"cages" news and stories

Sure, just keep it away from the lions. Ha! Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week!

The Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago is asking the city council for a license to sell beer and wine. Not in carts in the middle of the zoo but at the restaurants on the zoo site (they already serve alcohol at a restaurant just outside of the zoo). They want to be able to serve beer and wine at the zoo's cafeteria and the Big Cat's Cafe, which is near the lion's cage (and I swear I made the above joke before I even read that part).

Is this a good idea? Sure, revenue would increase to $300,000-400,000, but shouldn't there just be some places in this country where alcohol isn't a part of the equation?

After it was revealed that the US's largest pork producer engaged in some highly questionable agricultural practices - to put it very mildly - when it came to raising the move than 25 million pigs they slaughter each year, there was an outcry. Smithfield Farms, with 187 farms in eight states, was known for keeping pigs in "gestational cages," free from straw, sunlight, or room to move for their entire lives and after years or criticism from groups like the Humane Society, as well as a 2 year long privately conducted study, the company has finally agreed to stop using the cages. The cages, which are sometimes referred to as stalls, were designed to maximize efficiency in the pig raising process by confining the pig to the minimum size that it would need to remain alive, but the interest in where our food comes from has now gotten to a point where even large corporate consumers, like McDonald's, are unwilling to overlook such conditions.

The cages will be phased out over an undetermined period of time. The company did not say how much the process would cost, but it is likely to be expensive for them as they try to find places to keep all their pigs that allow for cleaner, roomier living conditions.

[thanks, Elise!]

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