{"id":12553,"date":"2024-01-03T14:02:35","date_gmt":"2024-01-03T14:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=12553"},"modified":"2024-01-03T14:02:35","modified_gmt":"2024-01-03T14:02:35","slug":"bird-flu-is-surging-again-on-poultry-farms-the-us-is-normalizing-the-cruelest-mass-killing-method-to-stop-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=12553","title":{"rendered":"Bird flu is surging again on poultry farms. The US is normalizing the cruelest mass killing method to stop it."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“the rise of \u201cventilation shutdown plus\u201d (VSD+), a method being used to mass kill poultry birds on factory farms by sealing off the airflow inside barns and pumping in extreme heat using industrial-scale heaters, so that the animals die of heatstroke over the course of hours<\/a>. It is one of the worst forms of cruelty being inflicted on animals in the US food system \u2014 the equivalent of roasting animals to death \u2014 and it\u2019s been used to kill tens of millions of poultry birds during the current avian flu outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of this summer, the most recent period for which data is available, more than 49 million birds, or over 80 percent of the depopulated total, were killed in culls that used VSD+ either alone or in combination with other methods, according to an analysis of USDA data by Gwendolen Reyes-Illg, a veterinary adviser to the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), an animal advocacy nonprofit. These mass killings, or \u201cdepopulations,\u201d in the industry\u2019s jargon, are paid for with public dollars through a USDA program<\/a> that compensates livestock farmers for their losses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In America\u2019s peer countries, ventilation shutdown has been effectively banned because it\u2019s so inhumane; last year, Danish bioethicist Peter Sand\u00f8e told me he was \u201cshocked\u201d by the method\u2019s prevalence in the US and that in the European Union<\/a>, relying on it would be illegal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thousands<\/a> of<\/a> US veterinarians, animal welfare<\/a> experts, and animal advocates have protested the use of ventilation shutdown. But a growing body of evidence obtained through public records requests shows that the poultry industry, in partnership with agricultural and veterinary authorities, is quietly normalizing ventilation shutdown and planning its further use \u2014 even though the USDA\u2019s own policy says it can only be used as a last resort.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/23963820\/bird-flu-surge-us-ventilation-shutdown-veterinarians<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“the rise of \u201cventilation shutdown plus\u201d (VSD+), a method being used to mass kill poultry birds on factory farms by sealing off the airflow inside barns and pumping in extreme heat using industrial-scale heaters, so that the animals die of heatstroke over the course of hours. It is one of the worst forms of cruelty being inflicted on animals in the US food system \u2014 the equivalent of roasting animals to death \u2014 and it\u2019s been used to kill tens of millions of poultry birds during the current avian flu outbreak.
\nAs of this summer, the most recent period for which data is available, more than 49 million birds, or over 80 percent of the depopulated total, were killed in culls that used VSD+ either alone or in combination with other methods, according to an analysis of USDA data by Gwendolen Reyes-Illg, a veterinary adviser to the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), an animal advocacy nonprofit. These mass killings, or \u201cdepopulations,\u201d in the industry\u2019s jargon, are paid for with public dollars through a USDA program that compensates livestock farmers for their losses.<\/p>\n

In America\u2019s peer countries, ventilation shutdown has been effectively banned because it\u2019s so inhumane; last year, Danish bioethicist Peter Sand\u00f8e told me he was \u201cshocked\u201d by the method\u2019s prevalence in the US and that in the European Union, relying on it would be illegal.<\/p>\n

Thousands of US veterinarians, animal welfare experts, and animal advocates have protested the use of ventilation shutdown. But a growing body of evidence obtained through public records requests shows that the poultry industry, in partnership with agricultural and veterinary authorities, is quietly normalizing ventilation shutdown and planning its further use \u2014 even though the USDA\u2019s own policy says it can only be used as a last resort.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/23963820\/bird-flu-surge-us-ventilation-shutdown-veterinarians<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1017,1016,1808],"class_list":["post-12553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-animal-rights","tag-animals","tag-bird-flu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12553"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12554,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12553\/revisions\/12554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}