A community is lashing out at a police department after video of a traffic stop for window tint showed an officer abusing his K9 partner after it allegedly failed to find drugs.
The post WATCH: Cop Snaps, Abuses His Own K9 After He Failed to Find Drugs During Stop appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
A police department is insisting that its officers acted as "humanely as possible,” after they were caught on video competing in their squad cars to see who could run over a confused, trapped raccoon.
The post WATCH: Cops Caught Competing In Race To Run Over Raccoon—Slowly Torturing It to Death appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
One of the largest chicken producers in the United States, Perdue Farms recently released its first-ever chicken welfare report in July 2017. The company says it has taken important steps to follow through on plans it announced a little over a year ago to change the way it raises and slaughters chickens. [1]
Perdue says in the report that it implemented new breeding methods which allow chickens to grow at a faster rate without causing them harm. The company additionally claimed that it would install stunning systems that minimize stress to the birds as they’re headed to slaughter.
Over time, the changes will be rolled out to about 1,500 contract farmers and 5,000 chicken houses, according to company chairman Jim Perdue and senior vice president Bruce Stewart-Brown.
In recent years, Perdue Farms has had its share of problems. One I can recall off-hand was in 2014, when farmer Craig Watts – a contractor for Perdue at the time – revealed shocking video footage of the filthy, unhealthy, and downright inhumane living conditions suffered by chickens produced for the company.
Watts, who eventually left the chicken farming industry in disgust, went on to release equally disturbing video footage of the horrid living conditions and treatment of chickens produced for Pilgrim’s Pride.
In both videos, over-large chickens are seen crammed together in a filthy warehouse. They have no natural light in to bask in, and the birds must literally trample each other just to get to their feed.
Perdue Farms, the 4th-largest poultry producer in the country, is the largest poultry producer to ensure chickens in its supply chain are treated better, according to Humane Society of the U.S. vice president Josh Balk.
The new chicken houses have lots of windows, space for the chickens to move about, even ramps and straw bales for the birds to perch on. [2]
Leah Garces, executive director of Compassion in World Farming, who recently took a tour of Perdue’s vision of the future, said “It’s a big difference.” She added that chickens in the house with natural light are “running around, climbing on things, pecking, perching,” compared with the chickens in the the windowless house, which are “quiet, they’re sitting, they’re not moving.”
Company executives say they’ve seen a substantial difference in the health and quality of the chickens raised in better conditions. Jim Perdue said the company found that when chickens are more active and not left squatting in cramped conditions, the meat is of higher quality, something they learned when they started raising their birds according to organic rules.
Jim said:
“We’re finding that meat from organic chickens is better. More tender. Different color. Activity is the key. [Organic chickens] are more active, they’re running around.”
Any person who has ever eaten organic, humanely-raised meat can attest that there is an elephantine difference in the quality and flavor of organic meat. The superior birds – the organic ones – are better for human health, too.
Even without Perdue Farms’ revelations about the virtues of organic chicken farming, pressure from big corporate customers certainly would have forced the poultry producer to alter its behavior. These customers include food service companies and other institutions, such as Aramark and Compass, both of which have announced that by 2024, they will only purchase chickens from companies that improve the lives of its birds.
The food service companies say they’ll only purchase chickens from companies that raise them according to new animal welfare rules set in place by Global Animal Partnership, an organization originally launched by the grocery chain Whole Foods.
Those rules include:
Perdue is on the path to meeting the requirements, but there is one hurdle that could be hard for the company to hop over: growing a chicken that can freely move about because it doesn’t fatten up as quickly.
In the secret videos recorded by Craig Watts, hugely fat chickens endeavor to navigate the facilities, balanced on its 2 scrawny legs, only for their legs to give out under the birds’ weight – an image described by Watts as “2 toothpicks sticking out a grape.”
Chickens are raised for breast meat, and for the last, oh, 60 years or so, chicken producers have been on a mission to increase the size of their birds in order to compete. The competition reaches as far down as the farmers themselves, whose pay depends on the amount of meat their birds produce. Chickens have quadrupled in size since the 1950’s, according to a 2014 study in the journal Poultry Science.
The Global Animal Partnership demands that companies use slower-growing breeds. The animal welfare group hasn’t decided which breeds will meet its standard, but Perdue Farms is studying 6 alternative breeds at a research farm.
Unfortunately, the switch to slower-growing chickens is likely to have a palpable impact on business. And because certain breeds of slower-growing chickens produce less breast meat and bigger legs, buyers can expect to feel the impact, too. They may have to pay more for poultry, or eat more dark meat.
Jim Purdue said:
“This is a big change for our company as well as the industry. Getting everyone aligned is the big challenge. From that aspect, I think things are going well as far as people understanding what we want to look like.” [3]
Sources:
[1] Associated Press
[2] NPR
Links to some of Perdue’s Latest Documents:
Commitments to Animal Care 2017 Press Release
Perdue Farms Statement on Meeting Demand for Chicken Welfare Standards
What Others Say About Perdue’s Animal Care Commitments 2017
 | Mike is the co-founder, editor, and researcher behind Natural Society. Studying the work of top natural health activists, and writing special reports for top 10 alternative health websites, Mike has written hundreds of articles and pages on how to obtain optimum wellness through natural health. |
A whistleblower who once worked for the 2nd largest chicken producer in the U.S. has come forward to tell the world about the birds’ horrible living conditions. He also sheds light on the reason why the overwhelming majority of US chicken producers wash the poultry in chlorine before putting it on the market.
Yes, chlorine. You know, like swimming pools.
According to the whistleblower, ex-North Carolina chicken farmer Craig Watts, tens of thousands of ultra-plump birds are stuffed into oversized warehouses, where they are so fat their legs buckle under their own weight. The chickens, which can reach 9 lbs., are not exposed to natural light and often die before they reach maturity. Many of them are covered in their own feces. [1]
This, the whistleblower claims, is why 97% of American chickens are washed in chlorine after they are slaughtered, though there is no legal requirement to do so.
Watts said:
“The birds are too heavy to stand because they have been bred for breast meat and nothing else, so they spend their lives squatting. It’s like 2 toothpicks sticking out of a grape.
They spend 95% of their time sitting on the litter, a mixture of pine shavings and fecal matter from that flock and prior flocks.”
It gets worse. Watts says the birds’ living conditions are so cramped, they injure one another just moving about the warehouse.
“Their flesh would rot, and when you have them crammed in so tight, they will walk over other birds if they want to get to the food or scratch the others and cause a wound. It is awful.” [2]
Watts said he quit the poultry business over the inhumane conditions, some of which was documented in shocking video footage filmed at 2 Pilgrim’s Pride facilities in Hull, Georgia. Chickens can be seen being tossed about by farm workers, and collapsing under their own weight. The owner of the farm can be seen bludgeoning the animals to death with a metal rod. Chickens are pictured being violently shackled down and punched. [3]
We’ve included the video, but be warned; it is very difficult to watch.
“Ensuring the well-being of the chickens under our care is an uncompromising commitment at Pilgrim’s.
This isolated incident of of unacceptable behavior does not reflect our approach to animal welfare or the approach of the more than 4,000 family farm partners who interact with our chickens daily.” [1]
America’s chicken farmers are under immense pressure to produce. Nearly all of them are contracted with major corporations like Pilgrim’s Pride, who supply them with chicks, feed, and equipment.
What the farmers can and cannot do depends on the firms’ regulations, and they are paid based on a “tournament system” that pits farmers against one another. The farmer who produces the most meat with the least feed “wins,” while the farmer who produces less will have money deducted from his pay. [3]
The payment system basically encourages farmers to cut corners, resulting in crueler, less hygienic living conditions for the chickens.
According to Jim Sumner, president of the US Poultry & Egg Export Council, US chickens are treated humanely, and chlorine-washing is only done as an added measure of safety which protects against food-borne illnesses.
Sumner said:
“Sometimes these [animal welfare] organizations do not have a thorough understanding of the process or scientific facts.”
But the fact that we have to chlorinate chicken before it can be eaten certainly seems to suggest that the living conditions inside farms may be as unhealthy for humans as they are for the livestock.
A senior policy analyst at the US Center for Food Safety, Jaydee Hanson said:
“These chemicals are basically like the ones we put in our toilets to clean them. The question is, why are chickens so contaminated in the first place? And the issue is that we are not doing a good job of raising chickens.”
Sources:
 | Julie Fidler is a freelance writer, legal blogger, and the author of Adventures in Holy Matrimony: For Better or the Absolute Worst. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two ridiculously spoiled cats. She occasionally pontificates on her blog. |
After 146 years of animal performances, clowns, and side shows, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus will stop all performances — forever — as of May.
A number of factors contributed to the monumental decision, including decreased attendance, changing public perceptions, and ongoing battles with animal rights groups — multiple instances of abuse by trainers behind the scenes have plagues the world famous performance production company for years.
“There isn’t any one thing,” said Feld Entertainment CEO Kenneth Feld noted, having told startled employees Saturday night after performances in Orlando and Miami. “This has been a very difficult decision for me and for the entire family.”
Circuses have, quite simply, faded from favor — however bittersweet the nostalgic connotations.
“Ringling Bros. has two touring circuses this season and will perform 30 shows between now and May. Major stops include Atlanta, Washington, Philadelphia, Boston and Brooklyn. The final shows will be in Providence, Rhode Island, on May 7 and in Uniondale, New York, at the Nassau County Coliseum on May 21,” the Washington Post reported.
Since the mid-1800s, Barnum and Bailey has been somewhat of a household name, entertaining generations with trained elephants, sequined acrobats, clowns, tigers, and various other shows — but, for decades now, the circus has faced sharp criticism over its treatment of exotic, captive animals and the ethics of holding and training endangered and threatened species.
As the Post further explains, “Phineas Taylor Barnum made a traveling spectacle of animals and human oddities popular, while the five Ringling brothers performed juggling acts and skits from their home base in Wisconsin. Eventually, they merged and the modern circus was born. The sprawling troupes traveled around America by train, wowing audiences with the sheer scale of entertainment and exotic animals.”
But it was the treatment of those exotic animals that began to give Barnum & Bailey an horrific reputation for abuse of species endangered in the wild. A number of videos evidencing force and abuse by trainers that soured the public to circuses and animal performances years ago.
Indeed, there has been a general move away from circuses, zoos, and other entities who rely on animal captivity to make a profit, as the public learns what happens behind the scenes. While some of these businesses might be well-intentioned, ‘training’ wild animals to bend to the will of humans demands a degree of force not deemed acceptable by today’s standards.
While Ringling Bros. wasn’t entirely built around animal performances by any stretch, contention over the issue has grown exponentially in recent years — as it has for many entities in the animal captivity business. Sea World, in fact, has faced similar criticism over orca and dolphin performances seen by many as bending animal nature to the whims of human entertainment — and has been forced to cease captive breeding after public outrage.
Although the Post explains the move toward electronic forms of entertainment — first television, and now smart phones, video games, and computers — greatly reduced the appeal of the circus, that expansion included the wide availability of information, and whistleblower videos exposed the circus as a repeat abuser behind the glitzy scenes.
With diminishing crowds and growing negative perception — and an inability to sustain sufficient ticket sales under increasing overhead — the so-called Greatest Show on Earth has been left little choice but to cease operations.
As Feld sees it, lessening attention spans hindered attendance as well, “The competitor in many ways is time,” he told the Post, speaking of both shortened attention and the entertainment of a bygone era. “It’s a different model that we can’t see how it works in today’s world to justify and maintain an affordable ticket price. So you’ve got all these things working against it.”
He added, “Try getting a 3- or 4-year-old today to sit for 12 minutes.”
In 1967, the Feld family purchased the circus, which had performances just under three hours. Now, shows last two hours and seven minutes — about the length of an average Hollywood movie — but audiences have been increasingly unenthused.
However, these factors don’t compare to growing outrage concerning animal rights and abuse — even among ordinary people unaffiliated with such movements, as has been the case for Sea World and its treatment of killer whales.
Animal performances — forced captivity and physically abusive training methods — no longer slip under the radar with an increasingly aware and concerned public.
“After 36 years of PETA protests,” Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said after the announcement of the circus closure, “which have awoken the world to the plight of animals in captivity, PETA heralds the end of what has been the saddest show on earth for wild animals, and asks all other animal circuses to follow suit, as this is a sign of changing times.”
However, as the Post notes, “In May of 2016, after a long and costly legal battle, the company removed the elephants from the shows and sent the animals to live on a conservation farm in Central Florida. The animals had been the symbol of the circus since Barnum brought an Asian elephant named Jumbo to America in 1882. In 2014, Feld Entertainment won $25.2 million in settlements from groups including the Humane Society of the United States, ending a 14-year fight over allegations that circus employees mistreated elephants.
“By the time the elephants were removed, public opinion had shifted somewhat. Los Angeles prohibited the use of bull-hooks by elephant trainers and handlers, as did Oakland, California. The city of Asheville, North Carolina nixed wild or exotic animals from performing in the municipally owned, 7,600-seat U.S. Cellular Center.”
Apparently the elephants represented to the public both a cornerstone of circus magic and the epitome of useless abuse — even earning the snide moniker, the Cruelest Show on Earth — and attendance dropped dramatically. Sea World experienced the same phenomenon over its captivity and performances by orcas, or killer whales.
It would seem, in other words, the public has finally spoken — and private businesses, once hugely profitable, have responded — it matters not how glitzy the package, the manipulation of wild animals for entertainment purposes is no longer acceptable.
Ringling Bros., the once-glorified cornerstone of entertainment in America, will now draw the curtains for the final time.
For the past several months, The Free Thought Project has been bringing its readers, story after story, of police interactions with animals, usually family pets. All too often, when challenged with a barking dog, untrained police officers will shoot and kill beloved K9s. So, imagine our surprise when we came across the story of a police officer killing his own horse.
Officer Joseph Teeter, of the Denver Police Department, serves in the mounted police division. This past September 26th, Officer Teeter, and his horse named MC Hammer, had been patrolling the downtown Denver area. The day wasn’t unseasonably warm, with the high only in the 70’s. But upon returning to the Denver Police Mounted Patrol Barn, Teeter tied up MC Hammer, took off his saddle, and sat down to do paperwork. Admittedly getting distracted by his required paperwork, Teeter neglected to give MC Hammer any food and water.
Minutes turned into hours, and Teeter left the barn and MC Hammer still tied up without any hydration or nutrients. The horse spent the next 16 hours being tied up without any access to food or water, and it’s uncertain whether or not the 10-year-old horse was even able to lay down to rest.
When employees arrived at the barn on the morning of the 27th, they found MC Hammer still tied up to the same eye-hook Teeter had tied him to. Water and food was immediately given to the horse, who appeared fine at first, even perking up, but soon took a turn for the worse. The DPD reportedly contacted a local veterinarian who determined MC Hammer was suffering from colic and would not recover. The decision was then made to put down the horse. MC Hammer was subsequently euthanized.
It’s important for readers to understand the mindset of the police in general. When it comes to animals, they’re considered, quite literally, police officers themselves. Just this past October, the LA Times reported a man was shot and killed after he attacked a police dog with pruning shears. But as TFTP also reported, several incidents of animal cruelty have been reported, even some wherein police officers were abusing and mistreating their own K9 partners.
Just as in officer-involved shootings, mistreatment, instances of badge abuse, and other scandals involving police, Officer Teeter, who’s been an officer for over 10 years, will not be inconvenienced by the neglect and mistreatment of his own horse partner. He won’t have to pay a fine, and he won’t have to spend one day in jail. That’s because much to the surprise of many, following an internal investigation, Officer Teeter was only docked a day’s pay for his part in the neglect which led to MC Hammer’s demise. And the day’s pay wasn’t even a real day, but a vacation day, nonetheless.
The internal investigation reportedly resulted in a disciplinary letter being written to Teeter. Part of the letter reads Teeter, “became distracted doing paperwork and forgot he had left the horse tied in the stall.” But Teeter was given the benefit of the doubt with the following statement which reads, “The medical experts who evaluated the horse were unable to conclude that the horse’s condition was caused by being left in the stall without food or water for approximately sixteen hours.”
According to KUSA’s 9News, “Teeter was disciplined for a violation of the Denver Police Department’s Written Command: Rough or Careless Handling of City and Department Property. That particular violation can carry various disciplinary actions, including up to three “fined” days. Teeter received one “fined” day, or eight hours of docked vacation time for 2017. The letter states Teeter’s service record and commendations as mitigating factors, but stated the officer’s forgetfulness put the horse in ‘cruel’ conditions. It also said Teeter demonstrated real remorse for his actions.”
The neglect, the investigation, the report and the punishment has sparked outrage with horse lovers everywhere, who believe Teeter should be charged with animal cruelty, not simply docked a vacation day and given a new horse. MC Hammer had only been with the DPD for less than a year, having been donated to the police department. It’s unclear who donated the horse to the police department, but if that owner can be located and verified, TFTP would love to know what the previous owner thinks about his horse’s fate.
According to news reports, Teeter is heartbroken by his actions and is suffering from true “remorse.” But whether or not the abuse was intentional, the fact remains a police horse died at the hands of the police handler who was supposed to be caring for his needs. Instead of being reassigned to another section of the DPD, Officer Teeter has been given back his job with the DPD Mounted division, a move which has left us scratching our heads in disbelief.
What do you feel should have been Officer Teeter’s punishment? Should he have been charged with animal neglect or animal cruelty? Should he have been given back his job as a mounted police officer? Post your comments below.
