Critter News

APRIL 24, 2009

We've argued in previous posts that factory farming is simply not conducive to animal welfare. Better conditions for animals hurt the bottom line. Animal welfare is a cost of doing business, not a moral obligation. The pig industry, says Dr MacDougald, is marked by generally poor production and financial analysis.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 27, 2012

To the Editor: Re “ Don’t Presume to Know a Pig’s Mind ” (Op-Ed, Feb. 20): Blake Hurst, a former hog farmer and president of the Missouri Farm Bureau, cautions that “we can’t ask the pigs what they think.” People who study pigs say they are as intelligent as a 3-year-old child, smarter even than the dogs we share our homes with.

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Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 6, 2009

So here is an even more modest proposal than roasting Fido: Try eating only what animals you are willing to kill with your own hands. A decision not to eat dogs has nothing to do with our inherent hypocrisy, but with our relationship to different animals. Dogs were bred to be companion animals; pigs and cows are raised as food.

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Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 6, 2007

A column entitled "Ag Industry Threatened by Animal Rights" appeared in today's High Plains/Midwest Ag Journal [ HPMAJ ]. The column, which you can read here , is a call to arms to factory farmers to fight back against those individuals and organizations working to protect farm animals from the abuses inherent in factory farms.

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 26, 2007

It might be argued that any decrease in suffering for farmed animals is good, morally speaking. But does giving pigs more room change the way they are viewed? Someone might argue that there is no incompatibility between (1) working to decrease animal suffering and (2) working toward the abolition of factory farming.

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Animal Ethics

MARCH 21, 2007

To the Editor: I appreciate Nicolette Hahn Niman’s efforts in raising awareness about the conditions in which pigs are raised (“ Pig Out ,” Op-Ed, March 14), but I was struck by her comment that it is incumbent on us to ensure that animals have decent lives because we ask them to make the ultimate sacrifice for us.

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