First Public Forum Held on Animal Welfare at UW-Madison

Here's a recent presentation by Dr. Lawrence Hansen, MD, about the ethics and efficacy of animal experimentation at the first of several forums on animal welfare at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  It's interesting to note that according to Rick Bogle on his blog, that no UW-Madison vivisectors or policy makers were in the audience.  Hopefully at least some people (including you!) will check out the video:

Future forums will be held on March 15th and April 4th - locations and more information can be found here:  http://www.news.wisc.edu/18946

Daily Show FAIL

The Daily Show has shown poor regard for bringing a camel to Madison's Capitol square yesterday to film a segment for broadcast.  In the video below you can see that the camel's leg was nearly broken during a fall.

Animals should not be exploited for our entertainment in this way! Please let the Daily Show know how you feel by writing them through the following link: http://www.comedycentral.com/help/questionsCC.jhtml

Minnesota Woman Tries to Mail Puppy to Georgia

http://vegan.com/blog/2011/02/10/woman-caught-mailing-puppy/

The Real Vegan Challenge [Video]

A 12-minute video called Farm to Fridge was released by the Chicago-based group Mercy for Animals this week to challenge people who heard best-selling author Michael Pollan tell millions of viewers on the show Oprah that if they could not watch where there food came from they probably should not be eating it.

I got about 3 seconds into it before I had to stop.  You can read about the video and watch the video at the Huffington Post.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ari-solomon/the-real-vegan-challenge-_b_820528.html

Good News for Sick Veal Calves

The US Department of Agriculture has responded to a Human Society petition calling on a tightening of rules regarding downer calves -- those who are too sick to stand on their own -- by tentatively agreeing on prohibiting the slaughter of the calves or introducing them into the food chain.  Instead, downer calves must be treated humanely (i.e. euthanized), as adult cattle and cows are currently required to be treated.  The public is invited to provide their comment by April 8, 2011, after which the new rules will go into effect permanently.

Source: http://www.humanesociety.org/news/press_releases/2011/02/usda_downed_calves_020711.html

Yet Another Factory Farm Disaster

This time 85,000 egg-laying hens were crushed to death when a coop in Connecticut collapsed under snow during the blizzard this week that affected much of the country.

Link: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=12837162

Oprah's Show on Veganism [YouTube]

Here's part one of the Oprah's episode on veganism from yesterday.  I haven't seen it all myself, but the one-hour show featured a visit to a slaughterhouse and interviews with Michael Pollan (author of The Omnivore's Dilemma) and Kelly Freston (Freston's book, Veganist: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, and Change the World, is the top selling book on Amazon.com).

Check it out, see what you think, and if you are still curious about veganism for health, environmental, social, or ethical reasons, visit www.vegan.com or http://www.vegan.org/about_veganism/index.html.