Like many other animal rights activists, I’m always thinking about the plight of animals, and I’m always asking people to consider animals in the decisions they make each day. I don’t advocating for animals is all-consuming. Maybe it’s just the way I’m wired. But, every so often, I see abuse that is so extreme that I short circuit – and give up hope.

Photo: sundayworld.com

Today I came across an article – with accompanying video – about live frogs being served as sushi in Japan. I’ve seen the footage of people eating live fish in Japan, but this took a bigger toll on me. Perhaps it’s because the frog footage is more graphic. Whatever the reason, I struggled through the video, put my head in my hands, and had one of those moments when I asked myself, “Humans have been – and always will – monsters, so what’s the point in trying?”

Then I eat a row of cookies, focus on the animals who are counting on us, think about the victories and get back to work.

City-dwellers who think they’re ingesting polluted air will never complain again after reading this powerful story of what happens to a rural community when a factory farm moves in: “Surry County, NC – with its beautiful rolling farmland and vineyards – is under siege.”  Children can no longer play outdoors; residents can no longer use fans in their homes; property values have plummeted; everyone is breathing in ammonia; and the community has no recourse because factory farms are exempt from the North Carolina’s odor laws.

Photo: Jere Cunningham

Every community needs a superhero like Erin Brockovich to protect it, but most have regular people who are just trying to get by. Small towns are  simply no match for powerful agribusiness. As more rural areas are destroyed (literally) by factory farms, perhaps the residents will join the chorus of environmental and animal rights activists fighting to end factory farming — the industry most responsible for destroying their communities, the environment, our health and, of course, the animals.

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, thousands of mink were released from their cages at a Canadian fur farm. The liberation was likely conducted by activists in response to a widely publicized story about the grisly conditions on the farm. The Montreal SPCA, which conducted the investigation that led to the story, said that the dehydrated, thin and sick animals, some of whom had open wounds, were “living in hell.”

Photo: Montreal SPCA

Those who criticize activists for conducting liberations say that the newly-freed animals who manage to escape into nearby areas cannot survive after living in captivity. Even if that is true, a few hours or days of freedom is far better than a lifetime of intensive confinement and abuse followed by death by anal electrocution, gassing or neck-breaking. Learn more about fur farming and join the fight to end it.

The NY Times reports that Nestlé will no longer buy products derived from pigs and chickens held in the most intensive forms of confinement (gestation crates & battery cages) and from cattle who have been dehorned or had their tails docked without anesthesia. The new policy, which will affect at least 7,300 of its suppliers and will likely trigger other companies to follow suit, represents “one of the broadest-reaching commitments to improving the quality of life for animals in the food system.”

Intensive confinement and body mutilation are among the cruelest aspects of factory farming. So, for the billions of pigs, chickens and cows who are born into this system, a slightly less awful existence is better than nothing. But these reforms should not give caring consumers the impression that they are eating happy animals. On the contrary, pigs, chickens and cows raised on factory farms will still live wretched lives in windowless sheds, unable to do anything that comes naturally to them. And then they are slaughtered. Please, go veg.

His name is Sam Simon, and, in the last months of his life, this Hollywood mogul has been donating a fortune to liberate animals. Today, he bought a fur farm in Southern California and rescued 425 chinchillas from a life of intensive confinement in wire cages: “This is your last day of abuse” and “first day of freedom,” he said to the animals while walking through the fur farm. PETA helped to broker the deal with the fur farm, though the owner was unaware of that. 

Photo: REUTERS/Mike Blake

In June, Mr. Simon freed Sunder, an abused elephant in India, and, before that, he rescued bears being held captive in a Georgia roadside attraction. Simon, who is dying from colorectal cancer, donated $100,000 to the San Diego Humane Society to take care of the newly-released chinchillas until they are adopted. When this animal hero does die, we know exactly where he’s going.