jackiedel 's List: Animal

• Industrial meat production
   

   The arguments against the cruelty of factory farming have certainly been around a long time; it was Jeremy Bentham, in the 18th century, who observed that, when it comes to the treatment of animals, the key question is not whether animals can reason but whether they can suffer. People who eat factory-farmed bacon or chicken rarely offer a moral justification for what they're doing. Instead, they try not to think about it too much, shying away from stomach-turning stories about what goes on in our industrial abattoirs. 

   

   Of the more than 90 million cattle in our country, at least 10 million at any time are packed into feedlots, saved from the inevitable diseases of overcrowding only by regular doses of antibiotics, surrounded by piles of their own feces, their nostrils filled with the smell of their own urine. Picture it -- and then imagine your grandchildren seeing that picture. In the European Union, many of the most inhumane conditions we allow are already illegal or -- like the sow stalls into which pregnant pigs are often crammed in the United States -- will be illegal soon. 

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It was about feral donkeys in Northern Australia, and a culling technique that used a "Judas" collar.</p><br/><p>The collar, which contains a radio transmitter, is attached to a detained female donkey, or Jenny. Donkeys live, breed and travel in herds, so when the female is released, she goes in search of her fellows</p></div></div></div></div>

• Several weeks ago I was the keynote speaker at an awards dinner where a table companion told me a disturbing story. It was about feral donkeys in Northern Australia, and a culling technique that used a "Judas" collar.

   

  The collar, which contains a radio transmitter, is attached to a detained female donkey, or Jenny. Donkeys live, breed and travel in herds, so when the female is released, she goes in search of her fellows.

• The hunters follow in helicopters from which they gun down the entire pack except the collared Jenny, leaving the bodies to rot. The Jenny then goes in search of other mates who soon meet the same fate.

   

  Eventually - and it is unclear how long this takes - the Jenny works out that she is the source of the aerial massacres that punctuate her existence, and she banishes herself to live the rest of her life cursed and alone

1 more annotation...

• Until recently fish welfare attracted little attention, but international and national legislation and standards of fish welfare are now emerging and an overview of these developments is presented in this study.
• We conclude that farmed fish should be given the benefit of the doubt and we should make efforts that their welfare needs are met as well as possible.

• CEPHALOSPORINS, a class of antibiotics currently banned by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in US livestock, are still being used to treat animals bred for human consumption in Australia.

• Scientists at Australia’s Murdoch University have found traces of endangered animals including the Asiatic black bear and the saiga antelope in fifteen traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) products via DNA sequencing.

• For those who missed the announcement, Australia’s 24,000 GPs and 3500 dietitians will soon have a new weapon in their battle against big bellies and hard arteries. Junk food can be fast and greasy from multinationals with multimillion dollar advertising budgets or wanky and ever so slow and creamy from obese chefs with inexplicable TV pulling powers. Either way, the consequent early onset of ill-health is miserable and expensive.

   

  The current weapon of choice against premature ill-health is nought but a post-hoc response. We have a vast and miraculous hospital system with a silo of subsidised medication so that older Australians can continue to greet the day with a zipper in their chest and bacon and eggs on their plate.

• The word “vegetarian” is used 29 times in the report, but, apart from a technical definition, it never appears without some kind of warning. The guidelines make it sound like you need to be a bloody genius to balance your nutrient intake on a vegetarian diet. In UK and US, studies of many thousands of people, vegetarians have lower rates than the general population of almost all major diseases. So why all the warnings? What is it about normal diets that sees so many people bugger them up? Clearly there aren’t enough warnings or the warnings are singularly obscure like “Eat less saturated fat”. My favourite piece of warning idiocy is about protein combinations.

   

  “Those following a strict vegetarian or vegan diet need to choose a variety of protein sources throughout the day to get an adequate mix of amino acids (p.31)” … and “For lacto-ovo vegetarian diets, the Modelling System used a ratio of a 5:1:1 ‘legume:egg:nuts/seeds’ ratio [as] these foods would provide an adequate amino acid balance”

   

  Gosh! I’ve been a vegan for three decades and regularly cycle 100-plus kilometres in the Adelaide Hills. How the hell did I manage without knowing this ratio?

• This week poultry-related labelling has come under fire, with the Australian Egg Corporation drafting new egg labelling standards and legal action from the ACCC against KFC’s chicken supplier Steggles.

   

  New standards proposed by the AEC would mean its standard for “free range” eggs extended from 1500 to 20,000 birds per hectare. Though it stresses this is a “minimum” standard, the change has drawn criticism from free-range farmers and animal welfare groups.

   

  On Tuesday the ACCC launched legal action against Steggles for proclaiming its barn-raised chickens “roam free”. Steggles hass said it will fight the charges but KFC Australia swiftly removed any reference to the term off its website.