Meet our Herbie of the Week: Stephen!After years of unhealthy eating habits, everything changed when he met his wife. Once she went vegan, Stephen decided to follow in her veggie footsteps and started to notice all sorts of changes — both mentally and…
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Strawberry Rhubarb Shortcake
For me, shortcake is an essential summer staple. You start the season with strawberries, then move on to blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and peaches. You can leave the rhubarb out if you want (but might need to splash in a little mo…
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Ode to Emma Czornobaj
You probably already know the story of Canadian human Emma Czornobaj. In the Superior Court of Quebec on Friday she was found guilty of causing the death of two other humans after they crashed into her car on a highway. The good samaritan had parked her car on the highway to help a group of ducklings on the side of the road.
Her pre-sentence hearing is on August 8.
I have some personal experience of this, not involving humans, but two other species. I had just relocated a worm sitting on the grass to save it from impending doom, when a bird swooped down to claim its newly-positioned prey. While the situation is different the result was the same: unplanned accidental deaths as the consequence of good intentions, where one species is attempting to help another.
And so back to the ducklings. The human made a choice to help them to safety, and in doing so placed other humans at risk. The response? In a grotesque act of speciesism, her human peers have ruled that her actions in not placing the safety of her own species above the safety of other species are criminal, and she may be imprisoned for up to 14 years as a result. In lauding the outcome, the prosecutor said: “What we hope is that a clear message is sent to society that we do not stop on the highway for animals. It’s not worth it.”
What if she had done nothing, and as a result one or more ducklings were run over by a car and killed? Would that human driver be answering to an angry jury of ducks? No, I suggest there would be no consequence for that human. There are no species other than humans who are so vengeful.
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Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use: look who got $10 million to help animals!
Modern Meadow, the start-up company producing cultured meat and leather (without killing animals, or as I call it: in meatro) just raised $10 million to expand its life-saving work.
Speaking of fortunes, my coworker Josh Balk has a great Fortune magazine column this week about how the pork industry’s antics opposing animal welfare reforms are anti-free market.
In other news, did you know there’s a World Meat Congress? Well, they’re not too happy with our work passing laws to improve the treatment of farm animals. There’s a lot of corporate policy progress on farm animal protection issues too, and I was glad to be on Al Jazeera this week discussing it (minutes9:00–19:00).
Not to be outdone, CNN has a new video this week with Dr. Sanjay Gupta entitled, “Eat Less Meat,” in which he argues that meat is one “of the biggest risk factors for early death.” Perhaps people will take his advice, especially in light of sky-high meat prices right now.
You know what price isn’t sky-high, though? The price of Taking Action for Animals, the awesome conference in DC June 27-30—it’s only $75. Hope to see you there!
Paul Shapiro
Vice President, Farm Animal Protection
The Humane Society of the United States
Follow at http://twitter.com/pshapiro
P.S. Video of the week: The bravest pigeon you’ve ever seen.