of how animals are raised present a dichotomy in regard to sourcing and affordable pricing both at wholesale and retail endpoints.”

The article discusses California’s prop 12, which outlaws gestation crates and meat from them, and tells us about “H.R. 8467, the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024, better known as the 2024 Farm Bill,” which was reintroduced in May 2024 and “referred to the House Committee on Agriculture, where it remains, awaiting further action from legislators.” That proposal “prevents any one state from imposing rules on the production of covered livestock in another state, among other protections for farmers.”

The article asks, “What exactly are gestation crates, and why are they used?” We read:

“These crates, or stalls, are spaces in barns used to house pregnant pigs, or sows, first developed in 1964. They measure just 6.6 feet by 2 feet, leaving little space for the 300- to 400-pound pigs to move.”

Dr. Lesa Staubus, a veterinary ethicist and senior program officer for farm animal welfare at the Kirkpatrick Foundation explains:

“They can take half a step forward and half a step back, and that’s it. They can’t turn around, and to lay down they literally have to stick their feet into the adjacent pen of the next sow. And that’s where they’re kept through their entire pregnancy, which is almost four months.”

Then they go to “a farrowing crate, which has a separate space for the piglets that prevents the mother from rolling over on her babies” and then “sows return to gestation crates to carry another litter.”

Staubus continues:

“And so, after about four years, four and a half years, in that time they will have delivered eight to nine litters of piglets…So that’s the life of these pigs. They literally stand in a dark barn for roughly four and a half years or so and by the time they are released from that, they are so broken down and spent that it’s really all they can do to hobble onto the transport truck to be transported off to slaughter, and at that point, their carcass, their body, is only of quality enough to be made into sausage.”

The article discusses the impact that California’s ban on crated pork has on the price of production in states that sell pork to California, and notes, “For some chefs, the easiest way to adjust to the changes in the commercial pork industry has been removing menu items altogether.”

Without being able to share the full article with you, I think I have shared plenty for you to be able to dash off a quick appreciative letter to the paper that has made sure its readers know exactly what a gestation crate is and why pork is costing more. I hope you will write, thanking the paper and giving animals a voice.

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Friday’s Wall Street Journal, September 27, included the front-page article, “San Francisco Dog Owners Are Howling About Coyotes,” with the subheading, “Residents clash over whether to marvel at the wild canines or exterminate them.” I am pleased that I can provide a gift link to that one, which includes video of a coyote trotting through the middle of San Francisco and photos of small dogs wearing coyote proof spiked vests – well worth checking out! I hope you might respond with a good word for coyotes.

That article came out the same day as the Los Angeles Times covered Brittany Furlan’s run-in with a coyote who grabbed her dog in her back yard. That ran under the headline, “Comedian takes dog from coyote’s mouth.” The Los Angeles Times story is also available on Yahoo with no paywall. It includes a link to Furlan’s instagram post of ring video of the incident, which is harrowing with the sound on, but ends well for the Furlan/Lee family.

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The current edition of Nature, September 26, has an opinion piece titled, “In Asia, alternative proteins are the new clean energy.” It is penned by Ryan Huling, Doris Lee, Wasamon Nutakul and Samuel Goh.

It lets us know:

“If nothing changes, our food system is on a collision course with planetary limits. Meat production is projected to increase by more than 50% by 2050 compared with 2012 levels, driven by a growing global population that is becoming more prosperous. Such pressures are especially acute in Asia, which accounts for about half of the global growth in protein consumption so far this century.

“Alternatives to conventional animal proteins can change that trajectory…”

It is well worth reading or listening to and if you appreciated it I hope you will respond with a quick appreciative letter .

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On Tuesday, September 24, Californians received an alert about a front page Los Angeles Times story (also available on Gazette) titled “A bear swipes at a woman and a furious wildlife debate ensues.”

It is extraordinarily thoughtful, including the information that the woman swiped and injured by Victor the Bear, who was then killed by authorities, “didn’t want her brother bear to be hurt.”

That alert also covered the lead California Section story , “Action urged to rein in illicit puppy trade.” The online version opens with three bullet points which summarize it:

–A Los Angeles Times investigation found a pipeline of puppies from Midwest breeders that are sold in California as locally bred.

–Lawmakers and animal welfare advocates said California must stop purging health records that could help trace dogs back to puppy mills.

–A spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state will take “a hard look” at closing loopholes in current law to address the issues.

KQED aired a great podcast interview with the investigative reporters behind that Los Angeles Times “Puppy Mill Pipeline” feature, which I posted on the DawnWatch Facebook Page. Check it out! I send thanks to Jen Kutner for making sure we knew about it.

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Also posted on the DawnWatch Facebook page over the last week:

Fox 5 in San Diego brought us thoughtful coverage of the protests around the Petco Park rodeo.

5NEWS covered the Environmental Working Group’s lawsuit against Tyson and shared:

“A report states that Tyson is among the top five animal protein companies that together, emit more annual greenhouse gas emissions than ExxonMobil, Shell, or BP….

The lawsuit states that Tyson ‘knowingly capitalizes’ on consumers who wish to do less harm to the environment”…

“EWG claims that Tyson has not offered a plan that eliminates the immense emissions produced by its company ‘and has offered no details on how its industrially produced beef is a ‘climate-smart’ choice.’ EWG said that even if Tyson had a plan, the company ‘could not possibly’ accomplish this.”

The Washington Times brought us, “US Taxpayers funded Chinese labs that carried out grisly experiments on Beagle Puppies.” It included,

“Video of some experiments, compiled by the White Coat Waste Project shows beagles whose spines had been severed crawling on their front paws with their rears dragging across the ground, unable to move normally.”

I send thanks to Lew Regenstein for making sure we saw that.

Newsweek brings us the good news that under new California gun control laws, judges can now consider animal cruelty when issuing gun violence restraining orders.

The Miami Herald covered the rescue of a whale who was stuck to the ocean floor, tangled in, you guessed it, fishing line.

Today, the Independent and other UK papers have announced, Brian May’s “painful decision” to resign as RSPCA president.

He wrote:

“You have kept me informed through the Save-Me Trust of complaints that have been levelled in recent months at the RSPCA over appallingly bad standards of animal welfare in member farms of the RSPCA Assured scheme.

“I have understood that the RSPCA needed time to evaluate the evidence and make decisions on action to be taken. But as more and more evidence comes to light, I find the RSPCA’s response completely inadequate.”

I urge UK folks to respond to that one!

And we have wonderful news from the New York Post! Under the headline, “NYC to control rat population with birth-control pills instead of poison: Saving ‘lots of precious little lives’” we learn that the City Council, in honor of Flaco, the beloved owl who was poisoned by rodenticide, has approved a measure in favor of rat contraceptives.

On the rat crisis, we read:

“’We can’t poison our way out of this, we cannot kill our way out of this,’ City Council Member Shaun Abreu said while first introducing the bill in April.”

New Yorkers may like to celebrate that one with a letter to letters@nypost.com .

Yours and all animals’,
Karen Dawn of DawnWatch