Vegan News 5.3.13

You Won’t Believe What’s in Your Turkey Burger. “Back in August 2011, the agribusiness giant Cargill recalled a stunning 36 million pounds of ground turkey tainted with antibiotic-resistant salmonella that had come from a single processing facility in Arkansas, a failure that eventually sickened 136 people and killed another. The company shut down the plant, tweaked its process (mainly by adding to and ‘intensifying’ its system of spraying meat with antimicrobial fluid), and quickly reopened it. Within a month, the company had to recall another 108,000 pounds of ground turkey from the same plant, because it was infected with the same strain of superbug salmonella.”

State Assembly bill would ban pet tattoos and piercings as animal abuse. “A Manhattan pol is trying to stop tattooing and body piercing from going to the dogs. Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, a Democrat, has introduced legislation to ban the piercing or permanent tattooing of companion animals. ‘These are living beings and they should not be subject to human whims and fashion choices,’ Rosenthal told the Daily News Thursday. Rosenthal said subjecting pets to body piercing or tattooing is cruel and ‘just like any other abuse.’ The bill has the support of the Humane Society of New York.”

Can Salmon Farming Be Sustainable? Maybe, If You Head Inland. “Is salmon farming ever sustainable? For years, many marine biologists have argued that the floating, open-ocean net pens that produce billions of pounds of salmon per year also generate pollution, disease and parasites. In some places in western Canada, the open-ocean salmon farming industry has been blamed for the collapse of wild salmon populations in the early 2000s — though has challenged that claim.”

Photo credit: Didit Putra via Flickr