Feb 24 2011
Peck-Peck-Pecking Away at Washington Egg Farmers
It’s been a little over two years since the Humane Society of the United States and its activist ally Farm Sanctuary convinced a majority of California voters to deliver a crippling electoral blow to the state's farmers. This year the animal rights groups are targeting the state of Washington with the same outcome in mind: an eggless America.
Animal rights lobbyists from the other Washington—Washington, DC—are managing a campaign committee called “Washingtonians for Humane Farms,” and if you live in the Evergreen State they might be canvassing your neighborhood already. Their short-term goal is to secure at least 241,000 signatures so their “important measure” will appear on the November ballot.
If Washington voters were to approve it, this measure would make it illegal for Washington farmers to raise egg-laying hens in cages. Additionally, regular eggs would be banned from grocery stores. (Unlike in California’s “Proposition 2,” there’s no ambiguity about whether farmers can use “enriched” cages of the type that Temple Grandin and the American Humane Association endorse. They would also be banned.)
Signature-gathering animal rights activists will likely tell voters that the only way to ensure hens lead happy and healthy lives is to force every farmer to go cage-free. Science, however, is anything but clear on the topic.
HSUS's minions may ultimately be doing more harm than good. And yes, they are HSUS's minions: With records current through February 10, Washington's Public Disclosure Commission reports [ 1 | 2 ] that HSUS is the only cash contributor to the campaign so far—putting $150,000 of its donors' money into the campaign in January.
Here are three animal-welfare reasons why voters should squawk when HSUS’s wing-flappers solicit their support to criminalize the sale of "regular" eggs:
- Hen mortality rate: Dr. Joy Mench, a leading Animal Science professor at UC-Davis, tells the Sacramento Bee that cage-free hens die at more than twice the rate of caged hens, likely the result of increased exposure to one another (and to their own manure).
- Broken bones: Dr. Mench adds that cage-free hens, left to jump around the barn, suffer high rates of broken bones, as high as 67 percent in one study.
- Stress: Scientists at Australia’s Sydney University found that free-range and “open-barn” chickens experience just as much stress as caged birds, since they have to deal with extra pressures like extreme temperatures, parasites, and predators.
Why would anyone interested in the welfare of chickens want to recommend a wholesale switch to a system that will end up making conditions worse for more of them? It’s a mystery.
But more than 40 animal rights and environmental groups have already endorsed HSUS’s ballot measure. Not surprisingly, a large majority of them are from out of state, and few have any practical experience working with poultry.
Here are a few of the more notable ones:
- Farm Sanctuary: HSUS’s campaign ally in California has a history of pushing for farm animals’ legal “rights” in Florida, California, New York, New Jersey, and Arizona. After successfully adding pregnant pigs to Florida’s Constitution in 2002, Farm Sanctuary paid a $50,000 fine for violating Florida election law at least 210 times. HSUS has funneled more than $111,000 to Farm Sanctuary—money that supports its manipulation of donors and voters alike.
- Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM): Although this group’s name may sound mainstream and lab-coated, PCRM got its start as an affiliate of PETA and its founding leader was also president of the PETA Foundation for several years. PCRM’s principle goal is to make Americans leery about eating meat, milk, seafood, and (you guessed it) eggs. The doctors’ paraphernalia is largely just window-dressing, however, since the vast majority of PCRM’s members never went to medical school.
- United Poultry Concerns: Best known for the antics of its wacky leader whose pet chickens roam her Virginia home, this group has engaged in letter writing campaigns, grocery-store protests, and Thanksgiving-day vigils for dead turkeys. UPC’s affinity for fowl is so strong that it even protests rubber-chicken manufacturers. We're not kidding.
- Albert Schweitzer Foundation: Not to be confused with the public-service charity bearing the great humanitarian’s name, this German organization exists to “strengthen the ideas of vegetarianism and veganism.” It has a zero-tolerance policy towards “commercial animal husbandry.”
- Center for Science in the Public Interest: CSPI fancies itself a “watchdog” group but behaves more like an attack dog, savaging restaurants, disparaging adults’ food choices, and (now) branching out to harass egg farmers. If you take a moment to imagine your favorite food, chances are CSPI has attacked it.
All but the last of these groups are abolitionist in nature. They’re less interested in cage-free eggs than in liberating chickens from their farm-bound existences. So their endorsements only make sense within the context of HSUS seeing “cage-free” campaigns as a stepping stone to eliminating egg farming entirely.
Washington-based animal rights activists understand this intuitively, which is why they’re all endorsing HSUS’s measure. Here are a few of the most notable ones:
- Northwest Animal Rights Network (NARN): This Seattle-based group allies itself with PETA and doesn’t mind tangling with police whether the cause is right or wrong. Its campaigns have, among other things, argued that eating meat is akin to cheering on the Nazi Holocaust.
- League of Humane Voters of Washington State: This political advocacy group is dedicated to making “animal protection a mainstream political issue,” but direct experience with farm animals isn’t part of its portfolio.
- Animal People News: This Clinton, WA newspaper is the “house organ” of the animal rights movement, and regularly runs full-page commercial (paid) display ads from HSUS.
The endorsement list will undoubtedly grow, of course, as HSUS’s canvassers persuade restaurateurs and other businesses to lend their names to the cause. We’re left to wonder, though, if these endorsers will get the benefit of the whole story before signing on. Somehow we doubt it.
Posted on 02/24/2011 at 10:42 AM by the HumaneWatch Team
Document Analysis • Animal Agriculture • Eggs • Fundraising & Money • Gov't, Lobbying, Politics • (16) CommentsComments
You idiots value animals more than people.
thanks for the info on all these groups, it is so difficult to know who is who and especially what agenda they actually follow
Right. Well she’s just ONE researcher. Countless other researchers have found the complete opposite to be true. Do you think keeping a dog in a cage it’s whole life would be good for it’s health? It may keep the dog ‘safe’ from the outside world, but I think anyone can agree the dog would be suffering. Hens are no different. Chickens LOVE wide open space, and I know for a fact that keeping them in a cage where they can’t even turn around it very cruel and not good for their health in any aspect.
@Beth, your flock is small. Commercial flocks are huge, and they need to be to produce all the food we need. It is disingenuous to attempt to compare a backyard or small personal farm flock with a business which produces a million eggs every day.
Google the research online, read through the reports, and you will learn that studies worldwide show cage-free hens have increased predation, increased cannibalism, increased disease, increased bone breakage. It’s the truth whether or not you want to believe it.
Here are PHOTOS of what ‘cage free’ means in real world terms: debeaking, overcrowding, cannibalism, illness, death:
So you are advocating that we let the egg-laying hens to rot in their cages because there’s a higher mortality rate, they may suffer broken bones, and because of stress from “extra pressures”?
Well, we as human beings can live in transparent bubbles for the rest of our lives to minimize the chance of us getting mugged, getting hit by a car, or being exposed to the common cold, but will we? No, because that’s stupid.
Why are you going after this law? Keeping hens in cages their whole lives IS a cruel and inhumane practice! Why should they have to live like this? I am a vegan and live happily without eggs. The horrors of factory farms should be exposed, in my opinion. The battery cage system is not animal friendly and chickens suffer just like dogs, cats or humans!
I could give a hoot if you are vegan. I am not. Don’t holler at me for wanting to eat eggs. I have always enjoyed sitting down to a nice red steak, or maybe a nice piece of veal. You think these animals suffer, because you people claim they have human emotions. They do not.
@Bert: Oh, because of course I was hollering at you! I don’t care what anyone says: I believe that this causes suffering, and I am entitled to my emotions. Locking up a hen in a battery cage, to me, is cruel. If it isn’t to you, well I’m sorry.
@ Chelsea: That’s correct…you ARE entitled to your emotions. It’s YOUR choice to be a vegan. It’s the majority of the world that chooses NOT to be. Face the facts….you will always be in the minority because mankind didn’t claw his way to the top of the food chain….just to eat broccoli! And as long as there’s a demand for meat/eggs, etc., there will have to be a supply, and that supply will have to be produced as efficient as possible to MEAT the demands of we, the majority. Chickens serve one purpose in life, and that is to provide us with food. If they couldn’t be eaten or if we couldn’t harvest their eggs, they would be of no use to us.
@Beth: Let me guess, the “countless other researchers” (who, I’m sure, really can be counted) were on the payroll of the likes of HSUS, PETA, etc.
Why can’t you all just accept your own lifestyle as your own, and stop trying to change the rest of the world to think like you. Who said that YOU were right, who said YOU have the answers, who died and made you king of anything. You’re all just driven by emotions, PERIOD.
This kind of attitude and outlook is what’s ruining this country
Do any of you anti’s have any idea how short a laying hens life is? FYI, it’s about a year, because at that point, its egg production decreases and is no longer profitable to keep them on the payroll. SOOOOO, they become processed food and soup. MMMMMMM chicken noodle soup.
Dave, really? I am so tired of being ridiculed; animals have feelings just like we do! And they depend on us because, maybe they can communicate with others, but on factory farms they have no voice! And no one will speak up for them! So if i don’t who will?I know what matters to me and i will not be convinced NO MATTER WHAT that im wrong because I may be the minority, but I save 95 lives every year. And I have influenced countless people and got many to convert to being vegan. I have done a fundraiser and raised 1,700 dollars for the cause. Plus, I do presentations, make videos, and inspire hundreds to do whats right! It hurts to be called the minority because I am fighting for what’s right. And i will never give up that fight. Oh, and Dave, I’m 13 years old. I expect you to be much older…and what have you done to change the world recently? Just wondering?
Wow. I felt myself getting dumber reading that last post.
@Chelsea
Alright Chelsea here’s the thing. I’m 16 and have been AGvocating my whole life. My mom has done it, my grandma helps with it. And I have raised over $3000 at one event to promote the BEEF industry. I raise cattle for slaughter, breeding, and showing. I have a classmate that raises chickens. And guess what! His chickens prefer the cage over running around outside! You know why? Because there isn’t vehicles, changing weather, larger predatory animals running around. You really need to get your facts straight. If you are so conscious about the welfare of animals how about you go to a farm and really learn about them instead of trusting what these big groups are saying. I’ve always been someone who has had to see it to believe it. And I found that solid proof is the easiest to believe. So like I said, take a “field trip”.. No pun intended, to a farm, or chicken coop if you really want to learn about where your food comes from. Even better check out findourcommonground.com. its a great site for learning about where your food really comes from.
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Wait, WHO conducted these studies? I’ve seen plenty of other studies that contradict these completely. This study seems pretty phony to me.
1. Are you kidding? SO many hens in battery cages die prematurely because of stress, disease, trampling each other, and the list goes on. I have chickens, and let me tell you, they are so, so, so, SO much happier running free.
2. Broken bones? Ah, I see. This study was probably conducted so that former battery hens were let out in the open, instead of being raised there their whole lives. Thing is, they get such weak bones from being penned and hardly being able to move that they are bound to have broken legs. Same concept applies to veal calves.
3. More stress?! What a joke. And what predators? If they’re locked up in a building, they only have to deal with the worst predator of them all: humans.