HSUS Slaughterhouse Investigation & Beef Recall - I'm getting irked

First off, big kudos to The Humane Society of the United States for undertaking an undercover investigation that has caught the attention of the general public. That it takes such an action to expose an activity that routinely goes on every second in this country is ridiculous - which shows the difficulty we face overcoming the animal exploitation industries, when they have our government's assistance in keeping the horrific realities hidden from view. (Um, if they really wanted to monitor animal "welfare", how about remote video monitoring in slaughterhouses?) It's big money, for the industries and the politicians in bed with them. They have a lot to lose. Videos of what goes on in slaughterhouses and factory farms aren't good for business.

But I've been noticing some things surrounding the reporting of this story - from all different fronts - that are starting to annoy me.

Other animal advocacy groups aren't crediting HSUS

I think it's great to use this recall as a way to hit home whatever point your organization wants to make. Use it, use it, use it. But I think it's really hypocritical and disengenuous for some groups who openly criticize HSUS for being "welfarist" or "too powerful" or "not vegan enough" to take advantage of HSUS's hard work and funding in their own campaigns, yet never even mention HSUS. As if the USDA just magically recalled the beef all on its own. Yeah right.

If you are going to refer to the recall, you should be crediting HSUS. I can't believe so many self-proclaimed "animal rights" groups would rather leave the impression that the USDA is on the ball, doing their jobs, because they have some personal issues with another animal advocacy group. Is that really the impression we should be giving? I am really disgusted by this, and it needs to stop.

These were SPENT "dairy cows", not "beef cattle"

The ASPCA just put out an email about this recall. (Not mentioning HSUS, of course.) They described downed animals as "cattle", which really leaves a different impression of what animals we are talking about here. I'm pretty sure that most of the cow-milk drinking, cheese-eating public never thinks about what happens to "dairy cows" once they can no longer be raped, impregnated and exploitated for their lactation. What an opportunity to focus on the end result of "dairy" that isn't usually highlighted. Everyone needs to be talking about this.

Even "dairy cows" from organic and small farms end up at these slaughterhouses

No one seems to be talking about this much either. What an opportunity to tell the public that no matter what "treatment" the animals receive on the "farm", they all end up on the same trucks, for the same torturous journey on the road, to the same slaughterhouses, to the same horrific end. People who call themselves vegetarians, but eat dairy products, especially seem to be missing this point. Ugh.

Why are these cows REALLY "down"?

These cows aren't "down" because they are in the end stages of Mad Cow Disease. They are down because they've been abused for years at ye' olde factory or "family" farm - from having their bones depleted of calcium from extended, forced milk production; from being given antibiotics to ward off chronic mastitis (udder infection); from hormone injections they get to increase "production"; from being fed crap grain and who knows what instead of grazing on grass; from being kept standing in their own waste every second of their lives; from being hooked up to metal milking machines twice a day, every day. And then, being forced onto a truck, where they are driven hundreds of miles, exposed to the elements, without food or water, packed in without consideration for injuries obtained along the "trip" to the slaughterhouse.

So then they can't stand, can't walk to their own horrific deaths. Because they are dehydrated, exhausted, have broken bones, udder infections - not because their flesh is some risk to human consumption. It's because of what humans have put them through.

Blogversation Series - Animal Advocacy Strategies - Bruce Freidrich's Statement

Bruce Friedrich, Vice President of PETA: I believe that animal activism should involve applying the golden rule across the species barrier, asking ourselves this question: f I were a calf in a crate or a hen being starved for two weeks or crammed into a battery cage, how would I want a human animal rights activist to behave?

Kim:

I never understood the argument that you can't or shouldn't advocate simultaneously for improved conditions while pursuing abolition. Of course if a loved one was imprisoned, for instance, you would do everything in your power to advocate for their best possible treatment while in captivity, while you work for their release. The individual animals only want relief from their current situation, without concern for the status of all other animals under human exploitation - now or into the future. Failing to address their current suffering - under the guise of some strategic theory that may or may not lead to abolition - pretty much guarantees their continuing suffering in the near future.

As I've said before, I feel that demanding the reformation of current practices serves to shift attitudes, which will be necessary to achieve abolition. If the animals actually benefit from the reforms in the near future that would be a bonus. But it's not the only reason that we should pursue the reforms, which is an element that is often overlooked. Every welfare campaign that manages to infiltrate the public consciousness plants a seed of awareness and self-examination that allows vegan advocacy to be effective.


Gary:

Bruce asks us to follow the Golden Rule - to consider the plight of the inevitable animal prisoners of institutionalized oppression, who are fated to be killed, and try to at least relieve their suffering. The desire to suffer less is urgent, intense, and compelling.

One criticism of helping victims now is that if we reduce the severity of their suffering, the public will "feel better" about exploiting them. So - to paraphrase pattrice jones - let's not limit our consideration of possible strategies to either helping current victims or abolishing the institutions that commit the atrocities. Let's set our sights higher, and use our collective brainpower and creativity to devise ways and take actions to provide relief to animals now and in the forseeable future, and break down exploitiative habits and institutions, and sell the vegan solution as compellingly as possible.

For example, there's no reason why every welfare campaign can't include links to vegan recipes and health information, and be accompanied by frank talk about how killing for pleasure violates basic, widely-shared moral codes and how ending such exploitation has enormous possibilities for peace, harmony, health, and a much cleaner world.

(On a tangential note, I understand that the latest HSUS undercover investigation has resulted in a flood of emails to the group from people pledging to reduce or eliminate their meat and/or dairy intake. Let's capitalize on this spike of concern for farmed animals and newfound interest in vegetarianism, to inform the public that cruelty is pervasive throughout the meat, dairy, and egg industries, and then show them the "way out.")

Blogversation Series - Animal Advocacy Strategies - Patty Mark's Statement

Patty Mark, President of Animal Liberation Victoria in Australia: “The majority of the animal movement continues with the same approach we’ve taken for 25 years and things are getting worse for animals. The numbers killed have never been higher – 55 billion each year globally, and growing – and this doesn’t include aquatic animals. It’s a poor use of our time to engage with animal industries, big business and governments trying to encourage them to treat the animals who are at their mercy “better.” It’s time for us to set the pace and to be proactive. The real work isn’t negotiating with the animal industries, but with educating the public. The biggest threat to animal farming is veganism.”

Gary:

First off, let me express my abundant gratitude to Patty Mark for introducing the open rescue activism technique. This form of direct action is a powerful form of advocacy that not only saves animals from their hellish surroundings and brutal death but also compellingly conveys the suffering of animals and the compassion of their rescuers.

Kim:

Open rescues definitely serve to break down the barriers of speciesism, when openly exposing suffering elucidates the irrelevancy of “ownership”, in favor of individual rights. Our society gives little credence to a parent’s right to torture “his or her” child, for instance, and in much the same way that very few would be against intervention to stop cruelty to children by parents, it’s difficult after a while to argue that society doesn’t have the same responsibility for other species. Rescuing without masks reinforces the already existing notion that we each have a responsibility to protect the innocent from abuse, regardless of the “status” given to the abuser, in relation to the abused.

Gary:

In the last 25 years, the animal movement has engaged in a myriad of strategies and tactics: holding vegan feed-ins; handing out "Why Vegan?" brochures; putting welfare referendums on ballots; lobbying for companion animal laws and animal testing alternatives; staging “meatout” events; convincing school and company cafeterias to stop buying eggs from battery cage operations; publishing a profusion of books, cookbooks, magazines, newsletters, leaflets, veg restaurant guides; creating web sites, videos, films, You Tube posts, blogs, podcasts and MySpace pages; promoting vegan products and veg-friendly establishments; starting vegan businesses; persuading medical schools to end animal labs; harassing and shaming Huntington Life Sciences partners; opening and running farmed animal and wild animal sanctuaries; leveraging public opinion to free elephants from zoos; blocking boats at sea from killing whales; protesting against dolphin slaughters and animal circuses; documenting rodeo cruelty; starting vegan, animal rights, and animal protection groups in hundreds of cities; enacting foie gras bans; leafleting at human social justice events; tabling with vegan and animal protection literature at festivals and health fairs; running commercials on TV that show factory farm suffering; organizing wonderful and thought-provoking conferences to benefit animals.

I suspect that this boundless variety of approaches, reflecting the diversity of views in the animal movement – even, specifically, among ethical vegan activists in the animal movement - will continue. Different messages affect different audiences, and not every activist or potential activist is attracted to the same kind of advocacy.

Kim:

I don’t know where the notion of “25 years” of one approach comes from, as is evidenced by all the diversity you’ve listed among animal advocates’ approaches. If anything, it was just recently that any real attention has been paid to the plight of farmed animals at all, with most of the focus having been on the abolition of specific industries - fur and animal testing predominantly - and on companion animal issues. Historically speaking, the focus on vegan education is just developing, and clearly any claim of defeat or success using any particular methodology is premature.

Gary:

Let us not be too quick to rule out any form of advocacy that endeavors to help animals. One of the most frequent concerns raised about organizations that have moved away from strict vegan advocacy is that the vegan approach was not given a fair chance. To shift attitudes and behaviors that have become deeply entrenched in society takes time, and may require endless tweaking and adjusting. The criticism is valid in my judgment. But let's be evenhanded; let's not pronounce welfare reforms to be worthless or counterproductive, either.

By all means, let's honestly and openly evaluate approaches:

- giving fellow activists the benefit of the doubt and empathically listening to their points of view and experiences;

- avoiding becoming so vested in our positions regarding tactics and strategy that we reflexively defend them at any cost;

-trying our level best to not splinter into The Judean People's Front and The People's Front of Judea, the two factions in The Life of Brian that ostensibly had the same overall goals but were preoccupied with sniping at each other.

The modern animal movement has only had a visible presence in mainstream America and the Western world for 30 years, and only in the last few years have more than a tiny portion of residents of medium-to-large cities or college towns been able to pronounce and even define "vegan" with relative accuracy.

Everything's still on the table.

Kim:

I agree. I’ve said before that at this point it’s all just throwing darts in the dark. No one has the definitive solution for how to break through the societal brainwashing by the industries exploiting animals for profit. It’s a daunting proposition. That the notion of “animal rights” even has mainstream awareness is remarkable in itself, and illustrates that something pretty effective has taken place to make even that happen. How fortunate that we have models available to critique, criticize and learn from!

I think as a “movement”, it’s important to examine methodologies and strategize about effective ways to proceed. But claiming any one approach is superior to another and treating those who disagree as co-conspirators with animal industries, is not only presumptuous, but counter productive. There’s nothing the animal industries would like more than a fractious and acrimonious group of animal advocates. The reality is that different people are going to come to different conclusions about focus and strategy, and have different preferences about contributing. You can’t dictate activism preferences to others no matter how personally convinced you happen to be about the efficacy of your ideas.

Gary:

The increase in the number of animals killed for food in the U.S. can be attributed mostly to a) a rising population, b) a shift from beef to chicken, c) an increase in the number of calories eaten per person. Another contributing factor is that relative to other items in the Consumer Price Index, meat has stayed relatively inexpensive. According to my perusing of USDA figures, the percentage of calories on our plates from animal sources has gone down in the last 25 years, even though the amount of food on our plates has expanded.

Worldwide, increases in meat consumption is largely due to socioeconomic factors that, so far, have been mostly outside the scope or influence of the animal movement.

I mention all this as a hedge against laying the blame for the rise in the number of animals killed in the U.S. or worldwide on certain animal advocacy tactics.
We should also consider other numbers and trends. How many vegan products and veg*an meat and dairy substitutes are there in stores now compared to 25 years ago? How easy is it to get vegan main courses at college cafeterias now compared to 25 years ago? What percentage of the population has a general idea of what "vegan" means now compared to 25 years ago? (The fact that Burger King used the word, albeit disparagingly, on a prominent billboard was a reflection of how mainstream the word has become, at least in some areas of the country.) How many vegan and vegan-friendly establishments are there now compared to 25 years ago? How many states in the last 25 years have made certain crimes against companion animals a felony? How many zoos have declared that they're closing their elephant exhibits? How much has the percentage of hunters in the population gone down? How much have sales of faux leather and faux fur gone up in the last 25 years?

Each purchase of veggie bacon usually contributes to saving pigs' lives. The same basic concept holds true for purchases of most other veggie versions of meat and dairy products. If we're looking at numbers, we should consider how many more animals would be killed if not for these products. Who gets the credit?

Kim:

Advocacy doesn’t happen in a vacuum. There is no way to judge the effectiveness of actions without addressing simultaneous shifts in societal factors during the examined period, as you've outlined above. It’s ridiculous to claim that any one strategy can cause an end result. And I hear that claim a lot. It’s convenient to ignore other factors contributing to a situation in an effort to bolster an argument, but it has no basis in fact.

Gary:

Polls show that interest in veganism among young people is rising. Who gets the credit here? Vegan Outreach, which gets a steady stream of positive feedback and conversion testimonials from people who have received their literature at college campuses across the country? Compassion Over Killing's well-put together commercials on MTV? HSUS' recent environmental advertising campaign that recommended cutting back on all animal product consumption as much as possible? United Poultry Concerns, which campaigns for chickens on every front imaginable? PETA? Meet Your Meat? Grassroots groups? One-on-one activism? Maybe all of the above and more; the whole mix.

Kim:

Yes, it’s the mix. And I think you’ve hit on the most probable continued course of action that has the greatest chance of bringing information to such a diverse society - multiple approaches. Once you get out on the street and do any advocacy, it becomes quickly apparent that different people respond to different approaches.

Gary:

Efforts to ban fur have largely focused on eliminating it, not improving fur animal welfare – probably because a large segment of the public is opposed to fur and/or doesn't wear it; fur is not deeply embedded into everyday society the way meat and dairy are. Yet the fur industry has rebounded from its dip in the 1980s and recently has been making record profits. I point out this unimpressive record of a prolonged abolition effort's attempt to have a serious impact on an industry that the public largely thinks of as expendable if not ostentatious, not to suggest that we switch strategies but that there's no surefire strategy that we've found thus far that quickly and permanently reduces the number of animals killed for profit.

Kim:

Which shows the monumental problem we have to overcome with vegan promotion. We all need to eat, and the overwhelming majority of people believe you need to eat animals to survive. The fur industry hasn’t gone away, yet we don’t require fur to survive, like we do food.

Gary:

To be fair, we may finally be turning the corner on the fur front, as a growing number of clothing lines and retailers are removing fur from their inventories.
Should we engage with "the enemy?" I tend to look at this tactic on a case-by-case basis. Negotiations with industry led to many corporations stopping animal tests of cosmetic and personal care products. PETA and some other groups have talked companies into dropping fur. HSUS has leveraged the public's growing disapproval of certain agribusiness practices into bans of those practices at the supplier and buyer ends. (Although to reiterate what I said in a previous post, we must continue to expand the public's consciousness and work on fundamentally changing its attitudes toward animal exploitation, and vegan advocacy is essential in these efforts.)

Kim:

I’m sure a rebuttal would be that Saks, for instance, isn’t the “enemy” but the fur producers are. You would be asking Saks to discontinue selling that type of item, not to close its doors completely. In other words, you wouldn’t be able to approach "Blood Money Furs" retailer with the same request.

Gary:

For purposes of this discussion, I'll consider establishments that sell and promote the offending products to be part of "the enemy." But a better term might be "suppliers" or "sellers." My goal would not be to drive companies out of business - even though that might happen - but to get them to stop selling the products of exploitation, products from killed animals in particular. But I agree, it's easier to accomplish that if you're not asking the company to get rid of its main or only product. So a department store could replace its fur garments with faux fur items or other apparel (and eventually do the same with its leather and wool clothing), and a small mixed-use farm could stop raising beef cattle and grow more crops for human consumption instead.


Kim:

You also raise the oft argued issue of whether or not “we” should ever work with the “enemy”, since it would most likely be an effort to address welfare, not abolition. I personally believe it has a place in the process, as even the appearance of a nationally known entity acknowledging the welfare of animals has an impact on the public consciousness. Even if the ultimate “welfare” benefits to the animals aren’t incredibly significant (although I do believe every improvement is incredibly significant from that animal’s point of view) I think the overall effect, in combination with other types of advocacy, is a necessary part of the process.

Gary:

Often, small businesses are more approachable and flexible than mega-corporations. From personal experience, I know that a single activist can influence small companies' business practices. Of course, we ultimately want to eliminate demand for animal-derived products, but a) changes in supply and promotion can affect demand, b) business owners and managers are people too, and sometimes we can have an impact on their own demand, which may be reflected in their business policies. For some animal advocates, meeting with businesspeople may be an attractive outlet for their activism.

Kim:

And I’ve seen evidence of this kind of advocacy gaining national attention, when major media picks up on a story, for instance. Action creates action, no matter how small it appears to be at the start.

Gary:

I agree that the biggest threat to animal farming is veganism. But one might also say that the biggest threat to animal farming is the change in the public's consciousness that precedes vegan-inspired changes in behavior. I believe this transition is presently occurring, albeit at a frustratingly slow and uneven pace. Any way that we can wrest people from their deeply-entrenched notions that certain animals are here for us to eat, and that meals aren't complete without meat, will help speed up that transition. Any way we can engender people to develop sympathy and respect for farmed animals and all sentient beings will help move us to veganism and perhaps many magnificent possibilities beyond that.

Kim:

There are so few humans educating other humans about veganism, that trying to do it person by person, without any other larger societal influences concurrently making the pitch, is unrealistic. I think the public is becoming more receptive to veganism because of the groundwork that has been laid and that there is no way to measure what kind of success we would be having now in our vegan outreach if it wasn’t for PETA or HSUS approaching the issue on different fronts. I have no way of knowing what our position would be today if PETA had only done strictly vegan education, for instance. And anyone who claims they know differently is fooling themselves.

Blogversation Series - Animal Advocacy Strategies - Christine Morrissey's Statement

Christine Morrissey, Director of East Bay Animal Advocates: “Clanking big-rigs barrel past Sunshine Donuts in Livingston, California, carrying 4,500 feces-caked chickens to the Foster Farms processing plant one block to the left. The Livingston plant kills nearly 600,000 chickens daily. It’s the largest slaughterhouse in the world. Maintaining a campaign website entitled FosterFacts.net, we slammed Foster Farms on its poor treatment of chickens, resulting in lively corporate outreach efforts and penetrating false advertising complaints.”

Gary:

I realize this is somewhat tangential to the discussion, but I wanted to praise East Bay Animal Advocates (EBAA) for their revealing and incriminating investigations of the animal agriculture industry. I've referred to their work many times in my blog. I particularly would urge readers to check out their investigation of a free-range turkey operation . It shows turkeys living and dying in horrible conditions.

I met Christine briefly at the last Taking Action for Animals conference. If memory serves - which I think it does in this case - she informed me that the turkey facility in question, Diestel Turkey Ranch, was a supplier to Whole Foods Market, and that EBAA shared their findings with Whole Foods, but that Whole Foods continued to get turkeys from Diestel. Just one more indication of the harshness and resistance to reform of the animal exploitation and killing business. As bad as the Diestel situation is, non-"free-range" is even worse, though.

EBAA's long-running Foster Farms campaign illustrates some of the strengths and fallibilities of welfare reform strategies. For the last two and a half years, EBAA has done a superb job of documenting the horrid conditions and putrid lies of Foster Farms - a "poultry processing" company that, according to EBAA's web site , kills five million chickens a week. As best I can tell, EBAA's outreach to the public and to the business community has been outstanding. Yet Foster Farms - possibly with help from government agencies that seem thoroughly uninterested in animal welfare - has stonewalled every activist attempt at reform.

At the same time, EBAA's footage of animal suffering at Foster Farms, and its reporting of the company's callous attitude toward both the animals and humans it exploits, has no doubt opened many people's eyes to the violence of large-scale animal agriculture, impelled them to sympathize with the animals' interests, and made them think about the moral consequences of their food choices. These are all fairly common precursors to becoming vegetarian (or at least reducing meat intake) and developing support for animal rights.

Notwithstanding that small organizations can only do so much and are usually strapped for resources, my respectful request would be to add vegan solutions to the web sites. Leverage the outrage and sadness that viewers to the sites (and followers of campaigns) may experience, and let them know about ways they can eliminate their contribution to virtually all the cruelties and suffering - and untimely death - in chicken operations. And turkey operations. And rabbit meat farms . And so on. The additional information wouldn't have to be anything elaborate; perhaps just some links to vegan substitute products, recipes, and cookbooks.

Sorry to drift off-topic again; I just wanted to mention that I very much liked the latest EBAA blog entry EBAA blog entry [link](February 4), which discusses the challenges of conveying the plght of animals in the media.

Kim:

Thanks Gary for insight into the activities of EBAA. I wasn't personally familiar with their work and this helped highlight their efforts.

I know that if I lived anywhere near the never ending truck processions to murder, as Christine described, I would find it difficult to ignore the immediate, immense suffering. I think this really highlights the element that makes it difficult to forgo attempts at welfare reform, while focusing only on vegan advocacy. It's a natural human impulse to want to stop suffering as it's occurring. And I don't think there is any way to disable that human drive in most people, in exchange for what might appear to be a more logical course of action.

I've always felt that even if welfare reform campaigns don't result in complete elimination of suffering, or even significant changes for a large percentage of animals, they serve to illuminate the facts that most compassionate people will then have trouble ignoring. Welfare campaigns, at the very least, serve to bring the truth into the light. An effective undercover investigation, for instance, that manages to hit major media outlets, reaches a lot more people in a very short amount of time than individual efforts to promote veganism. I see the campaigns as a reinforcement of what we do on the ground, so to speak, providing validity to our in-person education efforts. If they saw it on the evening news, it tends to click when confronted with an actual activist offering the same information.

I agree with you, Gary, that any welfare campaign needs to incorporate vegan advocacy to be truly effective. The logical extension of "welfare" is veganism, after all.

Blogversation Series - Animal Advocacy Strategies - Robert Schiff's Statement

Roberta Schiff, President of Mid-Hudson Vegetarian Society in New York: “I know there are organizations who believe that making conditions for farmed animals somewhat less inhumane is the only thing possible given the voracious demand for meat, eggs, and milk. But two fast food chains agreeing to purchase a small percent of their flesh from animals treated with a bit less cruelty is hardly either exciting or a victory. It is a measured amount of progress, at best. Please let none of us do things or state things in such a way as to influence people to think these products have no price.”

Kim:

I don’t agree that most organizations think addressing conditions for farmed animals is “the only thing possible” - only one part of the equation. Given the fact that nothing activists do this second, short of illegal sabotage, is going to address the current suffering these animals face every second, if demanding change produces even a little “less cruelty” I find it significant, even if it isn’t “exciting” to us.

But I do agree that it is a form of “progress”. It’s progress in that attitudes are changing about consideration for farmed animals at all. It follows from the attitudinal shift regarding companion animals that has had some dramatic recent examples - from the animal issues that arose during Hurricane Katrina and the swift and clear outrage toward Michael Vick. Companion animal activism has been all about “welfare”. And we can see clear evidence that society has become less tolerant of companion animal abuse in conjunction with that focus, and that these attitude changes are having an impact on attitudes about “other” animals.

I haven’t personally seen evidence of activists portraying welfare as an end game solution, but I agree that we need to be upfront with the public about the inhumanity of any animal exploitation. But I find that the public’s own desire to keep eating animals creates a “wishful thinking” response to the notion of “humane exploitation” - they want to believe there is a way to keep eating animals that is humane and moral. When I hear such declarations about their choices being humane, I find it pretty easy to alter that perception with a little education that the exploiters fail to leave off.

I have seen the shattering of this wishful thinking before my eyes with just the offering of some information, which reinforces the need to make public education a priority. This doesn’t mean it is necessary to ignore the suffering of animals in factory farms, or that we are endorsing “humane farming” by demanding less cruel practices. It means that while the public is demanding animals be treated better, we break down the notion that we should be eating them at all. I see this as a powerful - and necessary - combination approach.


Gary:

I believe it's important for animal advocates to acknowledge all progress in dismantling animal exploitation, if for no other reason than it provides a hedge against burnout and despair, and may boost advocates' optimism, energy levels, and stamina in the long struggle.

"Victory" in common usage need not mean total victory. It can mean getting consumers or corporations to take an action that has a positive impact on animals, such as eliminating a particularly heinous torture.

To be sure, Burger King announcing that it will purchase two percent of its eggs from non-battery cage facilities - to take one example - is certainly not a "Yay, we did it," pumping-our-fists-in-the-air victory. In the grand scheme of animal rights, it is a barely measurable increment; any victory celebrations should be muted. Furthermore, such moves have a whiff of tokenism: A corporation that kills huge numbers of animals for profit every year does the minimum possible to claim "We care about animals" and then uses that as a marketing tool or a means of stifling protest.

But there may be more here than meets the eye, and several ways in which this seemingly minor move is significant:

-- Two percent of a huge number is a lot of eggs; a lot of hens who no longer have to live their lives in a tiny wire box. Granted, the hens are still abused in many ways and brutally killed. Their victim status is unaltered. But at least they get some of their lives back. They can flap their wings. They can stand and lie down on solid ground. Their claws don't slowly wrap around the wire grating, sometimes getting ripped off when they're pulled from their cages.

-- That Burger King did anything at all with respect to animal welfare is a sign that consumers are becoming more concerned about that issue. A decade ago, it's doubtful that HSUS or other animal groups would have had sufficient leverage to force any animal welfare concessions from fast food chains.

-- Two percent today can - and probably will - turn into 5 percent, then 10, 20 and so forth. Eventually, as cage-free changes from novel to the norm, there's no reason consumers will not demand additional animal welfare improvements, such as increased space for hens, no more de-beaking, and an end to male chick-killing. These changes may significantly raise costs for fast food chains and their suppliers. Combine that with the continued mainstreaming of vegetarian options and before long veggie chicken items on the menu start to look rather compelling to Burger King and other fast-food companies - especially for products such as patties and nuggets, in which the taste largely comes from breading, the filling is highly processed, and consumers most likely would not even notice the difference. Perhaps the positive flip side of people's tendency to mindlessly eat whatever is most readily available, tastes good, and fills them up is that they'll exhibit that same behavior regardless of whether the substrate of their sandwich filling comes from an animal or a plant.

-- Burger King's move puts pressure on their competition to do the same thing. In fact, HSUS and other animal groups play one company off the other.

When animal groups get companies to make changes in their policies, they are hastening the conversion of public opinion into corporate practices. Paradoxically, the vast majority of the population is opposed to battery cages, yet still buys eggs - directly and indirectly (through products that contain eggs) - from battery cage facilities. It's a strange zone: There's enough opposition to the practice to influence corporate policy a little but not too much. By making battery cage-sourced eggs unavailable or illegal, it forces consumers to stop perpetuating a particular cruelty to which they're morally opposed but which by and large they don't stop supporting on their own, perhaps out of laziness or general resistance to change. It's almost like "Please force me to make the change."

As important as it is to translate existing consumer opinion into corporate and government policy, it's ultimately even more important to influence public attitudes so that more substantial changes can be made in the future. That's why it's essential to ease the public's fears about giving up meat, to push the mainstreaming of vegan options, to inform the public of all the cruelties inherent in animal agriculture, and to educate (or remind) the public about the sentience and intrinsic worth of animals and thus our moral obligations toward them. I think that even when there is resistance to these topics, it is not terribly difficult to convey them and discuss them in ways that resonate with the public. So, yes, let's push companies to reflect emerging public opinion, but let's also use education and inspiration to expand people's consciousness and sense of right and wrong with regard to animals; let's advocate so that animals get the inclusion they deserve in individuals' and society's moral spheres.

Kim:

Of course I don't take anything a Burger King does at face value, but use the exercise as evidence that something is at least changing, even if it is perceptions. Is this the best use of HSUS's and PETA's time, to demand certain things from exploiters, however minimal they appear to be? It might be, as part of a greater effort to bring awareness to mainstream consumers who purchase meals at these fast-food places. It certainly is a big segment of the population that spends their money on fast-food.

Truthfully, I don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about what each individual campaign means in terms of overall effect, but realize that different groups and individuals are naturally going to be drawn to different issues, using different methods. I don't believe there is any way to dictate strategy in an area where there are so many competing atrocities. Or that there is any way to measure what "victory" or "success" is at this point, when the goal is the elimination of exploitation. Anything that moves in that direction is progress - if it proves to change attitudes and removes some suffering immediately.

Gary:

The gradual elimination of battery cages, veal pens, gestation crates, and other forms of widespread, institutionalized torture is part of a campaign to decrease animal suffering as much as possible, as quickly as possible. Is concentrating on getting rid of cruelties that are already opposed by a majority of the public the best way to do that? That's a huge and complicated discussion, and I'm not sure there is any one best way, but the strategy seems rational to me, and striving to reduce suffering is a noble and urgent pursuit, even though animal rights and vegan outreach extends beyond reducing suffering.

One question that arises - which I think is valid - is: By incrementally improving conditions for farm animals, do we risk making consumers more comfortable with purchasing animal products? In my experience, the most complacent consumers of animal products are those who give no conscious thought to animal welfare and express no qualms about purchasing the cruelest factory farm products (out of ignorance or other reasons). The consistent pattern I see in my outreach is that omnivores who are buying cage-free eggs and, more generally, giving some consideration - however superficial - to animal welfare are much more conflicted about eating animal products and noticeably more open to vegan ideas. Then again, those personal experiences are what gets me thinking that if I can "talk vegan" to these folks and they listen rather than walk away, so can anyone and any group.

I do think that the way in which welfare reform campaigns are orchestrated can make a huge difference. I think advocates can and should leverage public opinion about animal welfare and animal rights to secure changes in corporate and government policies, thus giving some measure of relief to the unjust victims of exploitation, while at the same time being honest and open about the whole range of cruelties in animal exploitation, and discussing broad moral issues such as our obligation not to harm sentient beings if we can avoid it. If we've had trouble with the audience rejecting those messages in the past, let's put our heads together, look at failures and successes, and determine how we can best convey those far-reaching concepts. Maybe that's one of the things that will come out of the UPC conference.

Kim:

You know, I've read lots of the theories out there on the notion that addressing welfare somehow encourages people to eat more animals - or that it encourages them to go back to eating them. I just don't buy it. If anyone is swayed by the notion of "humane murder", they haven't embraced the ideals of veganism to begin with. They aren't there yet, but that doesn't mean further information won't make the difference in their compassion evolution.

Besides, if the worst case scenario is that we somehow have to advocate from a position of less cruel farming practices, how is that a bad thing, for the animals? (Although I don't see that truly happening on a wide scale, since it will quickly prove too costly and unsustainable to feed the public all the animals they demand within that model - bolstering the vegan argument.) There are so few of us out here willing to do vegan advocacy right now, that the notion that the animals can wait until we succesfully educate the masses is unrealistic. Eliminating the worst practices is not only the logical action, as we work to increase our ranks of vegan educators, but is also the compassionate course of action.