Gene Baur's Bloggings

Gene Baur's Bloggings is Merging with Making Hay!

I am happy to announce that “Gene Baur’s Bloggings” is merging with Farm Sanctuary’s advocacy blog, “Making Hay,” so this will be my last post here. Please bookmark the new “Making Hay with Gene Baur” blog site to read my future entries. 

If you currently include me on your blog roll, I would greatly appreciate it if you could please re-add this address. You can also subscribe to the new blog site’s RSS feed to be notified when I make a new post. 

Thank you for caring and for taking action to help for farm animals! 

Downed Pigs Deserve Better

 

Across the U.S., millions of pigs and other animals too sick to stand (commonly referred to as "downed animals") suffer terribly at farms, stockyards and slaughterhouses. They are left for hours or days without receiving proper veterinary care, and they are often dragged with chains or pushed with forklifts. Farm Sanctuary has worked to document and end the abuses of downed animals since 1986, and we’re making progress. Earlier this year, the Obama administration tightened up federal regulations to prevent downed cattle from being slaughtered and used for human food. But, this policy needs to be expanded and applied to pigs and other animals who continue to suffer unnecessarily.

I’ve personally witnessed hundreds of downers callously discarded by the factory farming industry. I videotaped the sow pictured above who, worn out after years of being confined in a 2-foot-wide metal crate, was unable to walk. She was left to suffer in the alleyway at a factory farm amid rows of gestation crates. 

 
  
I’ve photographed countless downed (and deceased) pigs like the above in stockyard and slaughterhouse holding pens, and learned early on through these investigations just how rampant and horrific this abuse really is. Farm Sanctuary has exposed such cruelty time and again and a CNN news report citing a Humane Society of the United States investigation on the topic has recently reminded Americans that there is no reason or excuse to allow this abuse to continue.

  

Like all animals, farm animals deserve to be treated with respect. Please join Farm Sanctuary and sign our petition to President Obama and his administration calling for an end to the abuse of all downed animals. It is critical that we continue to demonstrate widespread public concern about this issue. Thank you!

A New Tradition

 

Our Thanksgiving ritual in the U.S. is rather strange. We gather with family and friends around the harvest season to share a meal and to express thanks and gratitude for the good things we have. Ironically, the centerpiece of this celebration in homes across America is the carcass of a dead bird who had been abused on a factory farm and then killed for the holiday.

Beginning in 1986, Farm Sanctuary has promoted a different kind of holiday tradition through our Adopt-A-Turkey Project. We celebrate our connection with other animals, rather than our ability to dominate, kill and consume them. Saving turkeys, rather than eating them, is a better way to observe Thanksgiving. At Farm Sanctuary, we will enjoy time with turkeys as companions, rather than as commodities, at celebrations at our sanctuaries in Watkins Glen, New York and Orland, California this Saturday. We’re also hosting a benefit to help raise awareness and promote compassion at Tavern on the Green in New York City on Sunday.

In his brilliant new book, "Eating Animals," acclaimed author Jonathan Safran Foer writes: "If this entire book could be decanted into a single question … it might be this: Should we serve turkey at Thanksgiving?" Foer cogently advances Mahatma Gandhi’s observation that "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." How we relate to other animals, especially those who are at our mercy, says volumes about who we are as a people.

Abraham Lincoln established our national Thanksgiving holiday in 1863 during our country’s bloody civil war to "heal the wounds of the nation" and to restore "peace, harmony, tranquility and Union." By putting the carcasses of animals who’ve endured cruelty and violence at the center of our tables, we undermine the initial aims of this national holiday. Fortunately, eating turkeys on Thanksgiving isn’t required, and we can change our habits. If you haven’t done so already, please start a new Thanksgiving tradition, and save a turkey instead of serving one.

Current Events

 
  
For more than 20 years, I’ve been working to raise awareness about factory farming and urging consumers to adopt a vegan lifestyle. I am happy to see the beginnings of significant progress on both fronts.

Last year, California passed Proposition 2 to ban three severe forms of confinement (veal crates, gestation crates and battery cages), and similar legislation passed the legislature in Michigan last week. The City of Baltimore recently agreed that school children should go meatless on Mondays, and this fall, thousands of concerned citizens are participating in Farm Sanctuary’s Walk for Farm Animals. I joined 700 walkers in New York City last Sunday. CNN Headline News aired a story about our Walk, and the New York Times published a front page cover story the day of our event, telling the story of a woman paralyzed after eating meat contaminated with E. coli and describing serious problems in the U.S. meat inspection system.

Finally, the harmful problems caused by our industrial animal agriculture system are coming into focus, as are the solutions to them. I agree with Martin Luther King, Jr. when he said, "The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Photo (from L to R): Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, John Phillips, Me, and Jane Velez-Mitchell at the New York City Walk for Farm Animals last weekend.

Sweet Summertime

We’re in the middle of summer here in the Finger Lakes region of rural New York, amidst bustling farmer’s markets and peaceful “pick your own” orchards and fields, which exemplify Earth’s bounty and the simple beauty of eating plants instead of animals. In the evening fireflies trail across the landscape, and at sunrise, hummingbirds (who had migrated from Mexico) begin their rounds, collecting nectar. It’s a beautiful time of year in this part of the world.

Last weekend, I attended Farm Sanctuary’s Country Hoe Down in Watkins Glen, NY where people pitched tents and camped out, enjoyed great vegan food and time with the animals, listened to inspiring and informational presentations, and danced and communed around the campfire late into the night. It is a joyful, welcoming event, and the feeling of community is palpable. Some Hoe Down attendees were longtime vegans. Others were not, though I hope and suspect many will eat fewer (or no) animal foods after their Hoe Down experience.

The hundreds of chickens, turkeys, pigs, sheep, cows, and other animals living at Farm Sanctuary represent and “speak” for the less fortunate members of their species who remain locked up in factory farms. We can connect directly with these cherished individuals living at Farm Sanctuary, and then remember the billions of animals who will never know a peaceful sanctuary, feel the warm sunshine, breathe fresh air, or experience human kindness.

Farm Sanctuary is a place of hope, where vegan is normal, and visitors are inspired to live conscientiously. Of course, the best thing each of us can do to make a difference for animals, as well as ourselves and the planet, is to adopt a vegan lifestyle, and eat food from plants instead of animals. And there is no better time to start than in the sweet summertime.