Source: https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/tag/factory-farming/
Timestamp: 2020-02-22 01:38:03
Document Index: 424939398

Matched Legal Cases: ['§597', '§597', '§597', '§597', '§597', '§597', '§597', '§597']

Posted on January 12, 2020 by Exposing the Big Game
Animal rights activists carry the bodies of slaughtered animals as they hold a protest march during the 9th Annual National Animal Rights Day in Los Angeles on June 2, 2019. Photo: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images
January 9 2020, 9:12 a.m.
https://theintercept.com/2020/01/09/factory-farms-california-animal-rights-criminalization/?utm_source=The+Intercept+Newsletter&utm_campaign=63cca9a438-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_01_11&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e00a5122d3-63cca9a438-132863309
DxE, which is based in Berkeley, California, has waged a provocative campaign of civil disobedience in recent years, staging actions that the group calls “open rescues,” in which volunteers brazenly walk into meat plants and seize animals, many of which are facing slaughter, often ferrying them to medical tents erected outside the facility or to local veterinarians.
The actions, which have included rescues at meat and egg plants over the last two years in Sonoma County, have seized headlines and drawn national attention to the organization’s cause — while mobilizing opposition within the factory farming industry. DxE has claimed that its actions are protected under an obscure section of state law, California Penal Code §597e, which authorizes individuals to enter pounds to provide nourishment for neglected animals.
In DxE’s view, the statute allows legal entry into an area in which animals are confined if the animals have been deprived of food and water for over 12 hours. The group consulted with Hadar Aviram, a professor at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, to develop a modern legal interpretation of §597e, which was originally passed in the 1870s and has rarely been cited in court. In DxE’s view, any commercial animal agriculture site constitutes a pound, given that the term simply refers to a facility for confined animals, a standard that is reflected in eight states with similar statutes.
“In my view, what they are doing is bordering on terrorism involving the use of illegal practices to push their points of view,” said Tawny Tesconi, executive director of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, an affiliate of the California Farm Bureau Federation, in an interview with KSRO radio host Pat Kerrigan. Following an action in which hundreds of DxE activists entered an egg farm in Petaluma to free chickens and care for them in medical tents set up around the facility by the group, Tesconi called for farmers to “work more closely with law enforcement and the DA’s office to provide the tools they need to fully prosecute actions like this.” (The police, notably, euthanized many of the chickens, which were found by veterinarians to be starving and unable to walk from being bred in sheds with thousands of birds.)
Behind closed doors, the California legislature moved last summer to redefine §597e, adding language to the code that explicitly exempts factory farms. The legal shift received virtually no attention or substantive legislative debate. The legislation that made the change was sponsored by Assemblyman Vince Fong, R-Bakersfield, whose bill, AB 1553, was presented as a “technical, nonsubstantive” change that required a lower threshold of scrutiny. The bill sailed through committee and was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last June.
DxE strongly disputes that the bill was merely a technical change and was shocked to discover the discreet push to amend the code. “Over one hundred activists have relied on §597e to protect them from politically-motivated prosecutions,” said DxE co-founder Wayne Hsiung, who is also a former visiting law professor at Northwestern School of Law. “We’ve obtained dismissal or diversion of charges in dozens of cases where people were trying to give aid to starving animals.”
The California Farm Bureau denies promoting the bill, despite disclosures showing that the group lobbied on the Fong bill. “The California Farm Bureau did not actively advocate on the legislation, either for or against,” wrote Dave Kranz, a spokesperson for the California Farm Bureau. “We did take part in technical discussions about the bill and potential impacts to California agriculture, as was correctly disclosed.”
Fong’s office and the Sonoma County Farm Bureau did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The California Farm Bureau’s claim that the group acted merely as a neutral observer, and did not seek to limit the scope of §597e, appears unlikely given the group’s advocacy over the last year.
During his remarks, Spiegel referenced the interpretation produced by Aviram on behalf of DxE and informed the group that California Farm Bureau’s “senior legal counsel as well as other individuals in our operations” produced a counter-memo to dispute Aviram’s arguments. DxE shared a recording of Spiegel’s remarks and, using a records request, obtained a copy of Spiegel’s memo, which had been sent to the Sonoma County district attorney’s office as well as to other prosecutors in California.
The memo attempts to dispute DxE’s rationale for its use of §597e by claiming that even if animal farms are “pounds,” the group may not claim there is an “imminent threat” if they rely on past video evidence of abuse or deprivation.
Far from taking a neutral stance, the memo strongly suggests the California Farm Bureau’s lobbying team took an active role in shaping the interpretation of §597e.
Around the country, animal agriculture interests have worked carefully to criminalize similar forms of activism around factory farms, including hidden camera investigations. The Intercept previously obtained emails showing a bill signed into law in Idaho that provided criminal penalties for filming animal abuse at factory farms had been quietly authored by a dairy lobbyist — one of many so-called ag-gag laws enacted around the country. A federal judge later overturned most of the statute. Farm Bureau groups have worked to enact similar laws in Missouri, Iowa, Utah, and other states.
In 2018, the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, responding to a wave of open rescues, brought in a national farm industry group known as the Animal Agriculture Alliance to host seminars for farmers on how to push back against future DxE activism. The group has promoted ag-gag laws and in more recent years sought to pressure law enforcement to view animal rights activists as terror threats. The alliance relies on financial support from the American Farm Bureau, the California Farm Bureau’s national affiliate, as well as the National Pork Industry Foundation.
“The Farm Bureau wants to change §597e because it knows that factory farms routinely allow animals to starve to death,” added Hsiung. “It’s the result of a system that has operated in secrecy, and ruthless pursuit of profit, for decades.”
Posted in Animal Rights	| Tagged california, Factory Farming	| 3 Replies
Posted on January 9, 2020 by Exposing the Big Game
https://www.peta.org/blog/australia-fires-vegan-climate-change/
Published January 7, 2020 by Zachary Toliver. Last Updated January 8, 2020.
Australia is burning. The bushfires have devastated the continent since September and continue to ravage the country at an alarming pace. Photos and videos of charred animals—unable to escape the overwhelming blazes—have gone viral.
It’s now estimated that nearly 1 billion animals have already died in the fires.
Humans, too, are dying and being displaced. Everything about Australia’s current fate seems apocalyptic in scale.
The University of Sydney estimates 480 million animals have been affected by the devastating blazes in New South Wales alone. https://abcn.ws/2SXLD2w
7:05 AM – Jan 6, 2020
One inane tactic that officials have come up with to combat the problem includes shooting up to 10,000 thirsty camels from helicopters, just because they drink large amounts of water.
MORE THAN A BILLION ANIMALS HAVE ALREADY DIED, AND AUSTRALIAN OFFICIALS WANT TO ADD THOUSANDS MORE INDIVIDUALS TO THE DEATH TOLL—INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE JUST AS MUCH RESIDENTS OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA AS ITS HUMAN INHABITANTS AND WHO ARE JUST AS DESERVING OF MAKING IT OUT OF THE AUSTRALIAN FIRES ALIVE.
In the video below, a bystander recorded dozens upon dozens of dead, burned animals scattered along roads:
This Is Climate Change, and We Must Take Action Like Never Before
Many blame climate change for exacerbating the wildfires, which have burned more acres than recent Amazon rainforest and California fires combined. Around the world, prolonged heat and drought have extended seasonal wildfire periods.
All the while, the U.N. has stated that meat consumption must decrease by as much as 90% in order for us to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. To put it in perspective, the carbon emissions from all of the world’s planes, trucks, ships, and cars are equivalent to the emissions from animal agriculture!
Kangaroos hop uphill in smoky New South Wales to escape the smoke and raging fires in Australia. The country’s bushfires have scorched millions of acres, putting millions of people and animals at risk.
Welcome to the hellish future of life on Earth. https://wired.trib.al/q1a6Csd
11:18 AM – Jan 4, 2020
We can (and must) fight climate change. By far, the easiest way is for people to stop eating animals and go vegan right now. It requires zero governmental initiative or promises from some giant corporation. It only involves choosing to leave animals out of the shopping cart on that trip you’re already making to the grocery store.
GOING VEGAN CAN HELP PREVENT ANIMALS FROM BEING BURNED ALIVE IN A WILDFIRE OR BEING SLIT ACROSS THE THROAT IN A SLAUGHTERHOUSE.
It’s estimated that, at a minimum, about 800,000 million animals have been killed in Australia’s fires. This is about the same number of land animals who are horrifically slaughtered every few days just so that people can eat their flesh.
No matter if it’s a kangaroo trapped in a barbed-wire fence after running from a scorching fire or cows screaming for their lives as they’re hoisted up by chains to bleed out from their wounds, every one of these animals feared for their lives and did all that they could to stay alive.
The Best Time to Go Vegan Was Yesterday—the Next-Best Time Is Right Now
Many of us feel relatively powerless when facing mass extinctions, rising sea levels, and record-breaking fire seasons, but we actually have a great deal of power to change things if we harness it.
This is exactly why being vegan isn’t some fad diet. It’s a revolutionary action. It’s us exclaiming, “We will not let this planet and countless sensitive animals die on our watch!”
Join the vegan movement today and ask everyone you know to do the same. The Earth itself depends on it.
Posted in Climate Change	| Tagged Factory Farming, slaughterhouse	| 3 Replies
Overlapping Oppression
https://upc-online.org/alerts/200106_overlapping_oppressions-register_now_for_our_conscious_eating_conference.html
Posted in Animal abuse	| Tagged chickens, cruelty, Factory Farming, nazis	| Leave a reply
The 2nd Annual Humane Hoax Online Summit
United Poultry Concerns is proud to sponsor the 2nd Annual Humane Hoax Online Summit 2020.
https://upc-online.org/alerts/191230_the_2nd_annual_humane_hoax_online_summit.html
We have an awesome line-up of speakers this year, and the best part?
You can attend in your PJ’s!
For our second conference, we will dig deeper into The Humane Hoax with speakers from a range of different perspectives. We will have activist attorney Kelsey Eberly from the Animal Legal Defense Fund, who has dedicated her practice to pushing for farmed animal justice through false advertising lawsuits. We will have Deborah Blum of Goatlandia, a rescuer who saves male goats destined to die in the goat dairy industry. Regenerative grazing is now the darling of the locavore meat movement, touted as the answer to all the problems of animal agriculture. Dr. Sailesh Rao, Executive Director of Climate Healers, will explore this topic with a critical eye and challenge this supposed environmental cure-all. And much more.
Please join us on January 18, 2020 for this inspiring event as we advance our much needed conversation about The Humane Hoax!
www.HumaneHoax.org
Humane Hoax FaceBook Page
“I Feel So Bad For Those Turkeys Hauled on Freezing Nights”
UPC Winter 2019 Poultry Press – Volume 29, Number 3
“Can Only Be Described with Superlatives”
– Animal Culture Magazine
Order Printed Copies!
UPC is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization.
Posted in Animal Rights	| Tagged animal abuse, Factory Farming	| 2 Replies
October 19, 2019, 3:00 PM PDT
African swine fever will wipe out hundreds of millions of pigs
Global pig-meat index is headed for steepest jump in 15 years
Photographer: adogslifephoto/iStockphoto
Bringing home the bacon will cost more. Blame African swine fever.
The deadly pig disease is wiping out hundreds of millions of hogs, mostly in China, driving a global surge in pork and bacon prices from Auckland to Vancouver. In Europe, swine carcasses have soared 31% and piglets 56% in the past year. Pig-meat is poised for the steepest jump since mad cow disease and bird flu outbreaks in 2004 led consumers to eat more pork, according to an index compiled by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome.
Pork is heading for the steepest annual increase in 15 years
“It doesn’t matter where you are in the world at the moment, pork prices are up,” said Justin Sherrard, Rabobank’s Utrecht-based global animal-protein strategist, in a telephone interview. “China is the market to focus on. Firstly, because it’s big and, secondly, because this is really the first place that African swine fever started to hit.”
Read More: The Deadly Virus That’s Killing Off Millions of Pigs
Prices will remain high for at least the next three months in the lead up to the Lunar New Year on Jan. 25, a peak time for pork consumption in China, Vietnam and other countries that celebrate the festival. Retailers will have “no choice” but to pass on at least some of the extra cost to consumers, Sherrard said.
A snapshot of what shoppers are paying for 500 grams (18oz) bacon
Source: Online retail data
By the end of 2020, China’s swine herd will slump to 275 million head, down almost 40% since the beginning of 2018, before the world’s largest animal disease outbreak began, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That will pull down global pork production by 10% in 2020.
Hog Apocalypse
China’s annual pig production has been savaged by African swine fever
2019 & 2020 are forecasts
“African swine fever has had a significant impact on the production of pork in China and increasingly in Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries,” said Tim Foulds, Euromonitor International’s head of research for Australasia. “Government attempts to control the crisis, including the large-scale culling of animals, resulted in pork production dropping dramatically in 2019.”
Prices in China have surged 120% since deadly pig outbreak reported
Reduced domestic supplies will boost China’s demand for foreign pork, resulting in record prices and imports. However, Chinese consumers will “feel the pinch,” with a 32% slump in per-capita pork consumption over two years, the USDA said in an Oct. 10 report.
Swine fever is causing pork prices to go up in China
2:30 PM – Oct 16, 2019
See Bloomberg TicToc’s other Tweets
African swine fever, which kills most pigs in a week but isn’t known to harm humans, has had a greater impact in China than in any country or previous outbreak, and the disease there is now considered endemic, or generally present, according to the USDA.
China’s $118 billion market dominates global pork sales
Posted in Animal abuse	| Tagged China, disease, Factory Farming, meat eating, pigs	| Leave a reply
Protester interrupts Jeff Bezos event to plead for ‘abused’ chickens
| June 08, 2019 04:27 PM
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/watch-protester-interrupts-jeff-bezos-event-to-plead-for-abused-chickens
A protester interrupted a keynote interview with Jeff Bezos at Amazon’s re:MARS conference in Las Vegas last week to plead with the billionaire executive to help “abused” chickens.
The protester, identified as Priya Sawhney of Direct Action Everywhere, walked on stage to plead with the Amazon CEO about the welfare of chickens in factory farms.
“I am Priya Sawhney and I have been inside Amazon’s chicken farms where animals are criminally abused and I’m asking you today …” Sawhney said before security agents swarmed her and ushered her offstage.
“Jeff, please, you’re the richest man on the planet. You can help the animals,” Sawhney can be heard shouting from backstage.
Amazon does not own any chicken farms, but it does source chicken products from businesses that DXE has targeted with protests, such as Petaluma Poultry and Pitman Family Farms.
Posted in Animal Rights	| Tagged chickens, Factory Farming, protest	| 1 Reply
Posted on June 7, 2019 by Exposing the Big Game
Ian JohnstonEnvironment Correspondent @montaukian
Saturday 26 August 2017 19:43
Deforestation in Sumatra, one of the world’s primate hotspots ( W F Laurance )
TOP ARTICLES1/6READ MOREBrexit news – live: Farage’s Brexit Party narrowlybeaten by Labour at Peterborough by-election, as Theresa May stands down as Tory leader
“There’s a strong case for saying there’s room for … less individual consumption and loneliness … and more sharing and communality, getting together around the table, rather than sitting alone in front of the TV.”
“For information about the Extinction and Livestock Conference, go to www.extinctionconference.com.
Posted in Extinction	| Tagged Factory Farming, livestock, mass extinction	| 2 Replies
Chuck Lubelczyk, a vector ecologist for Maine Medical Center Research Institute, displays a vial of live lone star ticks. As climate change intensifies, tick populations are increasing — and spreading meat allergies.
Just consider lone star ticks to be one of nature’s little bill collectors. Alpha-gal is the cost, with interest. The same goes for the earthquakes and contaminated water that come from fracking reinjection wells. We use hydraulic fracturing to forcefully break open natural subterranean formations, to release oil and gas that we blithely burn into climate-altering CO2 while also leaking climate-altering methane. Then, in an externality twofer, we take the wastewater from the process, which can become radioactive, and we “dispose” of it by re-injecting it into the ground through wells, which, in turn, Mother Nature “bills us” with contaminated water, earthquakesand health problems.
And that’s just the tip of a rapidly melting iceberg. The 2018 Pacific typhoon season hammered nations around Asia to the tune of $18.4 billion in damage. In 2018, natural disasters generated $80 billion in insured losses, which is “well above the inflation-adjusted average for the last 30 years of $41 billion,” according to the Munich Reinsurance Co. In 2017, the Munich Reinsurance Co. also found that insurance claims spiked to a record $135 billion due to the combination of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria with the wildfires in California, which also “created overall economic losses” of $330 billion. The U.S. Air Force is struggling with a $4 billion shortfall as it struggles to find the $5 billionit needs to remediate the massive damage done by 2018’s Hurricane Michael and this year’s bomb-cyclone-fueled flooding. New Orleans is now facing a $14 billion bill to counter the combo of rising sea levels and sinking levees that were rebuilt by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers after Hurricane Katrina wiped them out in 2005.
Then in February of this year, analysts at Morgan Stanley said they expect climate change to “negatively affect dozens of industries like agriculture and oil-and-gas production in the short-term — and real estate, leisure and consumer retail in the long-term.” As Risk & Insurancereported, climate change is already “affecting food supply chains for products like chocolate, vanilla, avocados, coffee and wine, changing how fine art is protected, and transforming the energy industry.”
Consumers and markets are adjusting, too. Even as ticks spread the alpha-gal meat allergy, Burger King is responding to growing demand for the plant-based Impossible Burger. It’s being “spread” nationwide, not by ticks but by franchisees, after a smashing test run in St. Louis. At the same time, Carl’s Jr. is featuring Beyond Meat’s plant-based meat-alternative. That success fueled its new initial public offering (IPO) to the tune of a $3 billion valuation. Essentially, IPOs are Wall Street’s first chance to render judgment on the viability of newly public business. In the case of Beyond Meat, it’s been dubbed the most successful IPO of 2019thus far. It even surpassed the much-anticipated IPOs of CO2-generatingrideshare companies Uber and Lyft. In fact, meat alternatives are becoming so popular that the meat industry is working at the state level to outlaw the use of the word “meat” on meat-alternative packaging.
Posted in Contest Hunt	| Tagged Factory Farming, Methane, tics	| 3 Replies
https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/help-animals-help-earth
It’s up to us to protect our planet. This Earth Day, pledge to make one (or all!) of three small changes to your lifestyle and eating habits that will have a lasting impact on the future of our environment. By committing to help animals, you’ll help our planet too—not just on Earth Day, but every day of the year.
This Earth Day, commit to reducing your meat consumption, advocating for higher standards in factory farming and shopping smart to help animals and in turn, help our planet.
*Message and
Posted in Animal Rights	| Tagged Factory Farming, HSUS, veganism	| 1 Reply