by Jason on November 30, 2006
Some time ago, we heard about the Primate Freedom Project’s efforts to establish an animal cruelty museum where the interaction of humans and animals could be explored, but the coolest part of the concept was the location: right between two primate research centres. So, if you’re a university who owns two primate labs and you’re about to be confronted by an actual building instead of the occasional group of protesters, what do you do? Why, try to steal the building out from under them, of course! As veganicat reports, the Primate Freedom Project had to go to court to defend its contract with the current owner of the building after the University of Wisconsin-Madison offered a much higher price to secure their neighbourhood. The school had several chances to buy the building in the past, but never liked the price, until, of course, an AR group put in a bid, at which point the university was willing to offer $325,000 more than the current offer. The law actually came up on the side of AR this time, and the PFP’s offer still stands. I can’t wait to see what the PFP gets as a housewarming present… Link.
by Jason on November 29, 2006
Dave Noisy sent in the most confusing article I’ve read this week, which isn’t surprising once you look at it, since it’s about organic labelling for fish. The whole concept of organic, as applied to animal-based food products, usually boils down to feeding the animal organically-raised foods and keeping antibiotics out of the equation, but when you’re dealing with fish who eat other fish and who sometimes live in a big uncontrolled space called the “ocean”, it gets a little murkier. The US government hasn’t come up with an official standard yet, but it looks like fish farms may get the edge in the branding war simply because they have a bit more control over their stocks, or at least the ones that don’t eat other fish. Of course, fish farming can be more environmentally invasive than wild fisheries (the David Suzuki Foundation says their ecological impact ranges from “benign to catastrophic”), and their stocks are often packed in densities that are much greater than would be found in the wild, which may not be the best environment for a fish that was raised to swim. While compassion is a big driver for my reasons not to eat fish, I’ve got to say that not having to deal with rationalizations and other issues like these play a part from time to time. Link
