Thank You Lori and thank you Diane for
inviting me and thank you all organizers
for including the impact on animals when
we're talking about food and agriculture
that's where I mentioned I feel very
privileged to serve the Humane Society
of the United States this is our logo
and you can see it consists of 19
different animals in the shape of the
country we work on all animal issues and
we work on a national scale not just
conducting rescue which is so important
but inevitably deals with the symptoms
of the problems but looking to prevent
cruelty and looking at the broadest
biggest issues of our human relationship
with animals and one of the central
questions that we confront at the Humane
Society of the United States is the
incredible moment of contradiction that
we live in now in our society with so
many expressions of love and
appreciation for animals but so much
cruelty occurring on a vast and
industrial scale you know I did write a
book called the bond and the thesis of
this is that there's a bond built into
every one of us that gives us a head
start and doing the right thing for our
fellow creatures all kids have this
connectivity to animals and all of us
here at some level have a connection to
other creatures we have so many
expressions of this bond and
appreciation for animals in our society
two-thirds of American households have
dogs and cats 171 million dogs and cats
we let our cats on our kitchen tables we
sleep in the same bed as our dogs there
are another 100 40 or 50 million pets in
our households there are more pets than
people in American households we spend
more than 50 billion dollars a year on
our pets another 80 million of us are
active wildlife Watchers we take to the
forests in the fields to watch the
incredible feats of flight of birds and
other creatures and take in the tonic
of being in the natural world and
experiencing an area that's not
completely controlled by humans you know
these ideas are embedded in our culture
there are 20,000 animal welfare groups
in the country there's an animal group
for every kind of animal there are
groups that work on Chihuahua rescuer
st. Bernard rescue or feral cats or you
name it their rabbit rescue groups we
run a rabbit sanctuary for homeless and
injured rabbits we say we're providing
hope for the hopeless and there's an
there's an animal group for every kind
of creature of course there are farm
animal groups and there are groups that
are thinking about every sort of
creature in crisis and we have a nation
where the basic notion that Cruelty to
Animals is wrong is already a universal
value all 50 states have anti cruelty
statutes that codify the notion that
malicious torment of animals is not just
a moral problem it is a legal problem
and it is a felony in 47 states
cockfighting is a federal felony and
it's now illegal in all 50 states
dogfighting is a felony in every state
so staging fights between animals even
if you have some sort of interest in
that and get some sort of titillation
from it we as a state as a nation say no
you're not allowed to do that we're
going to protect the animals from that
sort of vice and that sort of
entertainment but what about for metals
the largest category of animals in use
in our society ten billion animals
raised for food in the United States
every year 10 billion more animals go
through slaughterhouse lines every year
in the United States and there are
people on the planet just as a
logistical Enterprise it's an
extraordinary sort of thing and how do
we feel about this I mean we love our
dogs and our cats and we express you
know all sorts of appreciation
fascination for wildlife but do we care
about farm animals well all of the
surveys show that indeed
do here's a survey from the American
Farm Bureau Federation kind of the
symbol of industrial agriculture through
Oklahoma State University measuring
public attitudes toward farm animals 95
percent of people believe farm animals
should be well cared for 95 percent
every survey shows this that we care
about all animals including animals
raised for food and you know we at the
Humane Society United States don't talk
so much about animal rights we talk
about human responsibility it's really
more about us that it is about them I
mean we need to understand a basic
framework when we're talking about
animals that they think that they feel
that they make choices that they want to
live just as much as we want to live
that they want to avoid pain and
suffering just as much as each one of us
does but it's really about our choices
because in the relationship between us
and animals we hold all the cards we
have all the power we are the Lords of
the animals we make life-and-death
decisions in our society without even
casually thinking about it sometimes the
little actions that we take have such
consequences for these creatures and one
of the greatest disconnects that exists
in our society is our relationship with
animals and what we think we believe and
how we act in this world where animals
are not just a sidelight to the human
experience whether we realize it or not
they're at the center of the human
experience and they've always been at
the center of the human experience and
are we sinking up our values and our
beliefs with our conduct you know this
is a barren battery cage 280 million
laying hens in the United States and 95%
of them are in these barren battery
cages 6 or 8 Birds jammed into a cage
each bird under the industry standard
has 67 square inches of space now this
is an
eight and a half by 11 piece of paper
eight and a half times 11 is 93 so 67 is
two-thirds of this page that's the
living space that a laying hen has as
the industry standard and norm in our
nation for the year and a half that she
is alive a year and a half in this space
I mean it's as if eight or nine of us
were in an elevator for our whole lives
imagine after five or ten minutes how
you'd feel stuck in an elevator
imagine if you are stuck in there for
the whole day or a week or a month or a
year or a year and a half I mean are we
this uncreated when it comes to
agricultural practices are we this
miserly are we this oblivious to the
needs of other creatures to do this sort
of thing to them to confine them in a
space where they can't even turn around
or extend their limbs is that the way we
are is that the kind of country we are
is that the kind of people we are
or take pigs
this is Smithfield Foods it's one of
their farms we did an investigation and
undercover investigation there these are
pigs and gestation crates the breeding
sows the females have it worse than in
the general sense these sows are in a
two foot by seven foot cage they can
take one step forward and one step back
they can't turn around the only time
they get out of that cage is just before
they're going to get birthed and moved
into another cage where they are
similarly immobilized and then after a
short time with their piglets then the
Rhian pregnant put back into the
gestation crate seven eight nine ten
success of pregnancies three years three
and a half years in a cage now these are
intelligent sociable animals I mean is
this what we should be doing to them if
we did this to a dog you could be
prosecuted under one of those anti
cruelty statutes so how do we narrow the
gap how
we address these problems with ten
billion animals so many of them caught
up is industrial food production system
where the animals are no longer animals
they have been turned into meat milk and
egg producing machines they've been
Genet genetically manipulated to
exaggerate certain body parts they've
been moved from outdoor settings where
they could feel sunlight on their backs
and soil beneath their feet where they
could amble around where they could
interact with others of their kind and
they could have a decent life yes
they're going to have at least one bad
day when they go to slaughter but the
rest of their life the rest of their
life does not need to be one of misery
and privation and of course you know the
answer is human creativity and
innovation which has solved so many
things and made moot so many past
problems through the advance of
entrepreneurial activity and imagination
this is an aviary system where these
laying hens can actually you know to
some degree they can act like laying
hens they can perch and can get up in a
high place they can go to a nest box and
lay their egg they can move around I
mean what a radical notion that animals
built to move should be allowed to move
or pigs you know Fred talked about this
these animals they want to be around
others they live in a herd environment
but there are limits to the herd I mean
you don't press them together side by
side so the ammonia overtakes the
atmosphere that they're living above
manure that falls between slatted
concrete floors they should be able to
feel some grass or hay beneath the feet
and the science is clear on these issues
I mean our common sense leads us in the
right direction this is a Netherlands
study about a variety of different
egg-laying hen production systems you
can see that the Caged system the barren
battery cage on a scale of zero to ten
doesn't come in at seven or eight
something that's a little deficient it
comes in at zero zero the barn system
again not free-range comes in at five
point
and a VA system the one that you saw at
five point nine I mean these incremental
improvements little decisions for us
that are entirely inconsequential in our
lives mean everything for these animals
everything for them
Temple Grandin there was a movie about
her on HBO here's Claire Danes as Temple
Grandin she says I feel very strongly
that we've got to treat animals right
and the gestation stalls have got to go
the Pew Commission on industrialized
farm animal production took a look at
all of these issues that we've been
talking about today and they looked at
the issue of the overuse of antibiotics
and the manure management systems and
the effect on rural communities and they
looked also at animal welfare and the
Commission which consisted of a wide
variety of stakeholders including a
former USDA Secretary of former governor
of a Midwest state so the Commission
recommends the phase-out of all
intensive confinement systems that
restrict natural movement and normal
behaviors including battery cages and
gestation crates you know we've got to
have these principles of anti-cruelty
the words humane they're not
abstractions they're things that need to
be put to work in our daily lives and we
have no better opportunity to put them
to work in our daily lives with the food
choices that confront us every single
day we've got to eat with conscience
wherever we are in the spectrum whether
we're a vegan or vegetarian or we're an
inveterate carnivore we can all make
choices that have better consequences
for animals and we've got to change the
legal framework eight states have
recently adopted laws at our urging to
ban confinement crates or cages prop two
in California which was a measure to
stop the extreme confinement of laying
hens and breeding sows and veal calves
got more votes in a contest and in a
contested election than any citizen
initiative in American history people
voted for farm
even though they were told it was going
to cost them more that there were going
to be all sorts of problems and
complications people don't want the
animals treated this way even the United
egg producers the group that was our
biggest adversary has now seen the
writing on the wall it is now jointly
supporting with hsus and effort in
Congress to have a minimum standard of
care for laying hints to ban force
molting to reduce ammonia levels to
require labeling of all eggs in the
marketplace and to double the space
allotment for the birds and to give them
enrichment and of course all of us as
individuals can take action meatless
Mondays is a great easy way to ease into
this and choosing higher welfare
products which are now more and more
available in the marketplace we've got
to demand that they're more widely
available and urging corporations we're
a capitalist economy corporations have
an enormous sway on our behavior the
opportunities that we have all of these
companies have taken preliminary steps
to to infuse their supply chain with
more humanely produced products and
we've got to spread the word you know
it's said that that not a sparrow Falls
without his maker knowing we've got to
be mindful of all these creatures every
single one of them thank you
you