Exposing the Big Game

Forget Hunters' Feeble Rationalizations and Trust Your Gut Feelings: Making Sport of Killing Is Not Healthy Human Behavior

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Category Archives: Animal Rights

Young trader’s epic Beyond Meat stock misfire: ‘Biggest mistake of my life’

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Published: Jan 22, 2020 2:34 p.m. ET

‘That’s what I get for betting against the vegan movement’

Reuters
Beyond Meat for sale at a market in Encinitas, California.

By

SHAWNLANGLOIS

SOCIAL-MEDIA EDITOR

For veteran Wall Street types, $12,000 is a rounding error, but for a guy getting his feet wet in the options pits, losing that much will leave a scar.

Unfortunately, that’s what happened this week to an anonymous trader whom we’ll call “Juice,” if the sob story he shared on Reddit is accurate.

“I thought I’d give options a try because I was doing pretty well swing trading and it was probably the biggest mistake of my life,” he wrote in a post. “I’m going to liquidate everything and pretend I didn’t just YOLO away a large chunk of my savings today on a stupid play I didn’t fully understand.”

YOLO, or “you only live once,” is the rally cry for Reddit’s WallStreetBets bunch, where excessive risk and sideways trades are celebrated daily. For most trading novices, options are best avoided—but apparently not for these guys.

Here’s Juice’s ill-fated Beyond Meat BYND, -2.20% options play:

When a trader buys a put option, he is buying the right, but not the obligation, to sell a stock at a specified price until the contract expires worthless. Buying puts is often used as a way to bet against a stock, like Juice did with Beyond Meat, which has surged more than 60% over the past month.

The timing of his options play, however, couldn’t have been much worse. Starbucks SBUX, +1.22% announced Tuesday that the coffee giant aims to add more plant-based items to its menu, sending shares of Beyond Meat up 15%.

“That’s what I get for betting against the vegan movement,” he explained to readers as his post gained traction. “Definitely the hardest financial lesson I’ve learned to date. Only 23 so I guess there’s plenty of time to make it up.”

The bet, in some ways, reflects growing appetite by average investors for risky plays as the stock market roars to new heights. At last check, the Dow DJIA, -0.05% was up modestly but further distancing itself from the 29,000 level.

The Wall Street Journal (paywall) reported earlier this month that over the past 20 years, stock-options volume has grown more than six times, to around 4.4 billion options contracts in 2019, citing Options Clearing Corp.

One benefit to purchasing equity options is that they can often be bought for a fraction of the underlying stock price and can be used as a way to hedge one’s exposure, or in the case of Juice, to make a speculative directional bet on an asset, that can sometimes deliver a gut punch.

WallStreetBets isn’t typically the place to go for a sympathetic shoulder, but, considering Juice’s age and inexperience, there were plenty on offer:

“Your main problem is going against the trend. We’re in a strong bull with very good investor sentiment,” Zer033x wrote. “No reason to go against it, even if you think something will drop, guess what? It’ll just be bought back up, so why not get it after the drop? That’s how you play the current market.”

Another Redditor looked at the bright side and called it, “A college semester of learning condensed into one afternoon of trading.”

At least there’s that, Juice.

PETA blasts AOC for apparently choosing purebred puppy over rescue dog

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January 9, 2020 | 5:08pm | Updated

https://nypost.com/2020/01/09/peta-blasts-aoc-for-apparently-choosing-purebred-puppy-over-rescue-dog/

Liberal firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is once again being dogged by criticism — this time over a puppy.

The animal rights group PETA blasted AOC for apparently buying a purebred French bulldog instead of adopting a homeless dog from a shelter.

“The dog is pretty clearly a Frenchie and a very young puppy who appears to have been purchased from a breeder,” PETA spokeswoman Ashley Byrne told The Post.

The freshman Democrat introduced the pup to her social media followers Tuesday, but has refused to answer questions about the still-unnamed dog’s origins.

But she is taking name suggestions from her followers: “We are thinking something Star Trek related or Bronx/Queens/NYC/social good related,” she said on Instagram.

PETA didn’t think there was anything cute about AOC’s pet pick.

“With the millions of homeless dogs out there, you apparently chose to buy a purebred puppy instead of adopting one from an animal shelter,” PETA president Ingrid Newkirk wrote in a letter to AOC on Thursday.

“Right this minute, on Petfinder alone, there are more than 110,000 dogs — including French bulldogs — who need homes. Animal shelters are bursting at the seams with hundreds of thousands more, many of whom will be ‘put to sleep’ for lack of a home,” Newkirk wrote.

SEE ALSO

Meet AOC’s new best friend

“French bulldogs are inbred in order to produce breed-specific traits, which cause health problems that many people who will be influenced by your purchase won’t be able to afford to address,” Newkirk continued.

“They are particularly at risk because their ‘cute’ features plague them with a lifetime of breathing problems, ear and eye infections, skin irritation, a weak stomach, and other issues,” she wrote.

Newkirk also lectured AOC about proper canine care.

“We’re also sending you a copy of the book Dogs Hate Crates, which explains why crate training is not humane or effective,” Newkirk wrote.

Ocasio-Cortez had posted a video on her Instagram of the bulldog whimpering inside a small black cage.

Reps for the congresswoman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

FACTORY FARM INDUSTRY QUIETLY LOBBIES CALIFORNIA OFFICIALS TO CRIMINALIZE ANIMAL RESCUE ACTIVISM

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Animal rights activists carry the bodies of slaughtered animals as they hold a protest march during the 9th Annual National Animal Rights Day in Los Angeles on June 2, 2019. - The group held a sombre march through the streets of Los Angeles before holding a memorial service for slaughtered animals. (Photo by Mark RALSTON / AFP) (Photo credit should read MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images)
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Animal rights activists carry the bodies of slaughtered animals as they hold a protest march during the 9th Annual National Animal Rights Day in Los Angeles on June 2, 2019. Photo: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

January 9 2020, 9:12 a.m.

Factory Farm Industry Quietly Lobbies California Officials to Criminalize Animal Rescue Activism

THE FACTORY farming industry has had enough of Direct Action Everywhere, the controversial animal liberation activist group.

The California Farm Bureau Federation, the powerful agribusiness trade group, along with its local affiliates, has pushed for aggressive policing and prosecutions of Direct Action Everywhere, or DxE. Now, records obtained by The Intercept show that the California Farm Bureau worked behind closed doors to limit legal exemptions that DxE has long claimed provide protections for its work.

DxE, which is based in Berkeley, California, has waged a provocative campaign of civil disobedience in recent years, staging actions that the group calls “open rescues,” in which volunteers brazenly walk into meat plants and seize animals, many of which are facing slaughter, often ferrying them to medical tents erected outside the facility or to local veterinarians.

The actions, which have included rescues at meat and egg plants over the last two years in Sonoma County, have seized headlines and drawn national attention to the organization’s cause — while mobilizing opposition within the factory farming industry. DxE has claimed that its actions are protected under an obscure section of state law, California Penal Code §597e, which authorizes individuals to enter pounds to provide nourishment for neglected animals.

In DxE’s view, the statute allows legal entry into an area in which animals are confined if the animals have been deprived of food and water for over 12 hours. The group consulted with Hadar Aviram, a professor at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, to develop a modern legal interpretation of §597e, which was originally passed in the 1870s and has rarely been cited in court. In DxE’s view, any commercial animal agriculture site constitutes a pound, given that the term simply refers to a facility for confined animals, a standard that is reflected in eight states with similar statutes.

That argument has enraged the animal agriculture interests throughout California, which have leaned on authorities to take a more aggressive response to DxE.

“In my view, what they are doing is bordering on terrorism involving the use of illegal practices to push their points of view,” said Tawny Tesconi, executive director of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, an affiliate of the California Farm Bureau Federation, in an interview with KSRO radio host Pat Kerrigan. Following an action in which hundreds of DxE activists entered an egg farm in Petaluma to free chickens and care for them in medical tents set up around the facility by the group, Tesconi called for farmers to “work more closely with law enforcement and the DA’s office to provide the tools they need to fully prosecute actions like this.” (The police, notably, euthanized many of the chickens, which were found by veterinarians to be starving and unable to walk from being bred in sheds with thousands of birds.)

Behind closed doors, the California legislature moved last summer to redefine §597e, adding language to the code that explicitly exempts factory farms. The legal shift received virtually no attention or substantive legislative debate. The legislation that made the change was sponsored by Assemblyman Vince Fong, R-Bakersfield, whose bill, AB 1553, was presented as a “technical, nonsubstantive” change that required a lower threshold of scrutiny. The bill sailed through committee and was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last June.

DxE strongly disputes that the bill was merely a technical change and was shocked to discover the discreet push to amend the code. “Over one hundred activists have relied on §597e to protect them from politically-motivated prosecutions,” said DxE co-founder Wayne Hsiung, who is also a former visiting law professor at Northwestern School of Law. “We’ve obtained dismissal or diversion of charges in dozens of cases where people were trying to give aid to starving animals.”

The California Farm Bureau denies promoting the bill, despite disclosures showing that the group lobbied on the Fong bill. “The California Farm Bureau did not actively advocate on the legislation, either for or against,” wrote Dave Kranz, a spokesperson for the California Farm Bureau. “We did take part in technical discussions about the bill and potential impacts to California agriculture, as was correctly disclosed.”

Fong’s office and the Sonoma County Farm Bureau did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The California Farm Bureau’s claim that the group acted merely as a neutral observer, and did not seek to limit the scope of §597e, appears unlikely given the group’s advocacy over the last year.

Robert Spiegel, a lobbyist with the California Farm Bureau in Sacramento, spoke at the Flamingo Resort & Conference Center in Santa Rosa last May to explain to farmers in Sonoma County how his organization had worked to respond to the threat posed by animal rights activists.

During his remarks, Spiegel referenced the interpretation produced by Aviram on behalf of DxE and informed the group that California Farm Bureau’s “senior legal counsel as well as other individuals in our operations” produced a counter-memo to dispute Aviram’s arguments. DxE shared a recording of Spiegel’s remarks and, using a records request, obtained a copy of Spiegel’s memo, which had been sent to the Sonoma County district attorney’s office as well as to other prosecutors in California.

The memo attempts to dispute DxE’s rationale for its use of §597e by claiming that even if animal farms are “pounds,” the group may not claim there is an “imminent threat” if they rely on past video evidence of abuse or deprivation.

Far from taking a neutral stance, the memo strongly suggests the California Farm Bureau’s lobbying team took an active role in shaping the interpretation of §597e.

Around the country, animal agriculture interests have worked carefully to criminalize similar forms of activism around factory farms, including hidden camera investigations. The Intercept previously obtained emails showing a bill signed into law in Idaho that provided criminal penalties for filming animal abuse at factory farms had been quietly authored by a dairy lobbyist — one of many so-called ag-gag laws enacted around the country. A federal judge later overturned most of the statute. Farm Bureau groups have worked to enact similar laws in Missouri, Iowa, Utah, and other states.

The California Farm Bureau wields significant influence in state politics. The group spends upward of $600,000 a year peddling influence in Sacramento with a team of eight in-house lobbyists, according to disclosures.

In 2018, the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, responding to a wave of open rescues, brought in a national farm industry group known as the Animal Agriculture Alliance to host seminars for farmers on how to push back against future DxE activism. The group has promoted ag-gag laws and in more recent years sought to pressure law enforcement to view animal rights activists as terror threats. The alliance relies on financial support from the American Farm Bureau, the California Farm Bureau’s national affiliate, as well as the National Pork Industry Foundation.

“The Farm Bureau wants to change §597e because it knows that factory farms routinely allow animals to starve to death,” added Hsiung. “It’s the result of a system that has operated in secrecy, and ruthless pursuit of profit, for decades.”

The 2nd Annual Humane Hoax Online Summit

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United Poultry Concerns is proud to sponsor the 2nd Annual Humane Hoax Online Summit 2020.

https://upc-online.org/alerts/191230_the_2nd_annual_humane_hoax_online_summit.html

We have an awesome line-up of speakers this year, and the best part?
You can attend in your PJ’s!

Humane Hoax logo: an outline drawing of a sitting pig

The 2nd Annual Humane Hoax Online Summit
Saturday, January 18, 2020

Faced with growing cultural criticism of large-scale animal agriculture, corporations, manufacturers, and consumers alike are turning towards so-called “humane” methods of animal farming and seeking out alternative labels on their animal products. These falsehoods and myths–the Humane Hoax–range from large farms with thousands of animals to your neighbor’s backyard, yet exploitation and suffering are omnipresent in every method of husbandry. The Humane Hoax Online Summit brings together experts on a wide variety of topics in order to expose the Humane Hoax in all its forms.

For our second conference, we will dig deeper into The Humane Hoax with speakers from a range of different perspectives. We will have activist attorney Kelsey Eberly from the Animal Legal Defense Fund, who has dedicated her practice to pushing for farmed animal justice through false advertising lawsuits. We will have Deborah Blum of Goatlandia, a rescuer who saves male goats destined to die in the goat dairy industry. Regenerative grazing is now the darling of the locavore meat movement, touted as the answer to all the problems of animal agriculture. Dr. Sailesh Rao, Executive Director of Climate Healers, will explore this topic with a critical eye and challenge this supposed environmental cure-all. And much more.

Please join us on January 18, 2020 for this inspiring event as we advance our much needed conversation about The Humane Hoax!

 

Register for Free Today

 

For More Information:

www.HumaneHoax.org

Humane Hoax FaceBook Page

 

Celebrities React To ‘Amazing’ Vegan Television Advert

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‘It’s fun, funny and non-judgmental, yet is guaranteed to make people question how comfortable they truly are with their food choices’
Actor and animal advocate Evanna Lynch reacts to the ad (Photo: Supplied to PBN)

Actor and animal advocate Evanna Lynch reacts to the ad (Photo: Supplied to PBN)

A group of celebrities react to the UK’s first vegan television advert in this video created by Veganuary and shared exclusively with Plant Based News.

Veganuary – a global organization that encourages people to try vegan in January and beyond – created the advert, which will be the first of its kind to air on mainstream TV in the UK, Germany and the US between Christmas and New Year.

This reaction video – released before the advert starts screening on December 29 – features famous vegan faces including Evanna Lynch, Carl Donnelly, and Derek Sarno among others.

Celebrities React To Vegan Advert
Celebrities including ‘Harry Potter’ star Evanna Lynch react to the first vegan advert to be shown on UK television.
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Vegan advert

Veganuary produced the advert – which it describes as ‘high-quality, attention-grabbing and thought-provoking’ in collaboration with Kolle Rebbe ad agency and vegan film producer Fabian Weigt.

The charity says: “In true Veganuary style it’s fun, funny and non-judgmental, yet is guaranteed to make people question how comfortable they truly are with their food choices.”

It features an international cast to ‘demonstrate how this issue goes to the very heart of human nature’.

The power of TV

“We all know the power of TV advertising to capture people’s attention and influence their behavior, so getting the first pro-vegan ad on TV will be a major milestone for our movement,” Toni Vernelli, Head of Communications at Veganuary, said.

She added that getting the ‘bold, fresh, and compelling ad in front of millions of people’ could ‘inspire them to try vegan this January and beyond’.

You can find out more about Veganuary – including how to sign up for the month-long pledge – here

Faux Meat versus Dead Meat

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, by Karen Davis

Grocery store shelves filled with packaged meats
Photo Credit: Evan Sung for The New York Times

Karen’s comment received 62 Recommended responses, placing it among the most recommended comments addressing Fake Meat vs. Real Meat in The New York Times, Dec. 4, 2019: “Millennials are gobbling down plant-based burgers, prompting meat producers to question the health benefits of ‘ultra-processed imitations.’”

New York Times Comment Section Dec. 4

Between plant-based meat and animal-derived meat, “fake” meat wins hands down. Plant-based meat is a slaughter-free product for which no animal has to suffer and die miserably and no human being has to do the dirtiest, most depressing work in the world.

Plant-powered meat does not pass intestinal bacteria such as Salmonella, Campylobacter, Listeria, and E coli into human handlers and consumers of animal products. When these intestinal bacteria appear on lettuce and other plant produce, it’s the result of animal agribusiness contamination. Chicken is the biggest source of food poisoning, and animals raised in cesspool conditions and fed horrible diets are not healthy no matter how pro-animal meat industry proponents try to lie about it. People who choose plant-based over animal products are making the right choice.

Probably only raw, organic foods are perfectly healthy for human consumption, but to complain that processed plant-based products are not perfectly healthy is ridiculous, especially compared to the standard Western diet. The terrible effects of this diet are well-documented: obesity, high blood pressure, Type-2 diabetes, heart failure, and food-borne illnesses. — Karen Davis, PhD, President, United Poultry Concerns

Vegan Police Approved
Beth Clifton collage

What Can I Do?

Support the Plant-Powered Food Revolution! Buy animal-free foods – organic, raw, cooked, processed, all of these – and help put an end to slaughterhouses. Post comments and write letters to the editor in support of animal-free cuisine. Talk to people. The current trend toward plant-powered foods must grow, and we who care about animals, who have lit the plant-powered fire, must maintain the momentum through our food purchases, cooking skills, animal advocacy and education!

UPC Vegan Recipes

 

YOUR NEW KITTEN

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Your New Kitten

by Jethro Tull’s singer/songwriter/flautest/guitarist Ian Anderson

Tis the time of the season for new kittens, born in the later months of the year to be ready to leave home and join their new owners. Here, below, is the advisory material which I sent out recently with some orphaned kittens which we had been rearing.

Your new kitten was found under a garden logpile by Lucinda in Buckinghamshire, just over two weeks ago. Perhaps their mother had abandoned them or was killed in a road accident. Or, perhaps, some misguided human hand was involved in dumping the kitties, hoping that they could fend for themselves.
They couldn’t.

They were barely five weeks old and just beginning to walk about. They could lap liquids and eat solid food, suggesting that they had come from a household environment and were at least partly weaned, but wouldn’t have survived long without Lucinda’s intervention. They were nervous, hissed and spat a bit but seemed to have had some prior human contact. Definitely not feral (“wild”) farm cats. We have reared several litters of feral kittens over the years and we needed stout leather gloves to pick them up for the first few days – whereas this little band of brother and sisters were happy enough to be handled and after two or three days of special care, would soon come when called and be quite relaxed around adults, children, other cats and even respectful dogs.

But, as a rule, kittens should be ideally kept together to learn playing and social skills for 8 – 10 weeks before going off to their new homes. Pedigree kittens don’t go until they are 12 weeks of age after they have been wormed, received the second of their injections, and matured enough to be able to adjust to a new human family.

Your kitten was probably born around the 15th of November, 2002 and is now still only about 7 weeks of age. The litter contained four females and one male. He/she has had an attentive human surrogate mum and dad here in Wiltshire for two weeks and will cuddle, purr and do all the things which kittens are supposed to do – including tearing around the place and climbing on furniture.

But, still being a little on the young side to venture forth without its brothers or sisters, your kitten will need extra attention to help settle down in its new environment. She/he will be best kept in one room for a few days but will be adventurous enough to soon visit other parts of the house under supervision. Existing pets should be gradually introduced to their new pal (stroke, praise and re-assure both equally) but they should not be left alone together until you are absolutely sure of their reliable behaviour to each other.

The kitten is already (dare I say completely?) reliable in the use of a cat litter tray and anyway far too young to let outdoors yet. The best cat litter trays are those with a roof over – rather like a cat carrying basket. With this type the kitten, as it gets older, is less likely to kick cat litter around the room when covering its pees and poos. We have already given her/him three days of worming treatment following a preliminary veterinary visit for a general inspection to confirm sex and basic good health. A second worming treatment (the second of many to come) should be carried out two weeks after the first. At this stage we are talking about round worms. Palatable wormers can be mixed with food. Tapeworm treatment will probably be necessary as the cat gets older and hunts wild prey.

The diet has been Whiskas Kitten food three times a day with high-protein dry pelleted kitten food (Hills Kitten Science Diet) available for “snacking”. A powdered mother’s milk substitute (Cimicat, available from your vet) mixed with water has been fed as liquid. No regular cow’s milk should be given to kittens (or cats) since it contains far too much lactose and is harmful to them. These specially formulated feeds are available from veterinary practices and good pet stores. Whiskas Kitten food should be found at all large supermarkets. We are supplying a “starter pack” of Cimicat and Hills diet, and a tin of Kitten Whiskas to get you over the first day. (The kitten will be ravenous when it arrives home with you.)

All of our grown-up cats are fed regular adult Hills Science Diet and this is their staple food with occasional treats of fish (frozen coley fillets are quite cheap and much appreciated), Whiskas or similar moist canned foods. IAMs solid foods are also good. The dried food at supermarkets is not such a good bet. Semi-moist pelleted foods are OK but Hills and IAMs are the best. They keep longer, can be left out for snacking on demand, and probably work out cheaper in the long run. Decanting the bag into a container with a lid is best. The food keeps longer that way. Household scraps are no substitute for balanced cat diets. Your kitten/cat may enjoy raw chicken or turkey (mince or pieces) as it gets older but only as an occasional treat. Reliance on such luxuries could be seriously damaging to your bank balance and not much good as a balanced diet.

Young kittens should stick mainly to one food type plus milk substitute until they have settled down. If you vary the diet too much their tummies have difficulty coping and diarrhoea will result. One of the little guys seems to have a sensitive tummy and needs extra care in feeding. If your kitten has persistent diarrhoea for two or more days, a vet visit is necessary. After a few weeks, the kitten can progress to weaker solutions of milk substitute and then to water alone. At six months of age, “big boys” foods are fine – no need to have the slight extra cost of high protein kitten diets.

Injections for potentially lethal cat diseases are necessary at eight and twelve weeks of age. Call your vet next week to arrange. Worming and de-flea-ing are an ongoing reality for kittens and cats once they are out and about in the outdoor world. Any fights with other cats resulting in a puncture wound (not always easily visible) can turn quickly septic, requiring antibiotics.

A modern each-way lockable cat-flap is a big help to owner and cat alike. They are available at pet stores and quite easy to fit in most doors.

Picking kittens (or cats) by the scruff of the neck may seem to some like the traditional way to handle your pet. This is really not a good idea. They hate it! Kittens (and cats) prefer to be picked up with a hand under their chests and with the other hand under their back feet so they can “sit” upright and stable. These kittens have all been held that way during the last two weeks and are relaxed and comfortable being held. We have not encouraged them to sit on our shoulders or to climb our legs but they do try!

When your kitten ventures out for the first time in the Spring some supervision is necessary. Ponds or other water features in your garden could be lethal if the kitten should fall in. The kitten will swim like a fish if need be but has to be able to scramble out. A steep sided pond should have some wire or plastic netting at the edge, held down by bricks or stones, trailing into the water so the kitten can climb out.

At around 6 – 8 months of age you should seriously consider neutering your cat. Un-neutered males will spray, wander and be a nuisance to neighbours. Females will become pregnant with maybe two litters per year from the age of 11 months onwards. According to some national statistics, 40% of cats die on our roads before they are two years of age. Neutering will help to discourage them from wandering. No guarantee, but better done than not. It is rarely practical to keep your cat indoors permanently but you may wish to consider that option if you live close to a road, unsympathetic neighbours or have no enclosed garden.

It is kinder to cats, and to you, if you have them neutered sooner than later. It will prove less traumatic for the younger cat and it will probably be home the same afternoon, have forgiven you by the next day and forgotten about it completely the day after. Especially if you have been the bringer of Waitrose Frozen Coley.

Pet insurance is really worth considering. It is relatively cheap – especially for young “moggies” – given that cat fights, road accidents or illness can cost hundreds or even thousands of pounds in vet’s bills. But your new pal will likely cost you £8 – £12 per week for life in food, health care and new furniture. Scratching posts and cat toys are a good investment.

Sorry to sound bossy on all these topics, but if you haven’t had a young kitten before, or just forgotten how to be mum, a visit to the bookshop would be in order to pick up a copy of any decent book on caring for your cat. Some of the writers are even more bossy than me – but you see we all are a bit nuts about cats, and can’t help but want to give them the best start in life.

Your new kitten will hopefully be with you for the next fifteen years, or so, and be a loyal and loving companion. When we had to say goodbye to our old and ill black cat three weeks ago, it reminded us of the value of such relationships and we appreciate all the more the enjoyment of having played a part in the bringing up of these young kittens. We have kept one to live here at home with her two new older buddies TJ and Bhajee.

If you have any problems or questions regarding your new kitten settling in, don’t hesitate to call Ian or Shona Anderson on *************** – in fact, please call us anyway. Having been temporary mum and dad to these little guys over the Christmas period, we – like any proud ex-guardians – would like to know how they are getting on in their new homes.

If the worst should happen and you change your mind or don’t feel up to looking after your new charge after a week or two, we can help re-home it or maybe find it a home here. Understandably, it is harder to find homes for adult cats.

Kind regards and good luck with the new addition,

Ian Anderson.

Update: Trump signs omnibus funding package with wins for horses and burros, companion animals, animals in research and more

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By Kitty Block and Sara Amundson

December 19, 2019
Update: Trump signs omnibus funding package with wins for horses and burros, companion animals, animals in research and more

The funding package provides an additional $21 million to the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro Program—funds that can only be accessed after the agency submits a comprehensive plan on how it will implement an aggressive, non-lethal program. Photo by Grace Kahler/The HSUS

President Trump has just signed into law the omnibus appropriations package with major victories for animals, including horses and burros, companion animals, marine mammals and animals in zoos and research facilities.

The package, comprised of two bills (H.R. 1865 and H.R. 1158) funding all federal agencies for Fiscal Year 2020, was passed by the House on Tuesday with bipartisan votes of 297-120 and 280-138, respectively, followed by Senate votes of 71-23 and 81-11 yesterday. The wins for animals in the package include:

  • Wild horses and burros: The funding package provides an additional $21 million to the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro Program—funds that can only be accessed after the agency submits a comprehensive plan on how it will implement an aggressive, non-lethal program. The program must be based on scientifically sound, safe and humane fertility control tools that exclude surgical sterilization, an increased focus on adoptions, and relocation of wild horses and burros to larger, more humane pastures instead of perpetually warehousing these animals in holding pens. Additionally, the bill prohibits the BLM and, for the first time ever, also the U.S. Forest Service from killing or sending healthy horses or burros to slaughter.
  • Wildlife trafficking whistleblowers: The package includes the Rescuing Animals With Rewards Act, which authorizes the State Department to award monetary incentives to persons who disclose original information concerning transnational wildlife crimes that result in a successful enforcement action.
  • USDA inspection and enforcement records: Language in the omnibus directs the U.S. Department of Agriculture to promptly resume online posting of all inspection reports and enforcement records under the Animal Welfare Act and Horse Protection Act in their entirety without redactions that obscure the identities of puppy mills, roadside zoos and other businesses cited for violations. This is the first time Congress has included bill language (rather than report language) to fix this problem, and the USDA will have no choice but to follow this directive.
  • Companion animals in domestic violence situations: The package provides $2 million for a new grant program authorized by the 2018 Farm Bill, based on the Pet and Women Safety (PAWS) Act. The grant program will help provide emergency and transitional shelter options for domestic violence survivors with companion animals. House committee report language directs the USDA, and the Departments of Health and Human Services as well as Housing and Urban Development to coordinate implementation during FY20 (House and Senate committee report language not explicitly reversed is deemed agreed to by both chambers in the omnibus).
  • Horse slaughter: Prohibits USDA expenditures on horse slaughter inspections, effectively preventing horse slaughter plants from operating in the U.S. during FY20.
  • Animal Welfare Act enforcement: The House committee report calls on the USDA to require that inspectors document every observed violation, to reverse concealment practices that the agency has promoted during the past few years. The omnibus includes $31,310,000 for Animal Welfare Act (AWA) enforcement.
  • Horse soring: Provides $1 million (a $295,000 increase) for USDA enforcement of the Horse Protection Act (HPA), to crack down on the cruel practice of “soring”Tennessee Walking Horses and related breeds.
  • Alternatives to animal research/testing: Provides a $40 million increase to the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), which is charged with making direct applications of non-animal alternatives for research and regulatory needs by federal agencies. The additional funds will help speed the transition to non-animal methods.
  • Trafficking of companion animals for research and testing: Renews the prohibition against the USDA using funds to license Class B random source dealers who are notorious for trafficking in dogs and cats obtained through theft for research and testing.
  • Use of primates in research: Omnibus report language directs the National Institutes of Health to report to Congress on alternatives to reduce and replace primates in biomedical research.
  • USDA enforcement: The House committee report presses the USDA Inspector General to strengthen its animal fighting enforcement and to audit the USDA’s enforcement of the AWA, HPA and Humane Methods of Slaughter Act.
  • Humane slaughter of farm animals: Renews bill and report language directing the USDA to ensure that inspectors focus attention on compliance with humane handling rules for live animals as they arrive at slaughter plants and are offloaded and handled in pens, chutes and stunning areas, and that all inspectors receive robust training.
  • Pet food safety: Provides $500,000 for the Food and Drug Administration to address pentobarbital contamination in pet food, which has caused illness and death in pets.
  • Disaster planning: Continues funding for the USDA to coordinate with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and to support state and local governments’ efforts to plan for protection of people with animals and incorporate lessons learned from previous disasters. Directs the USDA to work with producers that want to voluntarily develop disaster plans to prevent livestock deaths and injuries.
  • Vet care: Provides $8,000,000 for the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment program that encourages veterinarians to locate in underserved rural or urban areas.
  • Wildlife protection funding: Maintains level funding for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service programs that protect species listed under the Endangered Species Act. Provides an increase of almost 30% from FY19 for the internationally focused Multinational Species Conservation Fund. The omnibus also rejects a proposed cut to the Wolf Livestock Demonstration Program, maintaining funding for its grants supporting proactive, non-lethal measures by livestock producers to reduce the risk of livestock loss by wolves, and to compensate producers for livestock losses caused by wolves.
  • Marine mammals: Provides $3 million to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for North Atlantic right whale conservation, with $1 million specifically reserved for a pilot project for research and development of safer fishing gear to lessen entanglements with these critically endangered whales. Also maintains funding of the Marine Mammal Commission—a key independent federal agency tasked with addressing human impacts on marine mammals and their ecosystems—overcoming its proposed elimination in the president’s budget.
  • Trophy imports: Directs the USFWS to reevaluate its current policy allowing imports of hunting trophies on a case-by-case basis and analyze how targeted investments and technical assistance to the exporting countries’ conservation programs would impact the survival of elephants and lions, improve local communities, and sustain species’ populations. The omnibus expresses concern that the current trophy import policy is detrimental and may not adequately determine whether a country has proper safeguards in place to protect species vulnerable to poaching.
  • Wildlife trafficking: Dedicates funds under the State Department and the Department of the Interior to combat the transnational threat of wildlife poaching and illicit wildlife trafficking. Prohibits use of State Department funds by any military units or personnel credibly alleged to have participated in wildlife poaching or trafficking.

We are grateful to the many congressional champions of these provisions with whom we worked over the past year, to House and Senate leadership for keeping the process on track, and to all the legislators who voted for these measures. We also thank President Trump for signing both appropriations bills, helping us create a brighter future for animals in 2020 and beyond.

Sara Amundson is president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund.