TYSON FOODS AND FARM ANIMAL ABUSE 4JUN12

THE video made me sick, it is graphic, and shows just how twisted and cruel some people are. They should not be able to profit from their cruelty and so I hope you will watch the video and be outraged enough to sign the petition and boycott tyson foods until they end buying from business farms using gestation crates. From the SumOfUs and the Humane Society....

Watch the video and take action

The Humane Society just released an undercover video of extraordinarily cruel treatment of animals at a pig supplier for Tyson Foods, the largest meat producer in the U.S.
The video is shocking. Baby pigs are being kicked around like soccer balls. Sick mother pigs are being beaten. And sows are being locked in “gestation crates” – cages so small the animal can barely move, and can’t even turn around…for their entire lives.
There is no reason to treat animals this cruelly.
Sign our petition to Tyson telling the company to immediately stop allowing gestation crate confinement in its supply chain.
After the video was released online, a massive public outcry caused Tyson to pull the plug -- temporarily -- on this one factory farm’s contract. But the reality is animal mistreatment is systemic in Tyson’s supply chain, and gestation crate confinement creates a culture of callousness toward animals. This callousness will only end when this practice does.
Burger King, McDonald's, Wendy's, and Safeway have all committed to eliminating gestation crates from their supply chains. But Tyson doesn't just condone this cruelty, which scientific evidence proves causes extreme animal suffering -- it defends it.
It shouldn’t take intrepid animal welfare activists going undercover to document mistreatment. Tyson should be making every effort to root animal mistreatment out of its supply chain. And with so much momentum building around this issue now, we have a huge opportunity to make the second-largest meat producer in the world stop this abuse for good.
Sign the petition to Tyson Foods demanding the company eliminate cruel gestation crates from its supply chain.
Thanks for standing up for the pigs,
--Emma, Taren, Kaytee and the rest of us

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Background Information
What is a gestation crate?
Gestation crates are metal stalls measuring approximately 0.7 m (2 ft) by 2m (7 ft)—barely larger than a sow. This crate is specifically designed to severely restrict a sow’s movement and thwart her natural behaviours. A breeding sow spends most of her reproductive life (normally 3-5 years) in such a gestation crate. She endures a continuous cycle of impregnation and birth (beginning at seven months of age) producing more than 20 piglets per year, 15 percent of whom will die by the age of 2-3 weeks. The piglets who survive are taken away from her and crowded into pens with metal bars and concrete floors, destined for the same life as their mother or the dinner plate. After about three litters, she is spent, deemed “no longer profitable” and sent to the slaughterhouse.
Do gestation crates cause animal suffering?
Yes. The horrors of gestation crates are well documented, and include joint damage, leg weakness, decreased muscle mass, weakened bones, overgrown hooves, lameness, impaired mobility, obesity, abrasions, urinary tract infections, chronic stress, depression, frustration, aggression, abnormal neurotic behaviour, cardiovascular problems and diseases such as Salmonellosis, epidemic transmissible gastroenteritis, bratislava and respiratory disease.
In addition to being subjected to suffering, pigs are fed massive doses of antibiotics to keep them alive in these conditions, but many pigs will still die from infection.
Undercover investigations show that pigs forced to live in gestation crates develop infected sores and abscesses, live in their own filth, and are abused at the hands of factory farm owners. Pigs bite at the bars of their crates and try to push their crate doors up – demonstrating their deep frustration. Many pigs are abused, and dead pigs have been found in crates and pens.
Are gestation crates banned anywhere?
Growing public awareness about the cruelty of gestation crates has led numerous companies to eliminate them -- notably McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy's. National governments have begun to ban the crates. The European Union and eight U.S. states -- including California, Ohio, and Michigan -- have bans. Despite progress, 70% of the U.S. pork industry still confines pigs in these crates.
Citations and further reading:
Undercover Investigation Documents Pig Abuse at Tyson Supplier, Humane Society of the United States, May 8, 2012.
REPORT: Undercover Exposés at Two of the Nation’s Largest Pork Producers, The Humane Society of the United States
Pigs Prove to Be Smart, if Not Vain, The New York Times, November 9, 2009.
Gestation Crates in Canada, Humane Society International/Canada, 2010.
Undercover at Smithfield’s Foods, a short video on gestation crates.

SumOfUs is a world-wide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy. You can follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.

America's Top 10 Most-Polluted Waterways from MOTHER JONES 2APR12

OUR waterways are in bad shape now, and the repiglican / tea-bagger party platform calls for gutting the EPA and so the Clean Water Act, which will make them even more polluted and expose more of us to poisoning and disease. Just another reason to make sure Pres Obama is re-elected this November! From Mother Jones.....

—By Kiera Butler

zappowbang/Flickr

If you are a fly-fisher, a rafter, or heck, just a person who drinks water, here is some troubling news: Our waterways are in rough shape. An eye-opening new report (PDF) from Environment America Research and Policy Center finds that industry discharged 226 million pounds of toxic chemicals into America's rivers and streams in 2010. The pollution included dead-zone-producing nitrates from food processors, mercury and other heavy metals from steel plants, and toxic chemicals from various kinds of refineries. Within the overall waste, the researchers identified 1.5 million pounds of carcinogens, 626,000 pounds of chemicals linked to developmental disorders and 354,000 pounds of those associated with reproductive problems.
In the report are a few goodies (or baddies, really) that are worth ogling. First up, there's this map of the most heavily polluted waterways in the United States, broken down by state:

And if you're curious about which waterways suffer from the most pollution, here's the top 10:

Finally, a list of the top 20 polluters—composed mostly of steel manufacturers, chemical plants, and food processing operations:

It's important to note that the vast majority—if not all—of these releases are perfectly legal. I reached out to all of the companies on the list above and received a response from several. They all basically told me the same thing: "All discharges meet permit requirements," Cargill said. "This is a natural process that is fully licensed, and included as part of our wastewater discharge reporting," echoed McCain Foods.
We'll have to take their word for it, since the companies are not required to release the results of their chemical safety testing to the public, nor do they have to reveal how much of each chemical they are releasing. The Clean Water Act doesn't even apply to all bodies of water in the United States; exactly how big and important a waterway must be to qualify for protection has been the subject of much debate. Rivers get the big conservation bucks; they're the waterway equivalents of rhinos and snow leopards. But pollutants in oft-neglected ditches, canals, and creeks—the obscure bugs of the waterway world—also affect ecosystems and our drinking water quality. Sean Carroll, a federal field associate in Environment America's California office, estimates that 60 percent of US waterways aren't protected. "The big problem," he says, "is that we don't know how big the problem is."
The situation has gotten slightly better since the last time Environment America conducted a study; overall waterway pollution decreased by 2.6 percent from 2007 to 2010. There's still a lot of room for improvement, Carroll says. Environment America is calling on Obama to extend the protections offered by the Clean Water Act before the end of his first term. A list of the group's specific recommendations is here.

Kiera Butler

Articles Editor

Kiera Butler is the articles editor at Mother Jones. For more of her stories, click here. RSS | Twitter

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/03/top-10-polluted-rivers-waterways 

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