People sympathize with animals, and yet we treat them horrifically. But a broad social movement can—and will—bring about a transformation.

• Wayne Hsiung

filed 22 November 2024 in Animals & Nature

P’nut the Squirrel was hardly a household name before election day, though he had an Instagram following of sorts. But since he was killed by New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation on November 1—the victim of a raid on a supposedly unlicensed wildlife rehabber—P’nut has become a cause célèbre on the right. Donald Trump pounced on the opportunity to condemn Democratic bureaucrats for “needlessly” murdering the creature in an act of overreach that he said needed to be “avenged” at the ballot box. 

Consider the numbers. A few days before the election, Kamala Harris posted that hip hop artist Cardi B had endorsed her presidential campaign, which earned an impressive 800,000-plus likes on TikTok. But Donald Trump’s post in support of P’nut on the same day got nearly double the amount of likes—and was accompanied by a wave of similarly viral posts by Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr., and others. “I have no way to explain how important this is to me,” read one comment by a woman of color in New York City in response to Trump’s post. By pushing massive anti-Democratic sentiment so close to the election, the right may have P’nut to thank, in part, for Trump’s victory.

That is, of course, speculation. But what is less speculative is that animal stories played a significant role in the 2024 election. From Kristi Noem’s shooting of her dog Cricket to the false claims by JD Vance and Donald Trump that Haitians were eating Americans’ pets, violence against animals went viral this electoral cycle. The concern about cruelty to animals in this election was heartfelt and real. But it was also unprincipled and politically quiescent. Millions mourned the murder of P’nut, but no one thought twice about Eric Adams’s brutal mass drowning of rodents in New York City in 2019. While Democrats condemned Kristi Noem for killing her dog, they were silent about the thousands of lab beagles subjected to surgical mutilation without anesthesia in blue strongholds like Madison, Wisconsin. Ezra Klein had a run of vegetarian guests on his influential podcast in the month before the election, but not a word was said about the ethics of killing animals for meat. What was missing in all of these stories—and in the public’s response to them—was a political argument for animal rights.

What explains this? The answer is not a lack of philosophical legitimacy. Sixty percent of moral philosophers say it’s wrong to eat at least some kinds of animals (compared to just 19 percent of non-ethicists). When thought leaders are asked which practices our ancestors will most strongly condemn, the abuse of animals is routinely at the top of the list, by writers on both the right and the left. 

The answer is also not a lack of popular appeal. Large numbers of Americans care about animals. Indeed, it is one of the few moral issues that has massive bipartisan appeal, with around 80 percent of Americans (including 77 percent of Republicans) stating that farm animal welfare is a personal moral concern.

Instead, the answer lies in two factors that are not obvious at first glance. The first is what Harvard’s Cass Sunstein calls “preference falsification.” In many periods through history, people hide their real preferences because they’re concerned that “coming out” will lead to social disapproval. The result of this preference falsification is that issues that might earn public support become politically invisible. The classic case study is the gay rights movement prior to the 1970s. As long as gay people remained closeted, there could be no political argument about gay rights. 

The same dynamic applies to animal rights. Ezra Klein, among others, has spoken about how coming out as a vegan—what he calls “taking the green pill”—was the hardest thing he’s ever done as a political writer. Those same social forces likely silence millions of animal rights supporters across the nation. 

The second factor is the animal rights movement’s lack of vision, or a compelling story for change. The classic case study for the importance of vision is the Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King Jr. inspired the nation by setting out both a moral crisis (the terrors of Jim Crow) and opportunity (the dream of racial equality). The renowned sociologist Doug McAdam calls this story of crisis and opportunity “cognitive liberation.” Without each piece, a movement’s supporters are politically dormant. There’s no motivation for change without a crisis. And there’s no point in agitating for change without an opportunity. When combined, crisis and opportunity set out a vision—that is, a compelling story for change.

And vision has been sorely lacking in animal rights. Even terrible cases of abuse, such as P’nut’s killing, are understood as one-off incidents of misconduct, rather than symbols of a broader moral crisis. And animal rights activists are notoriously bad at describing the opportunity presented by our movement. “My burger is more ethical than yours” is not quite as inspiring as King’s dream of racial equality. It should come as no surprise that the message has failed to inspire a political movement. We lack a compelling story for change. 

But these factors holding the movement back are shifting. 

Preference falsification is reversing. A critical mass is coming out in support of animal rights across the globe, ranging from tech titans in the United States to courts in Argentina. In Silicon Valley, Google founder Larry Page broke with Elon Musk over the latter’s “speciesism,” or the favoring of humans over non-human species. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has publicly called meat consumption a “horror” and says that we should draw on “better morals” to stop doing it. In the U.K., one third of the population now approves of a vegan diet, and a number of the most prominent universities, such as Cambridge and University College London, have approved student resolutions to transition to 100 percent plant-based catering. An Argentinian court recognized that an orangutan named Sandra was a “non-human person” who must be freed from a zoo cage. When a critical mass “comes out” for a cause, change can happen very quickly, as more and more people say, “Hey, I believe that, too.” This is the sort of cascade we last saw for gay rights—and animal rights could be next.

The animal rights movement’s lack of vision is also reversing, as advocates find more compelling stories for change. Increasingly, animal advocates such as Yuval Noah Harari are describing the abuse of animals not just as unfortunate suffering but as one of history’s greatest crimes. The liberation of animals, moreover, is an opportunity to confront the deeper maladies in the human condition. In a world that is increasingly lonely, Americans are spending a record amount of time with their pets. And the animal stories have gone viral repeatedly in part because animals are the perfect victims; unlike human beings, their cries are never performative. Their exploitation is brutal and limitless and real. Perhaps only by defending these beings—and not just pets whose company we enjoy, but all animals, who will always be the most powerless in our society—can our political system convince the public at large that it will defend us all.

And activists are already seizing this opportunity. In 2019, California became the first state in U.S. history to completely ban a major animal product, fur, on ethical grounds. In 2020, the first all-purpose federal animal cruelty law was proudly signed by… Donald Trump. And in 2022, I was acquitted by a jury in rural Utah after infiltrating a factory farm and rescuing two sick piglets from the largest pig factory farm in the nation. The animal rights movement is moving rapidly towards its most fundamental goal: recognition that animals are “legal persons” and not things. 

P’nut, of course, will not see this opportunity. But, by the next presidential election, perhaps the nation will. Animal rights already has immense passion behind it. Soon, it will also be a political force. 

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A stock image shows a grizzly bear. (Pixabay)

by BLAIR MILLER Daily Montanan
| November 23, 2024 12:00 AM

Two conservation groups agreed to dismiss a lawsuit against the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission this week after it adopted wolf and coyote trapping season regulations they said will protect threatened grizzly bears in Montana.

The groups reached a settlement with the state of Montana on Thursday days before the case was set to go to trial.

The settlement was reached after the Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted wolf trapping season regulations on Nov. 12 that restrict wolf trapping to Jan. 1 through Feb. 15 in Regions 1 through 5 and include new coyote trapping regulations also aimed at protecting grizzly bears from being unlawfully “taken” in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

The case had been slated to go to trial on Dec. 2. A judge signed an order granting the settlement and dismissal of the case Thursday after the stipulated agreement was submitted.

“Suffice it to say that the regulations were basically the settlement terms. Basically like, ‘If you pass these and don’t amend them, then we’ll agree to settle.’ And then that’s what they did,” Mike Bader, an adviser and spokesperson for the Flathead-Lolo-Bitterroot Citizen Task Force, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in an interview Thursday afternoon.

Lizzy Pennock, the carnivore coexistence attorney with conservation group WildEarth Guardians, the other plaintiff in the case, said in a statement the settlement affirmed that the groups had been correct about the threats a longer trapping season would create for grizzly bears, which are listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

The two groups sued the state, Fish and Wildlife Commission Chairperson Lesley Robinson, and Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte in September 2023 after the commission adopted new wolf and coyote trapping regulations for the upcoming season that implemented a floating opening date as early as Nov. 27 and run through March 15.

The two groups successfully argued that allowing such a long wolf trapping season would certainly increase the risk that grizzly bears would not be in their dens for the entire season and would be much more prone to being illegally trapped, and injured or killed by those traps, during the earliest and later parts of the season.

A federal judge in Missoula in November 2023 ordered the wolf trapping season be limited to Jan. 1 to Feb. 15 in FWP Regions 1 through 5 and in three counties along Montana’s north-central border where grizzlies might live.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last April upheld that seasonal restriction date-wise but said the district court needed to be more specific to the restriction so it only applies where grizzly bears are known to live.

The district court this past August redefined the geographic scope and also said the topic of coyote trapping was at issue when considering the illegal take of grizzly bears since the bears could also be incidentally trapped in coyote traps or snares.

And earlier this month, the Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted wolf trapping season regulations, which apply the Jan. 1 to Feb. 15 dates for Regions 1 through 5, new regulations for trappers protecting livestock and a permit system for coyote and other predator trappers that will help FWP collect data.

The adopted regulations also would put additional trap restrictions in place within 48 hours of a grizzly bear being incidentally trapped between Sept. 1 and Dec. 31.

“The terms of the settlement increase protection for grizzly bears across their habitat area in Montana, which is what we sought all along,” Citizen Task Force President Patty Ames said in a statement.

The terms of the stipulated settlement agreement will require the state to pay the two plaintiff groups a total of $210,000 in attorney’s fees and other expenses within 20 days.

Bader said the groups and FWP had identified at least 27 official records of grizzly bears being incidentally trapped over the years in Montana and that he believed the state didn’t want to risk further damages if it lost at trial.

He said he was not aware of any grizzlies being incidentally trapped during last year’s restricted wolf trapping season, which was the group’s main goal with the suit. Both he and Ames, the president of the Citizen Task Force, said they believed settling was in the best interests of all sides involved.

“It’s really in the best interest of the whole process … the money, time and expense that could be better put toward education programs about how to be bear safe, and secure your food, and carry bear spray, and things like that,” Bader said. “We’d rather see the state spending their money on that rather than fighting something that really made sense in the first place.”

Spokespersons for FWP and the Governor’s Office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the settlement late Thursday afternoon.

Bader said grizzlies still face threats, and he does not believe they are recovered enough to be delisted from Endangered Species Act protections in two Montana ecosystems – the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it would have a delisting decision by the end of January – but having the restricted season in place “takes away one more risk” to the bears.

“It’s not impossible that a bear might go out and step in one, but the odds are just so much lower than they were,” Bader said.

Blair Miller is a Helena-based reporter for the Daily Montanan, a nonprofit newsroom.

By Kate Gibson

Edited By Alain Sherter

Updated on: November 22, 2024 / 4:03 PM EST / CBS News

• https://www.cbsnews.com/news/eggs-shortages-bird-flu-h5n1-whole-foods-trader-joes/

Americans planning to do some holiday baking this year may have to scramble to track down a key ingredient. 

Some stores around the U.S. are running short of eggs, especially those operating in states that require eggs from cage-free hens, as cases of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) flare and the virus spreads from wild birds to commercial flocks. More than 40% of the nation’s roughly 300 million egg-laying hens are raised in cage-free facilities, but roughly 60% of “bird flu” cases recently detected involved cage-free farms.

“After two months of no outbreaks, we had them recently in Utah, Oregon, California and Washington, and three of those states are exclusively cage-free,” Emily Metz, chief executive and president of the American Egg Board, told CBS MoneyWatch. “Where we are hearing reports of shortages it’s at stores like a Whole Foods or a Trader Joe’s.”

After a brief respite from bird flu among commercial-egg producers, HPAI struck again starting in mid-October, resulting in the loss of 2.8 million birds. The nation’s egg production fell 2.6% last month from a year ago and is projected to be down 1% this year versus 2023, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service recently said in a monthly report. 

The outbreaks, which began in January of 2022, have affected nearly 110 million chickens, turkeys and other birds, including wild, commercial and backyard flocks in 49 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That was the first time HPAI, also known as H5N1, had been detected in the U.S. since 2016. 

The return of bird flu is wiping out poultry populations at commercial facilities in multiple states, most recently striking more than a million egg-laying hens in California’s Kern County, where HPAI had been confirmed in 2.2 million egg-laying hens the prior week, according to the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. 

More than 790,000 egg layers were also culled last week at a commercial operation in Arizona’s Pinal County.

How long do shortages last?

The tighter egg supplies means the U.S. is experiencing “hyper-localized shortages that are very temporary and intermittent and that are corrected sometimes within a day,” said Metz, whose board markets and promotes eggs and egg products.

“There are local areas where supplies aren’t quite as strong, so you might see pockets where shelves get picked over,” said Brent Nelson, an economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation.

After HPAI-related shortages drove up egg prices in the spring, the virus is having the same impact this winter. Experts forecast that egg prices could stay elevated for the rest of the year and into 2025.

As with the cost of other commodities, egg prices fluctuate with supply and demand, the latter of which has remained fairly stable over the year, regardless of cost, according to the Farm Bureau’s Nelson. The egg board, however, said America’s appetite for the protein has grown of late, rising steadily for 20 consecutive quarters.

“We see egg prices ride the wave as bird flu comes and goes,” Nelson said. Right now, “Bird flu infections are by far the biggest factor impacting egg prices.” 

The national average for a dozen eggs is $3.37, up 30% from a year ago but lower than the January 2023 average of $4.82, the economist said. But some regions are seeing even higher prices. In California, white cage-free eggs were selling for about $5.26 a dozen last week — up nearly 90% from $2.81 during the same time in 2023, according to the USDA.

Despite the price spikes, Nelson and Metz advised consumers against hoarding a perishable product like eggs, emphasizing that shortages typically pass quickly as retailers replenish their supplies.

“Eggs keep in the fridge really well — if you need them, go and get them,” said Nelson.

Added Metz, “There is a hen for almost every person in the U.S., if they are not in the supermarket today, come back tomorrow.”