Mercy for Animals

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This Little Piggie Gets Tortured ~ Kroger stops shipments, asks for probe

        A piglet at Iowa Select Farms’ Kamrar, IA facility.       Photo courtesy of Mercy for Animals

Three years ago, floodwaters engulfed Iowa and swept hundreds of pigs down the Mississsippi River, sparking a rescue effort that moved over 60 survivors to new lives on sanctuaries. When Iowa’s levees burst again last week, its pigs took the national spotlight once more to tell a different story.

A hard-to-watch undercover video from the Chicago- based group Mercy for Animals (MFA) was released on June 29, showing live piglets getting sliced, slammed and thrown across a building in a small Iowa town.

A former Iowa Pork Princess became its unwitting star, by assuring the undercover camerawoman that “pigs are very bouncy,” and then describing their flights through the air as “a rollercoaster ride for piglets.”

Continue reading the full story in CityBeat »

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Livestock Care Standards Advance Without Enforcement Plan

Livestock Care Board members Harold Dates (l) and Dominic Marchese (r) at last week’s board meeting.

Ohio’s Livestock Care Standards Board moved with unusual swiftness and cheer last week, to vote the final 25 pages of their document one step closer to entering the Ohio Revised Code. Likely to become effective this July, these will be the state’s first statutes regulating the care of chickens, pigs, cows, horses, turkeys, sheep, goats, alpacas and llamas—all of whom are excluded from the federal Animal Welfare Act.

Congratulations have hummed within the board and animal protection groups, for arriving at mutually-palatable standards after a year-long haul.  But as the whittled rules move forward, no structure exists to enforce them. Continue reading →

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Midwest Culinary Inst. creates “Vegan Ooh La La!” Banquet

Update, 3/24/11: Seats at the Summit Restaurant were packed with vegans and omnivores epicurious about this menu:

~Arugula-Spinach Salad w/ hummus, Castelvetrano olives, pickled peppers, radish and roasted lemon vinaigrette

~Turnip-butternut squash soup with pumpkin spice, chestnut, and cardamom

~Broccolini with button and shiitake mushrooms in maple-thyme jus

~Black bean-lentil cakes with cumin-spiced collard greens, tortillas, and mango-ginger sauce

~Avocado relish with jalapeño peppers and cilantro

~Chocolate-Hazelnut Butter Torte w/ Coconut Mousse, Chocolate Vegan Gelato and Whipped Passion Fruit

Here are some photos from the event, of the chef, his staff, their guests, and musicians from the local Cajun-style band, Lagniappe. Continue reading →

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Protesters, neighbors deliver silent “no” to proposed egg mega-farm

Thanks for your patience with the rough edges of this, Sentient Cincinnati’s first video news piece.  We’ll work on shooting crisper audio for the next one.

Transcript of video coverage:

Today at the Ohio Department of Agriculture in Reynoldsburg, a three-day hearing concluded to determine whether two men from Iowa will be allowed to build an industrial egg farm in Union County, that would use six million caged hens to make liquid egg products.

Ohio Director of Agriculture Robert Boggs had already denied a permit to Hi-Q Egg Products, saying that the company had not made adequate plans to fortify the road system in their would-be neighborhood of West Mansfield. Continue reading →

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“Animals built to move should be allowed to move.”

Volunteers Jan Hughes and Jamie Williams of Warren County, gathering signatures at Findlay Market; photo courtesy of K. Kil

One signature at a time, volunteers across Ohio are working to reverse the direction of the state’s rapidly-industrializing animal farming system. They have until June 31 to gather 600,000 voter signatures, in support of a November referendum that would crack down upon the most inhumane elements of industrial confinement and slaughter.

They call the main goal of the bill modest: to provide every laying hen, pregnant sow, and calf, with enough space to stand up, lay down, turn in a full circle, and extend his or her limbs.
Continue reading →