Whole Foods introduces multi-tiered animal welfare certification

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2010:
AUSTIN, WASHINGTON D.C.– The 300-store
Whole Foods Markets chain and the Animal
Compassion Foundation, begun by Whole Foods
founder John Mackey, on November 15, 2010
introduced a new system of identifying how
animals slaughtered for meat were raised. The
first standards are for pigs, cattle, and
chickens raised for meat. After a trial interval
the system is to be extended to laying hens and
dairy animals.

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Is it “The great animal rights betrayal” or just business as usual in Britain?

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2010:
LONDON–Is the Conservative-led British coalition government
engaged in “The great animal rights betrayal,” as the newspaper The
Independent alleged on November 13, 2010? Or has the transition
from Labour to Conservative government changed nothing much, as
representatives of several leading British animal welfare
organizations told ANIMAL PEOPLE?
“In a series of little-noticed moves,” The Independent
charged, “the coalition has scrapped or stalled Labour initiatives
to improve animal welfare. Agriculture minister James Paice, who
part-owns a farm in Cambridgeshire, has been behind most of the
moves,” The Independent said. “Paice this week delayed by five years
a ban on beak mutilations of laying hens due to come into force in
January.

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Coffee fad revives civet farming

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2010:

DENPASAR, HANOI–Just seven years after
China banned civet farming because of the
association of civet consumption with more than
800 human deaths from Sudden Acute Respiratory
Syndrome, a vogue for pricy civet coffee has
brought the industry back perhaps bigger than
ever–and certainly in many more places.
Sold to coffee snobs as kopi luwak, the
Indonesian word for it, civet coffee is brewed
from the beans that civets excrete after eating
coffee berries, one of their favorite foods.
Civet coffee is by reputation stronger and
usually more aromatic than most coffees.

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Culturally Rationalized Forms of Chicken Sacrifice: The Kaporos Ritual & the Chicken Project

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2010:

by Karen Davis, Ph.D., president & founder, United Poultry Concerns

The idea that some groups were put on the
earth to suffer and die sacrificially for a
superior group or ideal goes far back in time.
This idea is deeply embedded in human cultures,
including the culture of the West, which is
rooted in ancient Greek and Hebrew modes of
thought, incorporated into Christianity, where
these roots combine.

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EC to seek suspension of cloning animals for food

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)

BRUSSELS–European Union commissioner in charge of health and
consumer policy John Dalli on October 19, 2010 announced that the
European Commission, in its capacity as advisory body to the
European Parliament, “will propose a temporary suspension of animal
cloning for food production in the EU.”
Explained a prepared brief, “The Commission also plans to
suspend temporarily the use of cloned farm animals and the marketing
of food from clones. All temporary measures will be reviewed after
five years. The establishment of a traceability system for imports
of reproductive materials for clones, such as semen and embryos of
clones, is also envisaged. The system will allow farmers and
industry to set up a database with the animals that would emerge from
these reproductive materials.”

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Controlled atmosphere poultry stunning moves ahead

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)

FREDERICKSBURG, Pennsylvania–Controlled
atmosphere stunning on October 22, 2010 moved an
influential step closer to U.S. industry
acceptance when New York Times business writer
William Neuman broke as an exclusive the
decisions of the premium niche poultry producers
Bell & Evans and Mary’s Chickens to introduce
controlled atmosphere systems in mid-2011.
Bell & Evans, Mary’s Chickens, and MBA
Poultry of Nebraska, which has used controlled
atmosphere stunning since 2005, have among them
about half of 1% of U.S. poultry industry market
share. Bell & Evans kills about 840,000 birds
per week, Neuman said, while Mary’s Chickens
kills about 200,000. Their combined annual
slaughter volume is about equal to the weekly
volume for Tyson Foods.

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BOOKS: CAFO

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)

CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations):
The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories edited by Daniel Imhoff
Watershed Media (513 Brown Street, Healdsburg,
CA 95448), 2010. 400 pages, hardcover. 450
photographs. $50.00.

CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding
Operations) is the latest and probably most
ambitious yet of a 20-volume series of coffee
table books produced by Watershed Media founder
Daniel Imhoff to help bring public attention to
major but often overlooked environmental issues.
CAFO is the fourth Imhoff edition to
address factory farming, following Farming with
the Wild (2003), Farming & the Fate of Wild
Nature (2006), and Food Fight: the Citizen’s
Guide to a Food & Farm Bill (2007).

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Volcano taxes Indonesian rescuers

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)
YOGYAKARTA–“Animal conditions are really bad and sad,”
e-mailed Rosek Nurashid of ProFauna on October 31, 2010 from the
shadows of Mount Merapi, Indonesia, hours before it erupted for the
third of five times in a week. Each new blast made the already
catastrophic situation worse.
“Many cows are hungry and dying,” Nurashid wrote. “ProFauna
is trying to provide food and medicine. It’s hard to find grass,
because almost all the grass around Merapi is covered by dust, so
our team is looking for the grass from other regions.”

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Pakistan flood recedes but animal welfare crisis is still underway

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)

KARACHI–Floods that swamped more than a fifth of Pakistan
receded in October 2010, but the resultant animal welfare crisis may
have just begun.
“According to the Department of Livestock,” e-mailed
Pakistan Animal Welfare Society founder Mahera Omar, “1.2 million
mammals and six million poultry died in the floods. At least two
million hectares of cultivatable land were damaged. If the planting
seasons are missed, both livestock and people will continue to
suffer for a long time.”

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