It’s been quite a week…
we’ve had pig farmers storming London because pig farming is expensive and they don’t earn enough money (stop doing it then), Japan fighting for support of whaling within the IWC (for a change), and the Sea Shepherd crew have reported at being shot at by Japanese whalers.
As usual at meatismurder, a caveat must be added to the whaling stories below - we report on the death of whales with the same passion and concern as we would report the death of cows or chickens as they are all sentient beings who deserve to not be caught in a machine of profit and greed.

Some 500 pig farmers and pig industry workers descended on Whitehall today to hand in a petition about the crisis threatening their industry.

Demonstrators from the National Pig Association protest in London
Demonstrators from the National Pig Association protest in Whitehall to demand a fair price from supermarkets

The campaigners include Jimmy Doherty, the TV pig farmer and friend of Jamie Oliver who is having to cut his rare-breed herd of breeding sows from 95 to 30 because of the rising price of feed.

Pig farmers say they are losing about £26 on every pig sold for slaughter in Britain because pig feed has gone up from around £130 to £225 a ton in the past year.

But while wholesale grain costs have doubled they claim supermarkets have not increased farm gate prices accordingly.

Winnie the Pig, a veteran of a similar campaign in 2001, also joined the Pigs are Worth It! rally outside Downing Street.

From the Telegraph

Japan has denied claims it fired bullets at anti-whaling protesters in the Southern Ocean.

Environmental activist group Sea Shepherd accuses Japanese Coast Guard officers of firing stun grenades and rifles during clashes today in the Southern Ocean.

Captain of the Sea Shepherd ship, Paul Watson, says he found a bullet lodged in the the bullet-proof vest he was wearing and that one of his crew was hit by a grenade and received minor injuries.

But Japan’s Government denies that, saying it only launched “noise balls” - loud explosive deterrent devices - after repeated attacks on its whaling ship by Sea Shepherd.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Tomohiko Taniguchi says no shots were fired.

From ABCNews

Japan is looking for new supporters of its pro-whaling stance ahead of a major meeting on the future of the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

A one-day seminar on Monday brought delegates from 12 developing countries, most of them not IWC members, to Tokyo to discuss “sustainable use” of whales.

An official told the BBC that Japan hoped these nations would join the IWC.

On Thursday, the IWC begins a three-day meeting in London aiming to plot a new course for the fractured organisation.

We want the idea of sustainable use to be understood by as many countries as possible
Ryotaro Suzuki
Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Officially charged with the effective regulation of commercial whaling, many of its member countries would prefer its central remit to become conservation of the “great whales” and their close relatives such as dolphins and porpoises, with virtually all hunting banned.

But Japan, Norway, Iceland and their allies in the pro-sustainable use bloc argue that there is no reason in principle why whales cannot be hunted like other wild creatures, provided quotas are small enough to be sustainable.

Japan believes the western love of whales is culturally specific
In recent years, both camps have sought to bring new member countries into the IWC to bolster their numbers.

At the 2006 annual meeting, the pro-whalers achieved superiority for the first time in 20 years with the passing of a resolution asking for the eventual return of commercial hunting.

By last year’s meeting, enough new anti-whaling countries had joined to give this bloc the upper hand once more.

Both blocs continue to lobby potential new allies - hence Japan’s decision to host Monday’s seminar looking at the sustainable use of cetaceans.

Some of the 12 countries attending, such as Palau and Cambodia, are already IWC members; but most, including Angola, Eritrea and Micronesia, are not.

From the BBC

Time for some pictures on meatismurder. Often so much more succinct than words.

Where do you begin adding comments to a story like the one below? A society that values animals so lightly that members of that society can kill for fun and escape prison? A society that is appalled by one method of killing but that participates and funds the mass slaughter of these same babies each year.

Scott Douglas was celebrating his 17th birthday when he removed the lamb from its mother in a field near Loch Ness.

He was sentenced to 200 hours community service at Inverness Sheriff Court and banned from keeping animals for 10 years.

Sheriff Kenneth Robb told Douglas his actions had caused “considerable public revulsion”.

Apprentice joiner Douglas had faced up to 12 months’ detention or a £10,000 fine after admitting causing the animal unnecessary suffering.

Fiscal depute Sandy Collie told the court that Douglas and his friends had been celebrating his birthday by camping at Kerrow Bridge in Cannich on 28 May.

Mr Collie said: “Initially he had gone to get the lamb from the river bank where it was with its mother and other lambs.

“On taking it to the other youths one of them said to behave and to leave it alone, and it was returned.

“However, he then went and got the lamb again and took it back and threw it on the fire.”

The fiscal added: “He was indicating that he was wishing to have it for his dinner. Drink was not an issue here prior to the killing of the lamb.”

Douglas, of Dall Cottage in Balnain, Drumnadrochit, later told police: “I was going to have a laugh.”

Defence lawyer David MacNeill said one of Douglas’s friends had grabbed the lamb from the fire but it was so badly burnt he “put it out of its misery”.

He added that his client’s parents had donated £500 to the Scottish SPCA, and Douglas was to pay them back.

“Research frequently indicates this level of violence often escalates and the animal is the first victim.

“In certain states of America crimes of this type have psychological assessment. This has been helpful in identifying violent behaviour.”

Is the uproar being caused by import of monkey and atelope meat to New York, a reaction to worry about disease, intolerance to different religious customs, or speciesism? Certainly if the meat being imported was of a variety more typically seen in the West the meatismurder team predict the news coverage wouldn’t have been so massive. Monkeys are like us, and antelopes are so graceful thay deserve column inches. Those damn cows though…they can look after themselves.

NEW YORK (AP) — From her baptism in Liberia to Christmas years later in her adopted New York City, Mamie Manneh never lost the longing to celebrate religious rituals by eating monkey meat.

Family members sit with a portrait of Mamie Manneh at their home in Staten Island, New York.

Now, the tribal customs of Manneh and other West African immigrants have become the focus of an unusual criminal case charging her with meat smuggling, and touching on issues of religious freedom, infectious diseases and wildlife preservation.

The case “appears to be the first of its kind relating to that uniquely African product,” defense attorney Jan Rostal wrote in a pending motion to dismiss. “Unfortunately, it represents the sort of clash of cultural and religious values inherent in the melting pot that is America.”

At the center of the case in federal court is a modest woman with nine children and a history of domestic discord.

The case dates to early 2006, when federal inspectors at JFK Airport examined a shipment of 12 cardboard boxes from Guinea.

They were addressed to Manneh and, according to a flight manifest, contained African dresses and smoked fish with a value of $780.

Instead, stashed underneath the smoked fish, the inspectors found what West Africans refer to as bushmeat: “skulls, limbs and torsos of nonhuman primate species” plus the hoof and leg of a small antelope, according to court papers.

Three days later, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents were at Manneh’s door, where she told them she ran a smoked fish importing business.

According to the agents, she initially denied ordering any bushmeat from Africa or ever eating it while in the United States.

But after she consented to a search, the agents came across a tiny, hairy arm hidden in her garage.

“Monkey,” she explained, claiming the arm was sent to her out of the blue “as a gift from God in heaven.”

Federal prosecutors hit Manneh with smuggling charges that accused her of violating import procedures and suggested she was a menace to man and beast alike.

A criminal complaint cited evidence that the illegal importation of bushmeat encourages the slaughter of protected wild animals.

Here at meatismurder, the editorial team are always discussing speciesism, because if and when this hurdle is overcome, the systematic abuse and murder of individuals will become a relic of the past, just as other prejudiced behaviour is now looked back on with horror. The author Carol Adams, has highlighted another approach with which to look at speciesism.

‘The Sexual Politics of Meat‘

The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory explores a relationship between patriarchal values and meat eating by interweaving the insights of feminism, vegetarianism, animal defense, and literary theory. A pioneering book, it is now available Tenth Anniversary Edition. When it first appeared in 1990, Library Journal called The Sexual Politics of Meat “an important and provocative work” and predicted it would “inspire and enrage readers across the political spectrum.” True to Library Journal’s prediction, the book was hailed by CHOICE as a “’bible’ for feminist and progressive animal rights activists” and equally reviled by conservative commentators, including Rush Limbaugh, John Leo, and Cal Thomas as an example of political correctness taken to excess.

The Daily Mail reports how meat and dairy farms are now harbouring ESBLE coli - a superbug. The usual speciesist rant could be shoehorned in here as reporters get the public worked up by human death and neglect to mention that the farmed animals in question are bred only to die at human hands, but the article works as a reminder of what the vegan movement has been saying for a long time now, that the intensive farming of animals is detrimental to human health as well as the suffering of the animals.

Health fears grow over deadly superbug infecting 32 farms

A superbug which kills hundreds of patients a year has been found on 32 farms, it emerged yesterday.

The discovery raises fears that the infection is spreading to the human population through meat and milk.

The bug - ESBL E coli - causes around 30,000 cases of blood poisoning and urinary tract infection each year.

It is known to have killed hundreds of people over the past five years, although some experts put the annual death toll as high as 4,000.

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Bovine transmittors: Cows can carry E.Coli to humans through milk

Experts from the Government’s Veterinary Laboratories Agency are due to reveal details today of the extent of the infection on farms.

The “super E coli” is thought to have developed a high degree of resistance to antibiotics through their use in intensive livestock operations.

Its spread from farm to farm has mirrored the rise in the number of infections and deaths in the human population.

Experts at the Health Protection Agency are investigating a possible link between the bugs found in livestock and the sale of meat and milk.

Dr Georgina Duckworth, who compiled a report for the agency on the emergence of the E coli, concluded: ‘The findings show evidence of people carrying these bacteria in their gut.

“If this is found to be commonplace in the general population this may point towards the food chain being a potential source.”

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Deadly bug: E Coli kills hundreds of humans every year

During slaughter, the bug, which lives in the gut, can be spread through meat, making it a risk to abattoir workers.

Similarly, bugs from cow dung can get into milk during milking. E coli should be killed during pasteurisation but tests show that some forms of TB bacteria can survive heat treatment.

Remainder of article