When you walk into a grocery store and buy a product made from an animal, chances are good that it was produced through factory farming. Even if you don’t know what factory farming is, you’ve likely heard tales about the horrific conditions that animals on industrial farms are made to endure. Nevertheless, you might not be aware of all the destructive ways that factory farming affects the environment, the public health, and the rural communities that rely on it for their livelihoods.Article continues below advertisement
What is factory farming?
According to The Humane League, factory farming is an industrial method of raising livestock, whether it’s for food, leather, wool, or any other use. In a given year, about 10 billion animals in the U.S. are raised and killed for meat, dairy, and eggs. The idea behind factory farms is simple; use the least amount of resources that you can, in order to maximize your profits. Most of the time, this involves cutting corners.
Animals are confined to smaller living spaces, fed food that is less nutritious and more fattening, and kept in close proximity to maximize production. It is not a good life for the animals, some of whom are never allowed to see the light of day nor tread upon actual earth. But neither is it a good vocation for the individuals who work on the farms.Article continues below advertisementhttps://f2661f139900f3dbedf8e4af2f7b5224.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
The people who run these facilities are forced to witness or deliver cruelty unto their charges, or else risk losing their livelihood in a sea of demanding investors and hungry Americans. In the clip below, comedian John Oliver discusses the inherent cruelty of the factory farming industry, as well as the emotional and economic plight of those whose jobs and families depend on it.https://www.youtube.com/embed/X9wHzt6gBgISOURCE: LASTWEEK TONIGHT/YOUTUBEArticle continues below advertisementhttps://f2661f139900f3dbedf8e4af2f7b5224.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
How does factory farming affect the environment?
Factory farming is terrible for a great many reasons, but as far as the environment is concerned, the most egregious sin has to do with pollution.
Factory farming greatly contributes to global warming.
Factory farming is one of the biggest contributors of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet. According to Do Something, it accounts for 37 percent of all global methane emissions, and methane warms the planet about 20 times faster than CO2. Hydrogen sulfide and ammonia are also emitted by factory farms and contribute to the greenhouse effect.Article continues below advertisementhttps://f2661f139900f3dbedf8e4af2f7b5224.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
That doesn’t even count the amount of fossil fuels that are burned to feed, house, and transport the animals and subsequent animal products themselves. Fertilizer, which is used to grow feed crops for livestock, is also produced by burning fossil fuels. A whopping 41 million tons of CO2 are emitted each year in order to create this fertilizer.
Factory farming pollutes local habitats, water sources, and surrounding areas.
Water and soil pollution is also fairly prevalent in industrial farming areas. 10 billion animals produce an awful lot of manure — approximately 1 million tons or more, according to Pace University. That waste doesn’t just contain traces of salt and heavy metals which can accumulate in water and affect the food chain. It also contains dangerous amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen, the latter of which can cause water to become anoxic and unable to support life.
In addition, animal waste from factory farms contains trace amounts of undigested antibiotics, which are given to the animals to prevent bacteria and disease from spreading in such confined, filthy, overcrowded spaces. When that waste makes it into the water table, whole ecosystems are affected from the bacterial level up, eventually breeding new and dangerous zoonotic bacteria that go on to affect humans as severely as the swine flu, bird flu, or the Nipah virus.Article continues below advertisementhttps://f2661f139900f3dbedf8e4af2f7b5224.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
Factory farming leads to deforestation.
In order to make room for the animals, feed crops, and the farm locations themselves whole swaths of land need to be clear cut out of the way. According to Mala Forest, factory farming in the U.S. has resulted in more than 260 million acres of forested land being cleared away to make room for feed crops alone. In the same way, whole rivers and reservoirs need to be repurposed for use by these massive farms.Article continues below advertisementhttps://f2661f139900f3dbedf8e4af2f7b5224.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
Factory farming needs to change.
Until the world starts adopting a more sustainable, plant-based lifestyle, the mass production of animal-based food sources is going to continue to be a necessary evil. That said, the only thing stopping the industrial farm industry from being safer, more eco-friendly, and more humane, is ultimately money — something which the majority of factory farm owners have more than enough of, in large part thanks to government agricultural subsidies.
If that mindset does not change, nothing else will either. In the meantime, the best we, as individuals can do is to make dietary changes in our own lives and continue to fight for the rights of animals and our own rights as fellow citizens of the planet that these monstrous industrial farm owners are currently polluting.
Trawling is a method of fishing that involves pulling a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats. Trawling can be divided into bottom trawling and midwater trawling, depending on how high the trawl (net) is in the water column.
Trawling, which has been widely criticized for its use, causes damage to the seabed and coral reefs. It is estimated that each time the trawl net is pulled, about 5 to 25 percent of the seabed living environment is lost.
Davood Mirshekar, head of the marine ecosystem protection office at the Department of Environment (DOE), told YJC that “due to the special ecosystem sensitivities in the Persian Gulf and also the adverse effects of climate change on biodiversity, we are opposed to any kind of trawling in the Persian Gulf………
Phil Demers was an employee of Marineland collecting a paycheck for a time, until he had a fallout with owner John Holer. For the past 10 years, Demers has been hoping Marineland will eventually close. He maintains there was animal abuse and poor maintenance at the park.
Holer came from Yugoslavia (that’s what it was called back then). He had humble beginnings in Canada with mediocre jobs, but he had a dream; it turned out to be Marineland.
Marilu DiSanto, a protester at the park, admonished visitors by saying, “I can’t believe people still come here. Nothing else better to do today?” Obviously, DiSanto has nothing better to do as she and other protesters hassled visitors at the park.
Protesters have concerns about animals at Marineland, but don’t feel the same way towards cows, pigs, lambs, goats and whatever else walks on four legs.
When cows are brought to the abattoir (slaughterhouse), they are stunned by bolt gun to the brain. In most cases, the animal is unconscious, but whoa to the ones that aren’t; they die piece by piece. Hind legs are shackled as the animal is lifted off the floor. Large blood vessels in the neck are cut for bleeding; eventually, the neck is severed for quicker bleeding.
Many pigs not properly stunned, are put alive into scalding-hot water baths, which softens their skin and removes hair.
Chickens are put in electrified water; this is meant to make them unconscious (you hope) before their throats are slit. The bodies are thrown into boiling water so they are de-feathered.
Yes, some animals go through “needless suffering” at slaughterhouses; where are the protesters for these animals?
To all the protesters enjoying their steaks, hamburgers, roasts, pork chops, veal, hotdogs, chicken and turkeys, lamb, goat and fish; remember, what these animals have to go through to satisfy your tummies. It may not be perfect, but animals at Marineland have it a bit better than what is going on at slaughterhouses.
I’m not a bible thumper, but it does say in Genesis 1:26 of man, “Let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air and over the beasts of the earth.” Sorry protesters, you had better complain to a higher power.
Protesters should direct their gripe towards another animal called the “human.” Throughout history and even today, humans have committed genocide, racism, bigotry and intolerance towards others because of races (skin colours), religions and different nationalities. Your protesting energies could serve a much better purpose than at some animal park.
Lou Cesar; St. Catharines
Animal rights protesters should look at human issues
Phil Demers was an employee of Marineland collecting a paycheck for a time, until he had a fallout with owner John Holer. For the past 10 years, Demers has been hoping Marineland will eventually close. He maintains there was animal abuse and poor maintenance at the park.
Holer came from Yugoslavia (that’s what it was called back then). He had humble beginnings in Canada with mediocre jobs, but he had a dream; it turned out to be Marineland.
Marilu DiSanto, a protester at the park, admonished visitors by saying, “I can’t believe people still come here. Nothing else better to do today?” Obviously, DiSanto has nothing better to do as she and other protesters hassled visitors at the park.
Protesters have concerns about animals at Marineland, but don’t feel the same way towards cows, pigs, lambs, goats and whatever else walks on four legs.
When cows are brought to the abattoir (slaughterhouse), they are stunned by bolt gun to the brain. In most cases, the animal is unconscious, but whoa to the ones that aren’t; they die piece by piece. Hind legs are shackled as the animal is lifted off the floor. Large blood vessels in the neck are cut for bleeding; eventually, the neck is severed for quicker bleeding.
Many pigs not properly stunned, are put alive into scalding-hot water baths, which softens their skin and removes hair.
Chickens are put in electrified water; this is meant to make them unconscious (you hope) before their throats are slit. The bodies are thrown into boiling water so they are de-feathered.
Yes, some animals go through “needless suffering” at slaughterhouses; where are the protesters for these animals?
To all the protesters enjoying their steaks, hamburgers, roasts, pork chops, veal, hotdogs, chicken and turkeys, lamb, goat and fish; remember, what these animals have to go through to satisfy your tummies. It may not be perfect, but animals at Marineland have it a bit better than what is going on at slaughterhouses.
I’m not a bible thumper, but it does say in Genesis 1:26 of man, “Let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air and over the beasts of the earth.” Sorry protesters, you had better complain to a higher power.
Protesters should direct their gripe towards another animal called the “human.” Throughout history and even today, humans have committed genocide, racism, bigotry and intolerance towards others because of races (skin colours), religions and different nationalities. Your protesting energies could serve a much better purpose than at some animal park.Lou CesarSt. Catharines
Very dark days lie ahead for us, for our state’s reputation, for tourism, for our state’s economy, and particularly for wolves and other animals. The wildlife and beloved family pets will pay the ultimate price in this unethical, indiscriminate, and unnecessary war declared on wolves in Montana.
In support and collaboration with some of our closest allies, Plan B to Save Wolves, Wolves of the Rockies, The 06 Legacy, and the Apex Protection Project, Trap Free created this action alert, below, focused on the Yellowstone Wolves. We did not make this decision lightly. The Yellowstone wolves are the poster child of wolves. They are both deeply valued and deeply despised. We do not want to put them in further jeopardy. However, they are the trophies, wolf haters, and outfitters will target. They have no quota, anymore, on the number of Yellowstone wolves who can be killed, and these wolves are clueless. Their deaths will be heard worldwide and felt through the heart and the wallet. We cannot sit back, wait, and watch. As WOTR founder once said to us, “If we cannot save Yellowstone wolves, we cannot save any.”
Please take action below and make the calls. With enough pressure we should be able to at least stop this pending targeted slaughter we know will be on the prized Yellowstone wolves and the foreseen annihilation of hundreds of unknown wolves will not be muted!
YELLOWSTONE WOLVES NEED YOU NOW
If you are a fan of Yellowstone, a future or past visitor, or a business owner who benefits from Yellowstone National Park, then WE ARE IMPLORING YOU to be a voice for Yellowstone Wolves.
This is an EMERGENCY. In Montana, killers will be targeting Yellowstone wolves as a badge of honor, for revenge, and for the ease now in killing them. The fascination and love of wolves viewed and watched by millions in the park, annually, have habituated many wolves into thinking that humans will cause them no harm. However, they are about to be seriously betrayed.
The Montana Fish & Wildlife Commission removed the quotas outside the park, so those who hate wolves CAN NOW KILL countless Yellowstone wolves as they cross the imaginary park boundary lines.
Effective August 20, 2021, in sync with the Montana 2021 legislature’s passing of anti-wolf bills, here is how wolves in Montana can legally be killed:
1. By outfitters, landowners, and others with landowner permission, enticing wolves with bait onto private land so they can also shoot them at night using artificial light or night vision scopes.
2. With baited unattended indiscriminate massive secreted leghold traps and countless cheap snares.
3. With archery beginning September 5, guns September 15, and trapping and snaring as early as November 29. The Montana wolf season closes on March 15 during the wolves’ latter stage of pregnancy and birthing.
4. And with monetary reimbursements ~$1,000, a bounty, from an Idaho based organization for Montana wolf killers.
The Yellowstone wolves have significant intrinsic and extrinsic value:
They are the poster child of wolves. These wolves are known, observed, photographed, studied, and treasured.
They will represent the secreted and disturbingly unethical, cruel fate that will befall all the unknown wolves in Montana and in which the recent overwhelming majority of 25,000 submitted public comments opposed.
Tourism is Montana’s second and fastest-growing industry. Many come here for wildlife, and especially to Yellowstone to see wolves.
In 2005, 10 years after wolves returned to Yellowstone, a study estimated wolf-centered ecotourism generated > $35 million in the park’s surrounding gateway communities.
In 2019, Yellowstone National Park reports tourism generated a cumulative economic benefit of $642 million for local economies near the park.
Years of scientific research and educational discoveries will be lost with this pending slaughter.
Montana Fish & Wildlife Commission’s approval of these wolf “hunts” has nothing to do with hunting, or as anti-wolf bills’ sponsor, Rep. Paul Fielder said, fair chase. They will become culls, potentially decimating, even eliminating entire naive Yellowstone packs.
PLEASE, TAKE A FEW MINUTES, now to try to stop this, using your own words, and being respectful, do the following:
1. Contact MONTANA OFFICE OF TOURISM AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT and tell them that you are demanding protections for wolves as a patron of Yellowstone, a tourist, or a relevant business owner. 1-406-841-2870 / Toll-free 800-847-4868 Email: travelcounselor@visitmt.com Online contact: https://www.visitmt.com/contact.html
2. Contact MONTANA GOVERNOR GREG GIANFORTE about the negative economic impact this will have; the economic benefit in 2019 from tourism to local Yellowstone Park communities was an estimated $642 million. 1-406-444-3111, or online https://svc.mt.gov/gov/contact/shareopinion
3. Contact SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR, DEB HAALAND and urge her to protect Yellowstone wolves, save the Northern Rocky Mountain region wolves from this unethical and unnecessary slaughter, and move to a federal emergency listing of all wolves to prevent the imminent eradication of the species. 1-202-208-3100 email: feedback@ios.doi.gov or online https://www.doi.gov/contact-us
4. Contact PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN and insist he put the wolves back on the endangered species list as the states have demonstrated their inability to manage wolves responsibly and through science; and this is not what the American public supported for wolf reintroduction and recovery.1-202-456-1414 (Switchboard) 1-202-456-1111 (Comments) or online https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
It’s time to make fur farming history. Tens of thousands of mink and other fur-bearing animals are purpose-bred, raised and then killed for the use of their fur.
The issue of fur farming is more than an “animal rights” issue as it concerns the inextricable linking of human, animal and environmental health. The viral storm caused by Covid-19 exposed these overlapping interspecies vulnerabilities. Minks are vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and the virus can jump the species barrier to transmit to humans. Repeated outbreaks of Covid-19 at commercial mink farms in B.C., Europe, the U.S.A., and other parts of the world have spotlighted this cruel and unnecessary industry. Millions of minks have been killed attempting to stop the viral spread, and breed bans have now been put in place in many countries in the E.U. and beyond.
Several voices, including The Suzuki Foundation, The Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC), Humane Societies, infectious disease physicians, and the Fur-Bearers, have been calling for the closure of the commercial fur farming industry. A recent article by Humane Society International outlined some of the main reasons. Canadian infectious diseases specialist Dr. Hajek was quoted: “Given the very real threat of viral mutations and the transmission of virus between animals and people in these facilities, the B.C. Government should now act decisively, prohibit and end industrial fur farming in the interest of public health and animal welfare.”
Kelly Butler, of H.S.I./Canada, stated, “The world community is taking urgent action to end fur farming because it is inherently inhumane, environmentally destructive, and poses a grave public health risk. More than 20 countries have already stopped fur farming within their jurisdictions. The B.C. government must follow the lead of these nations and end this cruel, high risk, outdated and needless industry.” Dr. Dubois, BC SPCA Chief Scientific Officer, stated, “fur farming exists in direct opposition to the values of British Columbians. The continuation of this industry would present unacceptable outcomes for both animals and people.” Grand Chief Phillip, president of the UBCIC, stated, “We are renewing our call for an end to fur farming in B.C. This industry not only goes against Indigenous values of wildlife stewardship and conservation but also has proven to be an unmanageable threat to public health.”
Are there some checks and balances under Canadian law? There are some laws and codes of practice, but many argue they do not go far enough. In BC, for example, the statute to regulate the fur farm industry is the Animal Health Act and Fur Farm Regulations. The act defines:
“fur bearing animal” means a chinchilla, fisher, fox, marten, mink or nutria;
“fur farm” means a place where two or more fur bearing animals are kept in captivity with the intention of breeding the animals, or producing pelts, for commercial purposes
Part 3 — Health of Fur Bearing Animals — Health management plan states:
7(1) A licensed fur farmer must
(a) establish a health management plan in accordance with subsection (2) for the fur bearing animals kept on the fur farm, and (b) ensure that all operators on the fur farm implement all protocols and procedures contained in the plan.
On July 6, 2021, a novel type of lawsuit concerning fur farming was filed in B.C. Supreme Court on behalf of the Fur Bearer’s. David Wu, of Arvay Finlay, one of the lawyers for the case (I am co-counsel), outlined the case in a nutshell: “The Fur-Bearer’s have launched a judicial review challenging the renewal of a fur farm licence to B.C.’s only chinchilla fur farm. The basis of the judicial review is that the licence was renewed with no animal health management plan in place. A health management plan is a requirement under the applicable regulation. The government does not dispute that there was no fur farm licence in place. Rather, it appears that the main arguments the government will advance are that the petitioners lack public interest standing and the issue is moot because the government is now working to address the lack of a health management plan. As such, whether the government can be held accountable over how it follows and enforces the regulatory scheme will likely become front and center in this case.” We expect this animal law case will go to a hearing later this year. (For further details, please see B.C. taken to court over chinchilla fur farm licence in Vancouver Is Awesome).
On July 21, 2021, under the Public Health Act, S.B.C. 2008, a moratorium was ordered on new B.C. mink farms and capped existing fur farms due to Covid-19. All provinces should follow suit, and funding programs that support the commercial fur farming industry, proven to be a threat to health, should be stopped.
A 2020 public opinion poll showed that 81 per cent of Canadians are opposed to killing animals for their fur. The overarching question is, why do we continue to allow fur farming now that the facts are in and the science is clear? The law needs to catch up by rapidly phasing out the industry and provide retraining to fur farmers. Big-name fashion houses have taken fur off their designer menus, including Prada, Gucci, Coach, and others, demonstrating an understanding of consumer demand for fur-free fashion.
Consumer appetite for using the fur coats of animals for human vanity has shrunk in the face of humane education. The killing of animals for their fur, for fashion is not socially or morally acceptable and needs to be banned. We are overdue in Canada to bring the anachronistic commercial fur farming industry to a swift close.
The Canadian Legal Newswire is a FREE newsletter that keeps you up to date on news and analysis about the Canadian legal scene. A separate InHouse Edition is delivered on a regular basis, providing targeted news and information of interest to in-house counsel.
On the morning of may 25, 2019, a food-safety inspector at a Cargill meatpacking plant in Dodge City, Kansas, came across a disturbing sight. In an area of the plant called the stack, a Hereford steer had, after being shot in the forehead with a bolt gun, regained consciousness. Or maybe he had never lost it. Either way, this wasn’t supposed to happen. The steer was hanging upside down by a steel chain shackled to one of his rear legs. He was showing what is known in the euphemistic language of the American beef industry as “signs of sensibility.” His breathing was “rhythmic.” His eyes were open and moving. And he was trying to right himself, which the animals commonly do by arching their back. The only sign he wasn’t exhibiting was “vocalization.”
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The inspector, who worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, told employees in the stack to stop the moving overhead chain to which the cattle were attached and “reknock” the steer. But when one of them pulled the trigger on a handheld bolt gun, it misfired. Someone brought over another gun to finish the job. “The animal was then stunned adequately,” the inspector wrote in a memorandum describing the incident, noting that “the timeframe from observing the apparent egregious action to the final euthanizing stun was approximately 2 to 3 minutes.”
Three days after the incident occurred, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, citing the plant’s history of compliance, put the plant on notice for its “failure to prevent inhumane handling and slaughter of livestock.” FSIS ordered the plant to create an action plan to ensure that such an incident didn’t happen again. On June 4, the agency approved a plan submitted by the plant’s manager and said in a letter to him that it would defer a decision about punishment. The chain could keep moving, and with it the slaughtering of up to 5,800 cows a day.
The first time I stepped foot in the stack was late last October, after I had been working at the plant for more than four months. To find it, I arrived early one day and worked my way backwards down the chain. It was surreal to see the slaughter process in reverse, to witness step-by-step what it would take to reassemble a cow: shove its organs back into its body cavities; reattach its head to its neck; pull its hide back over its flesh; draw blood back into its veins.
During my visits to the kill floor, I saw a severed hoof lying inside a metal sink in the skinning room, and puddles of bright-red blood dotting the red-brick floor. One time, a woman in a yellow synthetic-rubber apron was trimming away flesh from skinless, decapitated heads. A USDA inspector working next to her was doing something similar. I asked him what he was cutting. “Lymph nodes,” he said. I found out later that he was performing a routine check for diseases and contamination.
On my last trip to the stack, I tried to be inconspicuous. I stood against the back wall and watched as two men standing on a raised platform cut vertical incisions down the throat of each passing cow. As far as I could tell, all of the animals were unconscious, though a few of them involuntarily kicked their legs. I watched until a supervisor came over and asked what I was doing. I told him I wanted to see what this part of the plant was like. “You need to leave,” he said. “You can’t be here without a face shield.” I apologized and told him that I would get going. I couldn’t have stayed for much longer anyway; my shift was about to start.
Getting a job at the Cargill plant was surprisingly easy. The online application for “general production” was six pages long. It took less than 15 minutes to fill out. At no point was I required to submit a résumé, let alone references. The most substantial part of the application was a 14-question form that asked things like:
“Do you have experience working with knives to cut meat (this does not include working in a grocery store or deli)?”
No.
“How many years have you worked in a beef production plant (example: slaughter or fabrication, not a grocery store or deli)?”
No experience.
“How many years have you worked in a production or plant environment (example: assembly line or manufacturing work)?”
Zero.
Four hours and 20 minutes after hitting “Submit,” I received an email confirmation for a phone interview the next day, May 19, 2020. The interview lasted three minutes. When the woman conducting it asked me for the name of my last employer, I told her that it was the First Church of Christ, Scientist, the publisher of The Christian Science Monitor. I had worked at the Monitor from 2014 to 2018. For the last two of those four years, I was its Beijing correspondent. I had quit to study Chinese and freelance.
“And what did you do there?” the woman asked about my time at the Church.
“Communications,” I said.
The woman asked a couple of follow-up questions about when I quit and why. During the interview, the only question that gave me pause was the final one.
“Do you have any issues or concerns working in our environment?” she asked.
After hesitating for a moment, I replied, “No, I don’t.”
With that, the woman said that I was “eligible for a verbal, conditional job offer.” She told me about the six positions for which the plant was hiring. All were for the second shift, which at the time was running from 3:45 in the afternoon to between 12:30 and 1 o’clock in the morning. Three of the jobs were in harvesting, the side of the plant more commonly known as the kill floor, and three were in fabrication, where the meat is prepared for distribution to stores and restaurants.
I quickly decided that I wanted a job in fab. Temperatures on the kill floor can approach 100 degrees in the summer, and, as the woman on the phone explained, “the smell is stronger because of the humidity.” Then there were the jobs themselves, jobs like removing hides and “dropping tongues.” After you remove the tongue, the woman said, “you do have to hang it on a hook.” Her description of fab, on the other hand, made it sound less medieval and more like an industrial-scale butcher shop. A small army of assembly-line workers saw, cut, trim, and package all of the meat from the cows. The temperature on the fab floor ranges from 32 to 36 degrees. But, the woman told me, you work so hard that “you don’t feel the cold once you’re in there.”On the evening before I left for Dodge City, my mom and I went to my sister and brother-in-law’s house for a steak dinner. “It might be the last one you ever have,” my sister said.
We went over the job openings. Chuck cap puller was immediately out because it involved walking and cutting at the same time. The next to go was brisket bone for the simple reason that having to remove something called brisket fingers from in between joints sounded unappealing. That left chuck final trim. That job, as the woman described it, consisted entirely of trimming pieces of chuck “to whatever spec it is that they’re running.” How hard could that be? I thought to myself. I told the woman that I would take it. “Perfect,” she said, and went on to tell me my starting pay ($16.20 an hour) and the conditions of my job offer.
A couple of weeks later, after a background check, a drug screening, and a physical exam, I got a call about my start date: June 8, the following Monday. The drive to Dodge City from Topeka, where I had been living with my mom since mid-March because of the coronavirus pandemic, takes about four hours. I decided that I would leave on Sunday.
On the evening before I left, my mom and I went to my sister and brother-in-law’s house for a steak dinner. “It might be the last one you ever have,” my sister said when she called to invite us over. My brother-in-law grilled two 22-ounce rib eyes for him and me and a 24-ounce sirloin for my mom and sister to split. I helped my sister cook the side dishes: mashed potatoes and green beans sautéed in butter and bacon grease. The quintessential home-cooked meal for a middle-class family in Kansas.
The steak was as good as any I’ve had. It’s hard to describe it without sounding like an Applebee’s commercial: charred crust, juicy and tender meat. I tried to eat slowly so that I could savor every bite. But soon I was caught up in conversation, and I finished eating without thinking about it. In a state where cows outnumber people two to one, where more than 5 billion pounds of beef are produced annually, and where many families—including mine, when my three sisters and I were younger—fill their deep freezer once a year with a side of beef, it’s easy to take a steak dinner for granted.
The cargill plant is on the southeastern outskirts of Dodge City, just down the road from a slightly larger meatpacking plant owned by National Beef. The two facilities sit at opposite ends of what is surely the most noxious two-mile stretch of road in southwestern Kansas. Situated close by is a wastewater-treatment plant and a feedlot. On many days last summer, I found the stench of lactic acid, hydrogen sulfide, manure, and death to be nauseating. The oppressive heat only made it worse.
The High Plains of southwestern Kansas are home to four major meatpacking plants: the two in Dodge City, plus one in Liberal (National Beef) and another near Garden City (Tyson Foods). That Dodge City became home to two meatpacking plants is a fitting coda to the town’s early history. Founded in 1872 along the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad, Dodge City was originally an outpost for buffalo hunters. After the herds that once roamed the Great Plains were decimated—to say nothing of what happened to the Native Americans who’d once lived there—the city turned to the cattle trade.
Practically overnight, Dodge City became, in the words of a prominent local businessman, “the greatest cattle market in the world.” This was the era of lawmen like Wyatt Earp and gunfighters like Doc Holliday, of gambling and shoot-outs and barroom brawls. To say that Dodge City is proud of its Wild West heritage would be an understatement, and nowhere is that heritage more celebrated—some might say mythologized—than at the Boot Hill Museum. Located at 500 West Wyatt Earp Boulevard, near Gunsmoke Street and the Gunfighters Wax Museum, the Boot Hill Museum is anchored by a full-scale replica of the once-famous Front Street. Visitors can enjoy a sarsaparilla at the Long Branch Saloon or shop for handmade soap and homemade fudge at the Rath & Co. General Store. Entry to the museum is free for Ford County residents, a deal that I took advantage of many times last summer after I moved into a one-bedroom apartment near the local VFW.
Yet for all its dime-novel-worthy stories, Dodge City’s Wild West era was short-lived. In 1885, under growing pressure from local ranchers, the Kansas legislature banned Texas cattle from the state, bringing an abrupt end to the cattle drives that had fueled the town’s boom years. For the next seven decades, Dodge City remained a quiet farming community. Then, in 1961, a company called Hyplains Dressed Beef opened the first meatpacking plant in town (the same one now operated by National Beef). In 1980, a subsidiary of Cargill opened its plant down the road. The beef industry had returned to Dodge City.
Illustration by Mark Harris; images by USDA Photo / Alamy; ItalianFoodProduction / Getty
With a combined workforce of more than 12,800 people, the four meatpacking plants are among the largest employers in southwestern Kansas, and all of them rely on immigrants to help staff their production lines. “The packers followed the maxim of ‘Build it and they will come,’ ” Donald Stull, an anthropologist who has studied the meatpacking industry for more than 30 years, told me. “And that’s basically what happened.”https://3246d20dbaf1d2e398ae640359a84593.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
According to Stull, the boom started in the early 1980s with the arrival of refugees from Vietnam and migrants from Mexico and Central America. In more recent years, refugees from Myanmar, Sudan, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo have all come to work in the plants. Today, nearly one in three Dodge City residents is foreign-born, and three in five are Latino or Hispanic. When I arrived at the plant on my first day of work, I was greeted by four banners at the entrance, one each in English, Spanish, French, and Somali, warning employees to stay home if they were exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19.
I spent much of my first two days at the plant with six other new hires in a windowless classroom near the kill floor. The room had beige cinder-block walls and fluorescent overhead lighting. On the wall near the door hung two posters, one in English and the other in Somali, that read bringing beef to the people. The HR rep who was with us for most of those two days of orientation made sure we didn’t forget that mission. “Cargill is a worldwide organization,” she said before starting a lengthy PowerPoint presentation. “We pretty much feed the world. That’s why when the coronavirus started, we didn’t shut down. Because you guys want to eat, right?” Everyone nodded.
By that point, in early June, COVID-19 had forced at least 30 meatpacking plants across the United States to pause operations and, according to the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, had killed at least 74 workers. The Cargill plant reported its first case on April 13. Kansas public-health records reveal that over the course of 2020, more than 600 of the plant’s 2,530 employees contracted COVID-19. At least four died.
In March, the plant started to implement a series of social-distancing measures, including some that had been recommended by the CDC and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. It staggered breaks and installed plexiglass barriers on tables in the cafeteria and thick plastic curtains between workstations on the production line. During the third week of August, metal dividers suddenly appeared in the men’s bathrooms, providing workers with a bit of space (and privacy) at the stainless-steel urinal troughs.
The plant also hired a company called Examinetics to screen employees before each shift. In a white tent at the entrance to the plant, a team of medical personnel—all of whom wore N95 masks, white coveralls, and gloves—checked temperatures and handed out disposable face masks. Thermal cameras were set up inside the plant for additional temperature checks. Face coverings were mandatory. I always wore the disposable masks, but many other employees preferred to wear a blue neck gaiter with a United Food and Commercial Workers International Union logo or a black bandana with the Cargill logo and, for some reason, #extraordinary printed on it.
Catching the coronavirus wasn’t the only health risk at the plant. Meatpacking is notoriously dangerous. According to Human Rights Watch, government statistics show that from 2015 to 2018, a meat or poultry worker lost a body part or was sent to the hospital for in-patient treatment about every other day. On the first day of orientation, one of the other new hires, a Black man from Alabama, described a close call he’d had when he worked in packaging at National Beef’s plant up the road. He rolled up his right sleeve to reveal a four-inch scar on the outside of his elbow. “I almost turned into chocolate milk,” he said.
The HR rep told a similar story about a man whose sleeve got caught in a conveyor belt. “He lost his arm up to here,” she said, pointing halfway up her left biceps. She let this sink in for a few moments, before moving on to the next PowerPoint slide: “That’s a good transition into workplace violence.” She began explaining Cargill’s zero-tolerance policy on guns.
For the next hour and 15 minutes, money—and how the union helped us make more of it—was our focus. The union rep told us that UFCW’s local chapter had recently negotiated a permanent $2 raise for all hourly employees. He explained that all hourly employees would also earn an additional $6 an hour in “purpose pay,” because of the pandemic, through the end of August. This brought the starting wage up to $24.20. The next day at lunch, the man from Alabama told me how eager he was to work overtime. “Right now I’m trying to work on my credit,” he said. “We’ll be working so much, we won’t even have time to spend all that money.”
On my third day of work at the Cargill plant, the number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. surpassed 2 million. But the plant was beginning to bounce back from the outbreak that it had experienced earlier in the spring. (In early May, the plant’s production output had fallen by about 50 percent, according to a text message sent by Cargill’s director of state-government affairs to Kansas’s secretary of agriculture, which I later obtained through a public-records request.) The superintendent in charge of second shift, a giant man with a bushy white beard and a missing right thumb, sounded pleased. “It’s balls to the wall,” I overheard him say to contractors fixing a broken air conditioner. “Last week we were hitting 4,000 a day. This week we’ll probably be around 4,500.”
In fab, processing all of those cows takes place in a cavernous room filled with steel chains, hard-plastic conveyor belts, industrial-size vacuum sealers, and stacks of cardboard shipping boxes. But first is the cooler, where sides of beef are left to hang for an average of 36 hours after they leave the kill floor. When they are brought out for butchering, the sides are broken down into forequarters and hindquarters and then into smaller, marketable cuts of meat. These are what get vacuum-sealed and loaded into boxes for distribution. In non-pandemic times, an average of 40,000 boxes, each weighing between 10 and 90 pounds, are shipped out from the plant every day. McDonald’s and Taco Bell, Walmart and Kroger—they all buy beef from Cargill. The company has six beef-processing plants across the U.S.; the one in Dodge City is the largest.He showed me how to put on a chain-mail tunic that looked made for a knight, layers of gloves, and a white-cotton frock. He led me to a spot near the middle of a 60-foot-long conveyor belt.
The most important tenet of the meatpacking industry is “The chain never stops.” Companies do everything they can to ensure that their production lines keep moving as fast as possible. Yet delays do occur. Mechanical problems are the most common reason; less common are shutdowns initiated by USDA inspectors because of suspected contamination or “inhumane handling” incidents like the one that occurred two years ago at the Cargill plant. Individual workers help keep the line moving by “pulling count”—industry parlance for doing your share of the work. The surest way to lose the respect of your co-workers is to continually fall behind on count, because doing so invariably means more work for them. The most heated confrontations I witnessed on the line happened when someone was perceived to be slacking off. These fights never escalated into anything more than yelling or the occasional elbow jab. If things got out of hand, a foreman would be called over to mediate.
New hires have a probation period of 45 days in which to prove that they can pull count—to “qualify,” as it’s known at the Cargill plant. Each one is supervised by a trainer for the duration of that time. My trainer was 30, just a few months younger than me, and had smiling eyes and broad shoulders. He was a member of a persecuted ethnic minority from Myanmar, the Karen. His Karen name was Par Taw, but after becoming an American citizen in 2019, he changed his name to Billion. “Maybe I’ll be a billionaire one day,” he told me when I asked him how he had chosen his new name. He laughed, as if embarrassed by sharing this part of his American dream.
Billion was born in 1990 in a small village in eastern Myanmar. Karen rebels were in the middle of a long insurgency against the country’s central government. The conflict raged on into the new millennium—it is one of the longest-running civil wars in the world—and forced tens of thousands of Karen to flee over the border into Thailand. Billion was one of them. When he was 12 years old, he began living in a refugee camp there. He moved to the U.S. when he was 18 years old, first to Houston and then to Garden City, where he went to work at the nearby Tyson plant. In 2011, he landed a job at Cargill, where he has worked ever since. Like many Karen people who arrived before him in Garden City, Billion attends Grace Bible Church. It was there that he met Toe Kwee, whose English name is Dahlia. The two started dating in 2009. In 2016, they had their first son, Shine. They bought a house and got married two years later.
Billion was a patient teacher. He showed me how to put on a chain-mail tunic that looked made for a knight, layers of gloves, and a white-cotton frock. Later, he gave me an orange-handled steel hook and a plastic scabbard filled with three identical knives, each with a black handle and a slightly curved six-inch blade, and led me to an empty spot near the middle of a 60-foot-long conveyor belt. Billion slid a knife from the scabbard and demonstrated how to sharpen it using a counterweight sharpener. Then he got to work, trimming away cartilage and bone fragments and ripping off long, thin ligaments from boulder-size pieces of chuck moving past us on the belt.
Billion worked methodically as I stood behind him and watched. He told me that the key was to cut off as little meat as possible. (As a supervisor succinctly put it: “More meat, more money.”) Billion made the job look effortless. In one swift motion, he flipped over 30-pound slabs of chuck with the flick of his hook and pulled out ligaments from folds in the meat. “Take it slow,” he told me after we switched spots.
gnition technology is rapidly becoming ubiquitous, used in everything from security cameras to smartphones. But in the near future, humans may not be the only ones to be digitally captured. Researchers are training forms of artificial intelligence to recognize individual animals by their faces alone — and even discern their emotional state just by reading their expressions.
Much of the research into animal facial expressions has focused on species like dogs and horses. But some of the most cutting-edge work is aimed at an unlikely subject: the farmed hog.
The typical hog factory farm employs a small number of workers to oversee hundreds, or even thousands, of pigs — too many for the people running the facility to tell which ones might be in distress. Researchers at the Centre for Machine Vision at the University of West England, where pig emotion recognition work is being conducted, envision this technology could be used to help farmworkers more readily identify sickness and injury. If AI can routinely scan the pigs’ faces and alert workers to particularly stressed-out animals, treatment can come sooner and suffering can be reduced.
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There is even potential for the technology someday advancing to the point of detecting “happiness” in pigs — a holy grail for animal ag.
But while the idea of learning more about what animals are feeling is self-evidently enticing — why wouldn’t we want to learn more about them? — some animal welfare advocates question the very premise of this research. While the bulk of the funding is from the UK government, one reason for the skepticism is that the research is partly supported by companies in the meat and agriculture industry, including a pig genetics company that has availed its farms for the study.It’s not hard to see that industry’s interest in this work: Keeping more pigs alive under intensive conditions would be a financial boon, as would being able to advertise how “happy” the animals were — something the Centre’s website suggests could be possible.
And that all leads to a deeper question: Just how comfortable — let alone happy — can a pig be on a factory farm? In the US, nearly all pigs raised for meat are kept in unnatural, highly mechanized, and crowded conditions, given no access to the outdoors. Conditions are similar in much of the European Union, and factory farming is on the rise in low- and middle-income countries as global demand for meat increases. These environments are so difficult to endure that, by some estimates, up to 35 percent of US-raised pigs die before ever reaching the market.
Piglets crowd a stall inside a hog farm in Drahnsdorf, Germany, in 2016.
The project of discerning the emotional state of pigs — and the meat industry’s larger push to invent new technology that promises to improve animal welfare — illustrates the fine line between meaningful efforts to reduce animal suffering and so-called “humane-washing,” where animal welfare is portrayed as being better than it actually is.
There is a growing body of research that shows what changes farms could make today to reduce the suffering of farmed animals, like eliminating extreme confinement, ending breeding practices that make animals grow too big too fast, and providing outdoor access and enrichments designed to mimic experiences they would normally enjoy if left to their own devices. All of which raises the question: Who is this new technology really for — the pigs, or the humans who raise, slaughter, and eat them?
How to identify stressed-out pigs
The most cost-effective methods of raising animals tend to cause the most harm. Animals’ bodies become levers on which a balancing act is performed: expending the fewest resources (such as living space) while keeping animals alive and productive. Economic considerations often outweigh welfare, resulting in the inhumane conditions that are a hallmark of intensive animal agriculture.
On the side of animal well-being are researchers like Melvyn Smith, director of the Centre for Machine Vision, for whom improving animal welfare is a big motivator in his quest to use AI to identify stressed-out pigs. “If we could understand how the animal is feeling, if the animal can tell us this itself, then that gives us an opportunity to tailor treatment and care for individual animals,” he told me.
To try to understand how an animal is feeling, he and his colleagues, in partnership with Scotland’s Rural College, are building on past facial recognition research. They have already trained a form of deep-learning AI that is tailored to analyzing images, known as a convolutional neural network (CNN), to distinguish between individual pigs just by analyzing photos of their faces.
This new project — aimed at recognizing emotions — adds a layer of nuance to this research by training the CNN to recognize the difference between stressed and unstressed pigs.THE MOST COST-EFFECTIVE METHODS OF RAISING ANIMALS TEND TO CAUSE THE MOST HARM
Like other deep learning algorithms, the Centre’s CNN learns by being exposed to data sets — in this case, thousands of photographs of pig faces that are likely to be experiencing stress or not. Cameras affixed just above the water spigot where pigs drink allow for close-up and relatively uniform images of each pig every time they take a sip. The CNN then analyzes each photograph, searching for subtle variations in the pigs’ faces around the eyes, the position of the ears, and other features.
To observe whether pigs are stressed, the animals are placed in situations known to be either mildly stressful or preferable. Pigs kept in pens with multiple generations tend to experience stress (particularly true of younger pigs), whereas relatively stress-free environments can be created by giving pigs essentially an all-you-can-eat buffet. Saliva and blood can be measured to determine cortisol levels, a chemical associated with a stress response.
With the three-year project about halfway complete, the results so far are impressive: The CNN is able to distinguish between pigs’ stressed and unstressed facial expressions more than 90 percent of the time.
By helping AI recognize expressions related to core emotional states in pigs, farmworkers could be alerted to individuals that are experiencing discomfort, allowing for swifter medical attention or alterations to the pigs’ living environment.
Caring for farmed animals as individuals is becoming increasingly difficult due to intensive animal agriculture operations. On smaller-scale farms, workers are able to spend far more time with individual pigs, getting to know animals’ personalities and watch out for suggestions that they may be unwell. But most pigs live on factory farms, where just a few workers can be responsible for the care of thousands of animals.
And factory farms are ramping up around the world: In the US, where factory farming has become the norm for animal agriculture generally, nearly 130 million pigs were raised and slaughtered in 2019 alone. The UK saw intensive pig farming increase 26 percent between 2011 and 2017. In China, a “hog hotel” factory farm consisting of a collection of buildings reaching 12 stories into the sky clocks in as the biggest multi-story hog farm on the planet, with the capacity to house upward of 1,000 pigs per floor.
A sow with her piglets in a farrowing crate in Germany. Factory farms are ramping up around the world.
It is no easy task to keep pigs alive within the crowded indoor conditions of factory farms. According to the Iowa Pork Industry Center at Iowa State University, about one in three pigs die before reaching the market due to factors like stillbirth, sow crushing, infectious diseases, and poor air quality. Not only does this figure represent massive economic losses for the industry, it also demonstrates the sheer scale of health problems pigs on factory farms must regularly contend with, many of which can cause chronic physical and psychological pain even when they are not ultimately fatal.
Identifying negative emotions like stress could help reduce the suffering of farmed pigs. But the research won’t end there: The next goal is detecting subtler emotions, including happiness.
Can animals have a good life on a factory farm?
Interest in animal facial expressions seems to be growing within the scientific community. Facial coding systems are being developed for species like horses and dogs, where expressions related to pain or frustration are being mapped out. Dogs have been observed to make “cute” faces at humans, while rats and chimps are perceived to smile and laugh when they are tickled.
But is happiness something that can be measured by facial expression?
Smith’s team wants to find out. Once the current study on pig stress is complete, the next stage will be seeing whether the CNN can detect other, more nuanced emotions, perhaps one day giving “farmers and their prospective customers an idea of how happy their pigs are,” as the Centre’s website notes.
But technology capable of detecting happiness and more subtle or complex emotions is not without controversy. When it’s applied to human beings, critics warn of the inaccuracies arising with a one-to-one mapping of prototypical expressions to emotions. A scowl doesn’t always mean anger; a furrowed brow doesn’t always denote concentration.
Further complicating the matter is that happiness is a philosophically elusive concept even when it comes to Homo sapiens, since there remains a lack of consensus over what exactly constitutes happiness. Fleeting moments of pleasure, joy, or contentment, along with longer-term experiences of an engaged, meaningful life, are thought to be among the ingredients associated with states of happiness in people.
While the constituents of happiness probably look different depending on the species, certain conditions are more likely to guarantee the suppression of happiness regardless of the kind of animal.
“Pigs can never be happy in factory farms,” says Lori Marino, director of the Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy and an expert in animal behavior who co-authored a study on pig cognition and emotion. To Marino, “a CAFO [concentrated animal feeding operation] is so far from what a pig needs to thrive that it could not be a place that would make a pig happy or content. They are not designed for pig happiness.”
Inside a CAFO, or concentrated animal feeding operation, in Lawler, Iowa, in 2018.
“I also worry that these companies will only share data that are self-serving and the data will be biased toward convincing people that pigs are happy in CAFOs,” she continued.
These concerns may be well-founded. People and businesses that use animals often state that the animals under their control are happy, like the California Milk Advisory Board’s “Happy Cow” campaign or Elon Musk’s “totally happy” lab monkey.
Such claims of animal happiness can be dubious given the mounting science revealing the extent to which animals can be harmed in captivity. One of Marino’s other studies looks at how captivity can cause brain damage in some animals, impairing cognitive functions such as memory and decision-making.
Other researchers conducted a study that found horses that were confined within stalls emitted brain waves associated with states like depression and anxiety, whereas horses allowed to roam in herds on pastures showed brain waves associated with feelings of calm. Pregnant pigs kept in gestation crates, cages that are barely bigger than their bodies, are known to become unresponsive over time — behavior that has been linked to depression. Much is already known about the emotional state of animals in captivity without state-of-the-art tech telling us.
Smith’s inquiry into whether pigs are happy on farms may find they’re not, but that doesn’t deter him. He says he is interested in switching the longstanding emphasis within the animal research community from detecting simply an absence of negative emotions to detecting positive emotions, and that this might lead to a better understanding of what contributes to higher quality of life and happiness for pigs.
But given that the current project is partly supported by industry stakeholders, including the farming technology company AgSense (owned by Valmont Industries), JSR Genetics Ltd. (a pig breeding company), and Garth Pig Practice (a veterinary consulting service), skepticism about the uses of this technology is in order. (AgSense, Valmont Industries, and Garth Pig Practice did not respond to requests for comments for this article.)
Moving the needle on animal welfare
The intensive animal agriculture industry is facing increasing scrutiny of operations that not only harm animals but give rise to a litany of damaging consequences, from perpetuating environmental racism — especially in North Carolina, where hog farms disproportionately pollute predominantly Black communities — to accelerating climate change. Demands to abolish factory farming altogether are growing louder.
Still, improvements in farmed animal welfare are worthwhile since it’s unlikely factory farming is going away anytime soon. Once implemented, the Centre’s CNN may quantifiably improve the welfare of pigs on factory farms, even if incrementally.
But while there’s still much to learn about animal welfare, there’s even more that we already know. If the pork sector were concerned with animal thriving, practices known to cause chronic stress — such as gestation crates — would already be eradicated.
Greenpeace activists call on European Parliament members to vote against livestock factory farms in Brussels in 2019.
There exists abundant evidence of the pain male piglets endure when they are castrated without anesthesia, yet these mutilations continue to be widespread.
Confining pigs indoors within crowded, barren pens on concrete flooring can lead to abnormal biting behaviors that can devolve into cannibalism — something that can be addressed by giving pigs additional space and covering floors with natural materials like peat or compost.
AI technology may one day yield deeper insights into farmed animals’ emotional states. And there’s some genuine value in research diving into what animals are feeling. The question that looms over the use of such tech in a factory farming context is whether we already know enough anyway.
Parowan man who pleaded guilty wants his hunting privileges restored, while a dog trainer is headed to trial on felony charges.
(Utah Division of Wildlife Resources) Utah law allows hunters to pursue black bears with dogs, but a case involving a Florida dog trainer shows how this “sport” can veer off into criminality.By Brian Maffly | June 7, 2021, 5:00 a.m.| Updated: 6:26 a.m.
They chased a bear with dogs for at least 90 minutes before it collapsed from exhaustion and cowered in fear, then they put the dehydrated animal in a cage when it became unresponsive and appeared to be dying.
According to court records, William “Bo” Wood kept the bear at his hunting camp in Grand County for two days. After the bear recovered he released the animal to pursue it again, in violation of Utah hunting regulations that prohibit capturing bears and other protected wildlife.
While using dogs to pursue bears is legal and growing in popularity in Utah, the 2018 incident in the La Sal Mountains resulted in felony charges against Wood, 31, a Florida dog trainer who has been arrested for allegedly abusing bears in his home state, and his Utah companion Clifford Stubbs of Parowan.
The incident shines a light into the little-known and ethically suspect practice of pursuing wild animals for sport. Critics say such pursuits harass wildlife, which is not legal in any other context, and could endanger anyone coming upon a bear that had been traumatized by dogs.
Such concerns were front and center in this case, according to evidence presented Thursday to the Utah Wildlife Board as it weighed the fate of Stubbs’s hunting privileges.
Stubbs told the board he knew nothing of his friend’s crimes and condemned Wood’s alleged abuses. A 48-year-old concrete contractor, Stubbs did plead guilty to reduced misdemeanor wildlife violations, but asked the board to drop the three-year suspension imposed by the Division of Wildlife Resources, known as DWR. Stubbs claimed he acted to save the bear, which had collapsed beside a road near homes in a place called Willow Basin near Moab.
“The division wants to use wildlife conservation laws to punish Cliff for conserving wildlife,” his lawyer Brent Ward told the Wildlife Board. ”He had a humane interest in preserving the bear. He did not want a dead bear on his hands. There’s nothing illegal or inappropriate in wanting to keep a bear from dying. Surely that was a greater good than letting the bear die.”
(Screen shot courtesy of Utah Division of Wildlife Resources) This video image depicts several dogs cornering a female black bear during a pursuit on May 19, 2018 in Grand County. The video was found on the phone of William “Bo” Wood, a Florida dog trainer now awaiting trial on felony charges stemming from the incident.
During the three-hour hearing, some board members agreed there were mitigating factors weighing in Stubbs’s favor, but following two hours of deliberation in 4-3 vote, the board upheld Stubbs’s suspension, which doesn’t affect Stubbs’s ability to hunt animals other than bears and cougars.
The decision pleased DWR officials.
“This type of behavior is not representative of the vast majority of people and was not only unsportsmanlike, but it is also illegal,” said Justin Shirley, DWR’s chief of law enforcement. “We always encourage people to contact DWR officials rather than take matters into their own hands. Our agency is committed to enforcing and promoting legal hunting, and this did not fit that description.”
DWR lawyer Kyle Maynard argued Stubbs knowingly violated statutes intended to protect not only wildlife, but also preserve hunting.
“Mr. Stubbs and his hunting party pursued a bear to the point of exhaustion and became concerned the bear may die, something not allowed under a bear pursuit permit. In an attempt to avoid one violation, they committed another. Mr. Stubbs and his party at this point deliberated and made a choice to pick the exhausted bear up, bring it into their possession, locking in a dog box,” Maynard told the board. “He wasn’t acting to save the bear. He was acting to save himself from what he believed was a more serious violation.”
(Screenshot via Zoom) Clifford Stubbs testifying before the Wildlife Board on June 3, 2021 in an effort to get his hunting privileges restored following his conviction in a bear pursuit gone bad.
Stubbs, who has pursued hundreds of bears in his 22 years in the sport, had never run afoul of wildlife rules before May 19, 2018, when he and Wood chased the female bear in circles. Video Wood shot at the chase’s conclusion shows the barely mobile bear under attack by nine baying dogs. The two-minute clip, which DWR attorneys showed the Wildlife Board, indicates the bear is so spent it can’t move its hind legs as it moans in fear, with the dogs barking and nipping at it. Yet no one is shown in the video trying to restrain the dogs, although Wood can be heard shooing the bear away from a tree it was trying to climb.
Stubbs said he immediately pulled his dogs away from the bear when he arrived on the scene as his companions discussed killing it. He knew that killing the bear would be illegal and would require a report to DWR.
But leaving the bear was not a good option either because the spot was near homes, he said. A curious passerby was liable to get injured if they startled the bear. So Stubbs reasoned the best option was to take the bear to camp, but on Thursday he acknowledged the better move would have been to call DWR for help.
The men put the bear into a box built for dogs, loaded it into a pickup and drove to camp and provided it with water and Gatorade.
Stubbs went home about an hour later while the caged bear was still unresponsive, he told the board. Wood led him to believe the animal recovered and was released later that day without incident. He claimed he didn’t learn of the bear’s prolonged incarceration and second chase until he was criminally charged the following year.
(Marion County Sheriff’s Office) William “Bo” Wood faces felony charges in Utah for allegedly capturing a black bear during a 2018 hunt that went bad.
The case came to light after Florida wildlife officials began investigating Wood in response to social media posts depicting what appeared to be illegal bear hunts. They seized his phone which they discovered contained images of a bear confined in a truck registered to Stubbs, according to Utah DWR conservation officers Kody Jones and Adam Wallerstein. The officers testified the phone contain 30 videos showing the Utah bear’s chase, capture and captivity—all of which will likely be used as evidence against Wood at his trial.
Bear hunting and pursuits are two distinct activities in Utah. Hunters bagged 443 bears last year, an increase from 369 bears harvested in 2019, according to DWR data.
Bear chases are the subject of a different permit system in which permits are awarded for spring, summer and fall seasons. Statewide 557 permits were awarded in 2018 and the La Sal Mountains are a popular place in Utah to chase bears.
Under Utah’s hunting regulations, bear pursuers, known as houndsmen, are not allowed to target cubs or mothers with cubs. They may use no more than 16 dogs in a single pursuit, or eight during the summer. Once a bear is treed, it must be allowed a pathway to escape and the pursuit may not be resumed. The spring pursuit season this year ran from April 3 to May 31.
Many aspects of that first pursuit were problematic, but where it crossed the line into criminality was when they put the animal in a box and held it captive, Maynard said.
Ward argued that Stubbs could not have “captured” the bear because if was so incapacitated it could not even walk. But Stubbs had participated in the underlying chase that resulted in the animal’s collapse, and whether the bear could escape was irrelevant, Maynard said.
The agency “places an emphasis on respecting wildlife we hunt. The act of hunting is a form of appreciation for wildlife and the opportunities they provide,” he told the board. “We have rules to preserve our opportunity to hunt and enjoy wildlife. This is not what bear pursuit is about and the longevity of this sport depends on upholding the legal and ethical obligations of houndsmen.”
For his criminal conviction, Stubbs was given a one-year suspended jail sentence, paid $1,500 fine and performed 52 hours of community service.
Wood, meanwhile, faces serious legal jeopardy in Florida, where authorities have seized his dogs and filed charges of racketeering, animal abuse and wildlife violations stemming from a series of illegal bear hunts, some of which Wood allegedly celebrated on social media with video posts showing dogs assaulting prone bears.
Wood is free on bail awaiting trial in Florida, then later in Moab’s 7th District Court.
Distressing footage reportedly captured recently at a residence in Austin, Texas, appears to show an evidently elderly and disabled dog being viciously attacked by a woman. In three videos captured on two days, the abuser can be seen violently yanking the leash; lifting the dog by her tail repeatedly while shouting, “Stay up!”; striking her with full-force downward slaps; and punching the animal as she yelps in obvious distress—all in apparent “retaliation” for this poor old dog simply being unable to hold herself up in the backyard.
PETA and our complainant have alerted Austin and Travis County authorities to this situation—providing the sickening visual evidence and the suspect’s address and imploring them to rescue the victim before more abuse transpires.
Unfortunately, authorities have apparently decided that no crime was committed—although Texas’s anti-cruelty statute reads, “A person commits an offense if the person intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly … tortures an animal,” and defines “torture” as “any act that causes unjustifiable pain or suffering.”
Most importantly—where is the dog? Despite vague assurances that she isn’t in danger, officials aren’t saying whether she was removed from the home.
Please politely urge the following officials to provide assurances that the victimized dog has been removed from her abuser:
MOUNTLAKE TERRACE, Wash. — A disturbing rash of suspected animal cruelty cases in Mountlake Terrace.
Police believe one person has shot and killed at least a dozen crows in the city. Authorities said they are very close to recommending charges.
That’s a big relief to the community, because the worry is for the bird’s safety and more.
“I’m scared this guy is going to miss some day and hurt somebody,” said Eileen Wood-Lim outside her Mountlake Terrace home today.
Since February, Mountlake Terrace Police said at least 12 crows have been shot and killed in the city limits – all in the middle of the day.
Two home security videos shared by police and captured by worried residents show the same red truck multiple residents have reported seeing in the areas of multiple shootings. Police identified that same truck and its driver as their suspect.
He said they believe there could be as many as 20 cases of crow shootings in Mountlake Terrace alone. Twelve are active and there are dozens of other unconfirmed reports on social media in the surrounding areas, from Brier to unincorporated Snohomish said Commander Lowe.
“I’m just horrified,” said Wood-Lim, standing in her driveway. She was home Monday during her lunch break from work.
One of those crows fell to its death March 4 in her driveway. She was home working, heard two shots, a thump and then the loud shriek from a cluster of crows.
“I love crows and to have somebody shooting them and have it happen right in my driveway made me upset,” Wood-Lim said.
Her worry is exactly why Mountlake Terrace Police have worked nonstop to track the crow killer
“If you take someone who will be so brazen do out in broad daylight and shoot out in public that’s pretty scary cause those bullets have to go somewhere,” Lowe said.
Lowe said the same red truck seen outside Eileen’s house on her doorbell camera is the same truck captured in multiple videos by others residents and turned over to police as evidence.
You can’t make out the driver in Eileen’s video but you can see what looks like a long gun. Police think it might be a high caliber pellet gun or even a 22. caliber rifle, but that’s still under investigation.
“It’s not out of the realm of possibilities that if someone is doing that with a crow, and then they’re upset with a pet dog, or pet cat or a child,” Lowe said.
Through an anonymous tip, police tracked down the truck’s owner.
Police said the Mountlake Terrace man agreed to let them see his truck to rule him out as a suspect, but kept rescheduling.
Eventually, Lowe said they found the truck at a nearby dealership and that the man sold it and didn’t tell them. Inside police found possible evidence.
We asked police since they made contact with the man who they consider a suspect, what’s happened with the shootings.
“It’s stopped,” Lowe said. “It’s the main thing we wanted to stop the shootings.”
Police said they are confident the truck’s owner is behind all the crowing killings and they will recommend charges be filed very soon.
Possible charges, may include shooting a firearm in the city and animal cruelty-related charges but police are still determining charges and are working with the state Fish and wildlife agency.
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Exposing the Big Game 