Tag: Karen Davis

UPC vs. American Veterinary Medical Association on Induced Molting

United Poultry Concerns’ Karen Davis wrote a letter in August blasting the American Veterinary Medical Association’s recent adoption of a resolution endorsing induced molting of hens, but calling for further research into the practice.

Induced molting involves temporarily depriving hens of food which causes them to lose their feathers. The AVMA’s position on induced molting is as follows,

Molting is a natural seasonal event in which birds substantially reduce their feed intake, cease egg production, and replace their plumage. Induced molting is a process that simulates the natural molting events. Induced molting extends the productive life of commercial chicken flocks, improves long-term flock health and performance, and results in substantial reduction in the number of chickens needed to produce the nation’s egg supply. When birds return to full feed, a new plumage develops and the birds resume egg production at a higher rate with better egg quality. Induced molting also has a positive impact on the environment through reduction of waste and natural resources needed for growing more birds for egg production.

The commercial induced molting procedure is carefully monitored and controlled. Acceptable practices include reduction of photoperiod and “day length” dietary restrictions that result in cessation of egg production, but water should not be withdrawn. Intermittent feeding or diets of low nutrient density are recommended, rather than total feed withdrawal. Special attention should be paid to flock health, mortality, and bird weight. Egg quality and safety should be monitored through an egg quality assurance program. The welfare of the bids should be a major consideration in this and any management practice.

The AVMA encourages ongoing research into the effect of various methods of induced molting on the performance and well-being of laying chickens.

The AVMA’s contention about more chickens being required for egg production if induced molting were abandoned is worth elaborating on. The number of additional chickens likely needed would be enormous. An economic analysis of induced molting prepared by Donal Bell of the University of California found that at a minimum, ending induced molting would require egg producers to add at least another 400 million chickens to the production process.

In her letter to the AVMA, Davis writes,

In justifying force molting you have chosen to ignore the pathologic effects of this cruel practice on the birds: naturally molting birds do not degenerate into debilitation and susceptibility to Salmonella enteritis. They do not, in the words of Dr. Ian Duncan, “suffer enormously” as do force-molted hens, and their mortality does not “increase dramatically” as does the mortality of force-molted hens. I live with chickens, and I know that their behavior and condition when molting naturally do not match your assertions.

The AVMA rejected a proposal by the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights that would have put the organization on record as opposing induced molting.

Source:

An Egg Economics Update Donal Bell, University of California, April 20, 2000.

New position on induced molting wins favor. American Veterinary Medical Association, July 15, 2002.

Open Letter from United Poultry Concerns to The American Veterinary Medical Association. Karen Davis, August 27, 2002.

Karen Davis: Jews Persecuted by Hitler Were No Different from Nazis

Karen Davis recently wrote an long, bizarre review of Charles Patterson’s absurd book, Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust. Patterson’s book argues, as the title suggests, that human treatment of animals is akin to the Holocaust and, moreover, that human attitudes toward animals were, at least in part, responsible for the Holocaust.

Davis’ review takes a bizarre turn right off the bat when in the opening paragraph she writes,

Parallels between our treatment of nonhuman animals and humans considered to be less than human is what this harrowing book is about. To view such parallels as an insult to humankind merely illustrates its thesis.

This is, of course, a logical fallacy called begging the question. Questioning Davis’s absurd reasoning is hardly evidence that supports this thesis.

I have not read Eternal Treblinka, but from Davis’ lengthy description the book apparently argues that anytime the murder of human beings resembles the slaughter of animals, or language used to describe one is also used to describe the other, this proves that the two activities are intimately intertwined and perhaps even causally related.

Davis, for example, makes much of the role that Charles Davenport and the American Breeders Association played in promoting eugenics in the early 20th century United States. Of course this simply parallels a similar argument made by pro-life activists who note the role that abortion provider pioneer Margaret Sanger played in the eugenics movement. The fact that chicken researchers and abortion providers were involved in the eugenics movement at the beginning of the 20th century says nothing about the ethical position of those respective fields.

Davis, inevitably makes the comparison that all of this nonsense calls for — that, in the way they treated animals, Jews were no different from the Nazis. According to Davis,

It’s been said that if most people had direct contact with the animals they consume, vegetarianism would soar, but history has yet to support this hope. It isn’t just the Nazis who could see birds in the yard, slaughter them and eat them without a qualm, and in fact with euphoria. In this respect, the persecuted Jewish communities were no different than their persecutors.

. . .

Eternal Treblinka thus raises questions, and we long for answers. Why, in the words of Albert Kaplan, are the majority of Holocaust survivors “no more concerned about animals’ suffering than were the Germans concerned about Jews’ suffering?” . . . This is not to suggest that the Jewish community should be expected to rise above the rest of humankind, but that the Jewish response raises questions about our species no less than does Nazism.

That’s right folks — a Jewish family eating chicken for dinner is an act that raises ethical and moral questions comparable to those raised by the Holocaust.

Source:

UPC Review – Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust. Karen Davis, March 11, 2002, E-mail communication.

United Poultry Concerns Urges People to Donate to a Charity that Does Animal Experiments

Oxygen Media, the cable television channel founded by Oprah Winfrey and others, is running a promotion with the Heifer Project to send chickens and other livestock to families in Afghanistan. The “Send a Chick to Afghanistan” project notes that, “Poultry will help because the birds are so adaptable to the environment, supply an excellent source of nutrition through their eggs, and they’re easy to transport.”

This wonderful program has drawn the wrath of United Poultry Concerns which issued a press release condemning the shipment of chickens to Afghanistan. According to UPC,

The Heifer Project and Oxygen Media are fueling the world’s bloodshed and chaos by adding animal misery and abuse to U.S. bombs, landmines, and civilian suffering and death in Afghanistan. Promoting the idea that sending animals to be tended and fed by famine-stricken countries plagued with drought and American bombs is absurd and misleading.

Well, when it comes to absurd and misleading rhetoric, UPC and Karen Davis are certainly the experts, but in this case it’s yet more absurdity from UPC. The odd thing is that UPC slips up in sticking with the party line. In the very next paragraph of its press release, it suggests that,

People who truly want to help the people of Afghanistan should support famine relief organizations that provide direct aid. For example, the Red Cross is providing rice, oil, and peas for immediate consumption.

Oops. The Red Cross is on PETA/PCRM’s list of forbidden charities because it funds animal research.

This writer recommends giving to both organizations if you are concerned about relief efforts in Afghanistan.

Sources:

UPC Action Alert: Protest “Send a Chick to Afghanis-Scam.” United Poultry Concerns, Press Release, March 6, 2002.

Karen Davis — Ducks in AFLAC Ads Are Exploited and Degraded

United Poultry Concerns president Karen Davis has written a letter to the CEO of AFLAC Incorporated complaining about those ads featuring a duck touting AFLAC insurance.

In a press release containing a copy of the letter, UPC asked animal rights activists to, “Please Contact AFLAC Incorporated (a supplemental medical insurance company) and urge them to stop running TV commercials that represent ducks in dangerous, unnatural, and degrading situations.”

In her letter to AFLAC CEO Daniel Amos, Davis cites an ad featuring a duck apparently falling into the Grand Canyon. Davis writes,

We ask that you stop putting animal abuse images in people’s minds. As a former juvenile probation officer in Baltimore who is now the head of an animal protection agency, I know that many children and teenagers are influenced by programming that treats animals derisively and/or places them in unnatural, potentially harmful situations. We ask you not to cater any further to this mentality.

Yeah, ever since my daughter saw that ad all she can talk about is visiting the Grand Canyon to toss a duck overboard.

Actually, I’m certain that children and teenagers have a lot more common sense than Davis does. Now I would be concerned about teenagers or children who rationalized the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — as Karen Davis did — by claiming they likely reduced the total suffering in the world by eliminating so many meat eaters. Now that is truly the sign of someone excessively influenced by a sick mentality.

Source:

UPC Action Alert: AFLAC TV Commercial Degrades Ducks. United Poultry Concerns, Press Release, March 4, 2002.

Do Animal Rights Activists Care More About Animals Than Human Beings?

Animal rights activists come in for a lot of criticism, but the one argument
that seems to really get under their skin is the claim that they care more about
animals than they do about human beings. Animal rights groups and individuals
will go to great lengths to show they value human life. They argue they simply
want humans to value the lives of animals.

Do animal rights activists care more about animals than human beings? Comments
made by prominent activists and groups after the September 11 terrorist attacks
speak volumes:

  • Alex Hershaft runs a group called Farm USA that manages a national animal
    rights convention. On September 23, Farm USA issued a press release quoting
    Hershaft saying, “Worldwide, every day, 125 million innocent, sentient animals
    are dreadfully abused and butchered for food. These tragedies are perpetrated
    by a worldwide animal agricultural terrorist network that is much more threatening
    to planetary survival than the Al Queda network, because it kills more people
    and animals, because it kills them unrelentingly every day, because it is
    pervasive and accepted. For every human being who dies of warfare, crime,
    or terrorism, 10,000 innocent, sentient animals die a violent death.”

  • The next day, Michael W. Fox of the Humane Society of the United States
    blamed the 9/11 attacks on humanity’s crimes against nature. In an essay distributed
    via e-mail, Fox wrote that, “Our collective violence against Nature and against
    human nature, from the plight of endangered cultures, wildlife and the environment,
    to the sufferings of indigenous peoples and of domestic animals, especially
    in factory farms and commercial laboratories around the world, needs to be
    acknowledged. Until we find atonement with Nature and all beings, human and
    non-human, how can human nature find peace and not annihilate all that our
    better natures embrace?”

  • In its October issue, the widely read animal rights magazine “Animal People”
    included an unsigned editorial linking Osama bin Laden’s fanaticism to meat
    eating. More disturbing, however, was the magazine’s comparison of farm animals
    to the victims who died onboard the hijacked planes. According to the magazine,
    “Many and perhaps most of the nine billion animals sent to slaughter in the
    U.S. each year, as well as the billions killed abroad, have at least as long
    to sense doom as did the September 11 victims. Neither are the animals’ last
    cries as unlike the cell phone calls made by some of the September 11 victims
    as the typical meat-eater would like to believe. Equally disturbing to meat-eaters
    might be awareness that doomed animals, too, often put up frantic resistance,
    like the passengers who tried to retake United Airlines flight 93…”

  • Lee Ryan, a member of the British boy band Blue, put the comparison in stark
    and crude language. Ryan, who styles himself an animal rights activist, asked
    the British tabloid The Sun, “What about whales? They are ignoring
    animals that are more important. Animals need saving and that’s more important
    . . . Who gives a f— about New York when elephants are being killed.”

  • To his credit, animal rights philosopher Peter Singer did criticize the
    idea of comparing the victims of the September 11 attacks to animals killed
    for food, but United Poultry Concerns’ Karen Davis vigorously denounced Singer
    for this. According to Davis, “For 35 million chickens in the United States
    alone, every single night is a terrorist attack.” Davis went on to suggest
    that since most of those who died in the terrorist attacks were likely meat
    eaters, the attacks may have actually resulted in a net reduction in suffering.

  • Finally, just a few days ago Farm USA announced the schedule for its upcoming
    Animal Rights 2002 National Conference. Describing the goal of this year’s
    conference, Farm USA’s press release said, “Animal Rights 2002 is our movement’s
    first national conference since the terrible tragedy of September 11 and its
    aftermath. It is dedicated to exposing and challenging the terror perpetrated
    every single day against billions of innocent, sentient nonhuman animals.”

Despite the frequent claims that animal rights activist do not care more about
animals than they do about human beings, in each of these cases human suffering
from the Sept. 11 attacks is minimized, ignored, and even celebrated. At best
human suffering is used simply as a segue to talk about the real issue, which
is always the alleged suffering of animals.

Do animal rights activists care more about animals than they do about human
beings? Of course they do.

United Poultry Concerns Complains About a Chicken Ad

Karen Davis continues to push the envelope on animal rights, insisting that not only is it wrong to hurt chickens, but now arguing that it is also wrong to degrade them in commercials. Wait a few years and she’ll probably be suing for libel and slander on behalf of chickens.

The latest horror identified by Davis and United Poultry Concerns is an advertisement for fast food chain Carl’s Jr. The advertisement pokes fun at competing chains who sell chicken nuggets. The ad features several men inspecting a chicken unsuccessfully trying to find the part of the chicken that contains nuggets. They find wings, breasts, and thighs, but not nuggets. The ad ends with a man removing a rubber glove saying, “It’s not there, either.”

United Poultry Concerns put out a press release saying that,

The ad implies an anal search of the chicken’s body and is completely offensive. It models itself on scenes of gang rape and on a medical examination of one’s body that no one would consent to have publicly aired. It exemplifies the connection that has recently been suggested by UPC President Karen Davis, philosopher Peter Singer, and others between industrial animal agriculture and “bestiality”-human sexual assaults upon other animal species that comport with manipulating them for reproduction and ‘meat’ …

Is the ad offensive? Certainly nowhere near as offensive as Davis’ comments that the 9/11 terrorist attacks may have resulted in a net reduction in suffering in the world. It is also a little odd to see UPC citing Singer, given that just this month she was complaining about Singer’s comments that chickens are so primitive they might not be subjects of a life and hence owed no moral duties.

The bizarre thing, though, is that Davis believes that even though no animal was harmed during the filming of this commercial, putting in a chicken in a degrading situation violates its rights. Davids told Los Angeles Times reporter Dana Parson,

When someone’s poking around your body and sniffing around, looking under your tail, wing and treating this bird’s body derisively . . . that’s our objection. There’s more to abuse and harm than sticking a knife in somebody.

I’m surprised she did not add that the chicken might have felt embarrassed being naked! I hope Davis and UPC come forward soon with clear guidelines for protecting the privacy of animals.

Sources:

What if someone went looking for your nuggets? Dana Parsons, The Los Angeles Times, January 16, 2002.

United Poultry Concerns, California residents urge Carl’s Jr. to Drop Chicken “Nuggets” Commercial. United Poultry Concerns, Press Release, January 17, 2002.