"animal rights" news and stories

As one chef put it, "We're going to paint the town with foie gras."

Um, that might be taking it a little far, but okay.

After just over a year of the law that banned restaurants from serving foie gras, the city of Chicago has done an about-face, making the fatty liver of ducks and geese available to diners. Many parties are involved with the issue of serving foie gras in Chicago restaurants, from animal rights activists to restaurant owners to foie gras producers, and even to those interested in the political process in Chicago's city administration.

Source

You have probably seen cartons of eggs in the store from "free range" or "cage free" hens, but what about all those other eggs on the shelves? At stores like Wild Oats and Whole Foods, only cage-less eggs are sold, but by some estimates, the eggs from caged hens in an ordinary grocery store could be more than 80% of those on the shelves. Eggs from caged hens are not labeled in any particular way, leaving consumers with the impression that the eggs have a blank slate. In other words, if it doesn't clearly state the eggs' origin, consumers aren't going to spend too much time thinking about it even if they don't support caging chickens.

At least, this is the theory put forward by Washington DC council member Jim Graham, who is proposing a law that would require supermarkets to display signs stating that "Eggs may be from caged hens" on displays of eggs not labeled otherwise. He says that this would increase consumer awareness for the issue, which is receiving more and more attention from animal rights groups, as well as individuals who are "interested in protecting animals"

Source

KFC is in the news again, this time (and most of the time), the target of attack by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The animal rights activist organization has teamed up with spokesperson Pamela Anderson in an online campaign against the fast food chicken restaurant in Asia. The campaign urges Asian diners to boycott the American chain. PETA has also sent a video of Pam, along with a letter written by her, to KFC's operational HQ in Hong Kong.

In the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, a group of approximately 40 demonstrators gathered to protest the sale of cat meat at the Fangji Cat Meatball restaurant. Protestors initially demanded that any live cats on the premises be freed or turned over to them, but the shop owner had already removed them from the premises. Instead, a search of the kitchen revealed cat meat and a whole, skinned cat in the fridge, which reduced some of the protestors to tears. The restaurant was chosen as the site of the protest because workers at the restaurant had been seen killing cats in the street, something which concerned parents said was traumatic for children attending school nearby.

The owner of the shop defended the sale and consumption of cats - which are, along with dogs, considered to be traditional, comforting fare in the province - but said that he would close his shop.

Perhaps due to outside influences and the increasing popularity of having dogs and cats as pets, the animal rights movement is gaining momentum in China. An increasing perception of these animals as companions and not food could eventually put a stop to the practice all together.

A local beauty queen, who participated in the protest, even urged people to "stop eating cats and dogs and become civilised."

Source

Italy has some of the toughest animal protection laws in the world. Turin, the site of this year's winter Olympic games, actually has a law that imposes a fine if you fail to walk your dog three times a day. Given this, it's not all that surprising to hear that they are regarding lobsters with the same feelings most reserve for cats and dogs.

A restaurant in Vicenza, Italy, was fined $855 for attempting to subject a lobster to a prolonged death, though the restaurant owners had no direct intention of killing the creature. They were displaying the live lobster on ice as a promotion for their seafood business. The case was first brought to the Italian courts in 2002 when a former environmental activist took his two small children to the restaurant, where they were "shocked by the display."

Lobsters can live out of water for at least 24 hours and up to several days. They have a specialized gill that allows them to utilize oxygen from the air and, as the restaurant would have returned the lobster to its tank at the end of the day, the lobster would most likely have been unharmed by the ordeal.

 

Source