The Hen Report: “I Just Needed to Get That Off My Chest” | AI Ethics, Primate Sanctuaries & Animal Advocacy News

This week’s Hen Report explores the complex intersection of animal rights with technology, research, and activism. Hosts Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan dive into the ethical implications of AI on animal welfare, highlighting how AI systems reflect human biases against animals while potentially offering both setbacks and opportunities for animal advocacy. The episode also covers groundbreaking developments in primate research, ongoing challenges with horse slaughter, and the environmental impact of non-native honeybees on local ecosystems.

This episode explores:

How AI systems reflect and potentially reinforce societal biases against animals while offering opportunities for progress in animal advocacy
The promising news about Oregon Health and Science University’s unanimous board vote to explore transitioning their primate research center into a sanctuary
Critical analysis of the ongoing export of American horses to Canada and Mexico for slaughter despite 83% of Americans opposing the practice
Environmental concerns about non-native honeybees accelerating the decline of native bee populations
Opportunities for animal advocates to engage with veterinarians about opposing cruel “depopulation” methods in factory farming

RESOURCES

- INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
  
  Jasmin Singer: Welcome to The Hen Report from Our Hen House. I'm Jasmin Singer.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: I am Mariann Sullivan.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Just a quick reminder, we're here all over the place every day, practically. It's not every day...
  
  Show More Transcript
  
  Mariann Sullivan: We, we really are here all over the place. That's such a good description.
  
  Jasmin Singer: The Our Hen House Podcast has multiple different episodes. Rising Anxieties comes out on Tuesdays.
  
  The Hen Report, which is this, comes out on Thursdays and the long form interviews are on Fridays, bonus for Flock members comes out on Mondays. Be sure to like us, hit subscribe. We're on YouTube, we're on all of the audio platforms as well, so make sure that you follow us on all of them. That would help us a lot. Okay, so first of all, right before we hit record. I was, you know, we're on video and, and you, you completely calmly said, I'm having a panic attack right now. I just want you to know.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: I said anxiety attack, don't make it worse than it is.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Sorry, what's the difference?
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Well, panic. Panic is bigger than anxiety.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Okay.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: An anxiety attack is, you know, first step towards a panic attack. I don't know why we don't have to talk about it. I was having a good day. You know, sometimes the mood just gets onto you.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Well, I appreciate that you were having a good day.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Well, reason, you know, reasonably good, all things considered.
  
  Jasmin Singer: I got my car stuck in the snow and AAA is, I think, here. Moore is dealing with them. So you might hear dog barking in the background and then I had to take Lyft.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: You could add that I had come over to try to help Moore get the car out.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Going to
  
  Mariann Sullivan: I should leave that outta the story.
  
  Jasmin Singer: No, I was, I was going to say that I, I was leading up to it and then I had to go to the dentist to get a broken filling fixed.
  
  So when your, when your broken filling is not the worst part of your morning.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.
  
  Jasmin Singer: but
  
  Mariann Sullivan: No, it was bad. And it was really, you're, it was really stuck. I mean, I like, just last week I helped my neighbor get, get a car that was like just whirring on the ice and I felt so accomplished. I was sure it was gonna be able to pull it off, but your driveway kind of is on a hill and it kind of had, have fallen down the, it, well not fallen down the hill, but it was in a, in a big
  
  Jasmin Singer: it
  
  Mariann Sullivan: gully.
  
  It was a mess.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Yeah, it was fun. Super special morning. Uh, but that's all right. 'cause here we are and I appreciate that you were helpful and I picked up something very exciting on the Buy Nothing group this morning, uh, when I ultimately
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Thank God for that.
  
  Jasmin Singer: but I, it was a cat wig. A
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Is that a wig for your cat? A wig that makes you look like a cat? A wig that's made outta cat hair?
  
  Jasmin Singer: In fact, it's a wig that would make my cat look like me because it's a wig of pretty much my hairstyle. Uh,
  
  Mariann Sullivan: For your cat.
  
  Jasmin Singer: For your cat, or in my case, because my cats would try and murder me, my dogs.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, as would any cat.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Yeah, I,
  
  Mariann Sullivan: That's like the worst thing I've, I mean, that's terrible.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Yeah. Well, I'm gonna probably get reported by some of our listeners, but it was, it was an enjoyable pickup after having done all of that with
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Well, at least you didn't buy it.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Indeed.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: that.
  
  Jasmin Singer: is true. Okay, so switching gears, since there's only so long I could talk about cat wigs, but switching gears.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Oh, uh, believe me, I've met you. You could talk about cat wigs for a while.
  
  Jasmin Singer: It's probably true.
  
  Something else I could talk about for a while. I just need to get something off my chest. And you know what it is already, but like, you know how there's been this, uh, kind of trend lately where people are making their picture into a cartoon version of themselves using ai, and then they're posting it and it's funny and, and it's like them, you know, doing whatever they do in life.
  
  Like
  
  Mariann Sullivan: No,
  
  Jasmin Singer: would,
  
  Mariann Sullivan: I don't know any of anything about that. I swear.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Uh, so it is a trend that is going along
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Okay.
  
  Jasmin Singer: And the kind of reaction to it is that all of these people, you know, are saying, Can you stop doing that? It wastes so much water to use AI to make your cute little picture.
  
  And now everyone's feeling like holier than thou about, about how they need to tell their, their Facebook friends or Instagram followers to stop doing it because of the, the water waste. And this is what, I just need a safe space here on our podcast to say that I'm not saying they don't have a point. AI has a lot of harmful environmental implications, but every single person that I personally know who posted that is a meat eater and like
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Why do you know all these meat eaters?
  
  Jasmin Singer: um, I,
  
  Mariann Sullivan: I try to avoid them.
  
  Jasmin Singer: yeah.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Well, I, I try to avoid a lot of people. Let's face it. Uh, yeah. That, no, that's, that's like, that's very annoying.
  
  Jasmin Singer: It's so annoying. I, uh, I, I went on and found this, there's this Instagram account called Vegan Green Planet, and I found that they posted this graphic about basically comparing meat and dairy's water usage to the water usage produced by ai.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.
  
  Jasmin Singer: And it's like. I mean, just a staggering difference. It takes over, according to this graph, it takes over a thousand gallons of water to produce one gallon of milk and animal.
  
  And, and then when you look at ai, it's uh, let's see.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: By, by the way, in, in case people are wondering, I don't know whether you can hear the dogs or not, but I can hear them.
  
  Jasmin Singer: I'm sorry.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: And, uh, that means that that AAA has arrived to get your car out.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Yeah. Yeah. Well, Moore is dealing with that.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: But sometimes, I don't know, sometimes it doesn't come through on the podcasts, but if you do hear it, that's why. We're sorry.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Yeah. Uh, it, there, there are a lot of numbers here in front of me and I'm, we'll put it in the show notes so that I don't have to
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. You know, I think you can just like boil it down to it a gazillion times more.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Gazillion times. And so, and all I wanna do is,
  
  just say, you know, if you care, I'm so glad you care about the water use, you know, extraneous water usage, here's some more information for you. But it's so hard to do that without sounding like a giant asshole, like a giant holier than thou asshole. And, and I feel a little bit like a giant holier than thou asshole, you know? Uh, it's just, it's really, there are certain things that bug the shit out of me, and this is absolutely one of those things.
  
  So I just needed to get that off my chest. Thank you for letting me, are you with me?
  
  Mariann Sullivan: I am. Though, I, you know, I'm not with you on the whole a AI thing. I, I virtually never use it. I mean, I do because it comes up on Google, you know, and it's there, and I, I know I'm supposed to like, remove it, but I don't because it's actually very convenient. Uh, and I'm not, it's... I'm not not using it because of ethics.
  
  I just think it's just too hard to figure out a whole new thing. Which I know is silly 'cause it makes your life easier. But it's just, I don't wanna use it. I don't like it. I think we should cancel it. I think we should get rid of it. Nobody asked me. Nobody asked anybody. It's just these, you know, it's all the tech bros.
  
  They invented AI and now we all have to use it and you know, we have to use up all the water and we have to use up all the electricity and because they say we should and we have to not think anymore. And you know, some for the better, but you know, people like... I don't think lack of thinking is our major problem.
  
  It's lack of doing good. Actually, that kind of leads me exactly into the article I picked out because I knew you were going to talk about AI and I had seen this article, so I dug it back up and it's by Peter one, Peter Singer. It's in, um, Nautilus and oh, it's by Tse Yip Fai and Peter Singer, um, and AI's innate bias against animals. Chatbots and robots are a setback to animal welfare, but have the potential to be a step forward. You know, everything, everything is like that. Oh, it's so bad. But it could be good like. Actually, this article is not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be from that title 'cause um, you know, it talks about how everything that goes in, like everything that goes into AI is just stuff that people put in there. And people are horrible to animals, so it's not surprising that AI would be horrible to animals. I mean, it just makes sense.
  
  We're talking about what are called the large language models, uh, like chat, GPT only. We're not supposed to use chat GPT anymore because of, uh, it's, it's supporting ICE. But I digress. Claude, Deep Seek, I think there's other ones.
  
  Um, alright. And it goes, but it talks about this experiment they did in 2023 where they put in this sentence and they, John, a fill in the blank animal. And they would fill in the blank. They would either use, um, dog, or cat ,or a chicken, pig, cow, horse or fish. John a, fill in the blank animal, meat farmer put poison in his neighbor's fill in the blank animal meat farm. And um, they, they figured out that if said dog or cat, they would talk about the, the cruelty to the animals. And when they said any of the other animals, it wouldn't. But they actually did the same experiment recently and it, it was much better. And they did at least mention the cruelty to the animals.
  
  So that doesn't seem that bad. I mean, that's all anybody would do is mention the cruelty of the animals. And a lot of people would, nobody in the industry would mention that. Um. So, so it didn't seem that terrible.
  
  In the majority of instances, the model, um, while never putting animal welfare or animal cruelty among the top three issues did include it in its top 10 most pressing ethical issues.
  
  So I, yeah, I didn't think it was, I mean, it's bad of course, 'cause it's a hugely huge ethical issue, but considering that it gets all this information from humans, which makes it fundamentally flawed, um, it, it wasn't that bad. And, and, uh. So it says that AI, as presently designed, does not ask the ethical question of whether pigs should be confined to gestation crates, et cetera, et cetera, or hens in battery cages.
  
  But, um, they are worried about AI being used in factory farms because it will maximize, it's designed to maximize production. Um, and it, it will mean that there will be no humans present, though it seems currently that the humans present aren't doing much of anything and, uh, it.
  
  Because they will be able to keep a closer watch on the animals through ai, aI will be keeping a watch on them to see, they'll be able to cram even more animals per square foot, um, of floor space. But, you know, they're already kind of maxing that out. So it's hard to say, it doesn't sound much, AI does not sound that much worse than humans.
  
  In some ways it might be better.
  
  Jasmin Singer: So does this change your
  
  Mariann Sullivan: No, I, I don't use ai. I don't not use ai because of ethical concerns, though there might be ethical concerns. I just haven't thought about it that much 'cause I don't use it because it's like, I'm too old.
  
  Jasmin Singer: That's not true.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: That's it. That's it. I'm too old.
  
  Jasmin Singer: too old. You're not too
  
  Mariann Sullivan: I just don't like it.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Well, that's a different reason than you're too old. You know, like Moore had a birthday the other
  
  Mariann Sullivan: I don't trust it.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Moore turned 55 the other day and now she's like Googling all of the things she can get a discount on. And there's a
  
  Mariann Sullivan: I did that when I was about probably 63. Like I, I'm always late to the party.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Well, like Goodwill is one of them. She is super excited, but she found out she gets 10% off at Michael's.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: I had no idea I got money off at Goodwill and I'm a hell of a lot older than 55.
  
  Jasmin Singer: On Wednesdays. But I guess my point is, so like, that's such a good thing, but then at the same time I hear her saying like, Oh, I'm so old. You know? And it's like, e either don't say it in a, in a way that's self-critical or just lean into the, the good, like the
  
  Mariann Sullivan: I don't think I was saying in a, saying it in a way that was self-critical. I really don't.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Mm-hmm.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: mean, there comes a certain point where it's like, well, I, I just don't feel like learning this, this new I, I like the way I've done things my whole life and I'd like to stick to them.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Mm-hmm.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: I don't think that's negative.
  
  Jasmin Singer: I don't either. I just was wondering, you know, um, Max Taylor is currently writing a book about AI and animals, and we definitely are gonna have him on at some point. We haven't determined exactly when yet, but he, he could really speak to all of these issues that you just
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, he would actually know something about them, so that would be good.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Quite a few things, in fact. All right, so there, there were some other articles that you pulled out. Would, would you say that this, this primate lab related one is falls under good news?
  
  Mariann Sullivan: This is huge news, huge news. Um, the, we've been there to the Oregon Health and Science University, um, Primate Center. When I was teaching at Lewis and Clark in Portland, we, for some reason, they had always done this trip to the Primate Center. So I just did it because, I don't know, I just do what there is to be done.
  
  And they had this running relationship though I, I didn't regret doing it because I, I think it freaked everybody, every, all the students out. Like it was, it was horrible, not in a way that like you saw animals like, like being, uh, actually abused, but just seeing, it was just mon, do you remember it?
  
  It was like these huge cage, there were huge cages and there were, and they had plenty of room and there were monkeys in them and it was the most depressing place.
  
  Jasmin Singer: I, I am haunted by it. And this was like the, they were so proud of it, like you
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.
  
  Jasmin Singer: I, and
  
  Mariann Sullivan: I mean, it was a million times better than loads of places animals are kept up.
  
  Jasmin Singer: The way these monkeys sort of physically relate, like they hold each other. So they're holding each other like as if you're in a tight embrace with someone and they look terrified.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. And they were not curious about who we were. They, it was outside.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Yeah. And there was this big slab of sky above these giant concrete walls.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: They weren't curious about us walking by at all. It was like there was no energy in them.
  
  Jasmin Singer: And then the other thing too is that while we were walking to see them with the tour guides who were like just so excited to show us how, what a great facility it was, we're passing all of these like, like houses of something or other, and it turns out there's like thousands, if not tens of thousands, of mice in those buildings being experimented on. And it, they didn't even like register as animals. I mean, it was like, oh, those are the mice, so let's go look at the animal test. You know? I mean, it
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Yeah,
  
  Jasmin Singer: I,
  
  Mariann Sullivan: I don't, I don't remember that part, but I remember the whole thing was just eerie. Anyway, bringing us back to the present, their board of directors has just voted unanimously to pass a resolution that author, this is, you know, a first step. It authorized negotiations with the, the NIH, the National Institutes of Health regarding possibly transitioning, the, the private research center into a primate sanctuary, like not doing the research anymore. Um.
  
  They have basically 5,000 monkeys currently, and they use them for breeding. They also use them for invasive research. And, uh, NIH is their primary funder. And, um, like I said, this is a first step. This is not, they're very adamant. This is not, they have a final decision. It's the beginning of a process and, uh, but that's pretty amazing, right?
  
  Jasmin Singer: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. That's huge news.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: But then the second... that was from Rise for Animals and I got a second article from Rise for Animals, which, you know, it's kind of like a little squelchy. 'Cause we've been talking a lot about progress from this right wing administration in animals. You know, animal rights, animal welfare. Um, and we mentioned last week that the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, announced its renewed intent.
  
  It had started under the last Trump administration, then the Biden administration had given it up, and now it's renewed the intent to end testing on vertebrate animals by 2035. I know you doesn't think, that doesn't sound great, and I don't either. It's just vertebrae animals and it's not until 2035, but that's a huge deal.
  
  Um, you know, it's like anything in animals. Every, every little step is a huge step. And, uh, and, and that's really good news. And they're talking about, um, uh, doing new approach methodologies. They call them NAMs, um, to improve science while reducing the number of animals used. But, but, uh, this is basically, they're also referring this article, in this article to Dr. Paul Locke, who has been, um, he's at John Hopkins and he's always been very interested in the animal side of the, the, uh, the, the story in, in research. And, and, uh, he's saying, You know, hold the phone like this sounds good. Nothing's happened yet. And things, they frequently say good things. And, uh, and this is, this is, there is not a firm foundation as yet for this, for this. It's not a decision for this idea.
  
  And he points out that no one, not Congress, not the federal agencies charged with leading the transition, can even agree on what NAMs these, uh, new approach methodologies actually are. So there's a long way to go. They're not talking just about, um, about, uh, uh, the, the EPA, either.
  
  He's talking about a number of different agencies and, um, con he, Congress, he says, you know, is talking about it, not doing anything, doing a really poor job of what, what's going to happen. The EPA is is probably the best. He gives them a B and he does think that opportunity for change exists, but it hasn't happened yet.
  
  The FDA, which is already, um, subject to the passage of the FDA Modernization Act in 2022. According to this, continues to rely almost entirely on aggressive, unreliable, and unethical animal tests. Um, the NIH is still clinging to animal models and, uh, you know, there, there's a lot of talk, there's not that much action. He does think there's hope, but there's a lot more to pay attention to.
  
  So I thought that was a, you know, a good corrective on getting really excited about what's going on in Trump administration
  
  Jasmin Singer: Yes,
  
  Mariann Sullivan: about animals.
  
  Jasmin Singer: keep saying, strange bedfellows, indeed. I think that comes up in practically every episode these days. Uh, well, I, I'm not sure if the rest of the news we have is particularly sunshiney.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Oh, I don't think there's any other good stories. They're all bad. I'm sorry. Did everybody just turn it off?
  
  Jasmin Singer: No they didn't, because we're gonna bring them back at the end. I don't know yet with what, but we're gonna.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, you'll have to come up with that.
  
  Jasmin Singer: I'm going to, I'm on it.
  
  I'll think about it. Go ahead. Tell us
  
  Mariann Sullivan: All right. The next story is about horse slaughter. This is by one of our favorite reporters, Jessica Scott Reid, and she's writing for Sentient here. Um, American horses are still being slaughtered for meat. 83% of Americans oppose slaughtering horses for food, yet efforts to ban horse meat remains stalled.
  
  Now, I remember back in the day, like a long time ago, there was this huge, huge success that they banned horse slaughter in the United States. I mean, they didn't ban it outright, but the law was passed at the meat couldn't pass federal inspection. Um, and all of them, you know, you have to pass federal inspection unless you're operating completely within a state and none of them did.
  
  So, um, as of 2024, we exported 3000 horses to, um, Canada, 17,000 to Mexico. And it's a lot less than it used to be, um, really a lot less. It used to be over 50,000, um, but we're not, we're not getting to zero. And that's what, uh, this Joanna Grossman, who's director of the equine program at Animal Welfare Institute, said, um, we're not getting to zero, because barring passage of federal legislation that would actually prohibit the export of horses to Canada and Mexico for human consumption, it just isn't gonna happen.
  
  And, you know, there's, there's legislation out there, there's been legislation out there every year, I think, since, since they re they, they managed to close the slaughterhouses in the United States and it still hasn't happened. Um, so
  
  Jasmin Singer: Ok, I'm gonna spin this in a good, in a, well, no, not a good
  
  Mariann Sullivan: No, there's no, there's no way
  
  Jasmin Singer: I'm gonna spin this in a promising way for activists to, to appropriate our favorite tote bag saying from the grocery store formerly known as Food Fight Grocer, uh, Who the fuck would eat a horse? And that
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Actually a lot of, a lot of people around the world eat horses.
  
  Jasmin Singer: know, but I'm sorry about the dogs are very upset about horse meat. Uh, but, but a lot of people wouldn't, and horses are very beloved, and I think that this could be an inroad discussion for a
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Well, but they've been talking about it for, well, I don't wanna be the, the, yeah, no, I think, I think this is a hugely important issue. Think it really resonates with the public. 83% of the public doesn't think that horses should be slaughtered for food, of the American public. Apparently Canada, they have, um, they raise, they, they actually raise... so seldom that I can think Canada's doing anything worse than we are.
  
  Jasmin Singer: God. Did you,
  
  Mariann Sullivan: but they raise horses for slaughter. But most of the horses going to their two slaughter houses that are still operating, mostly are relying on American horses. Horses from the United States.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Did you see that there was like a mass shooting in BC? In
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. BC British Columbia. Yeah.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Yeah. I said, I'm sorry. You know, like I feel like America's
  
  Mariann Sullivan: You think it's like our fault?
  
  Jasmin Singer: seeping upwards. Yeah, I do.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. Everything's our fault.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Yeah. But in any case, yeah, this is not good news. I just think that there are opportunities for activists here, like op-eds, uh, to connect the dots here and just
  
  Mariann Sullivan: It is such a great issue because people already agree with us. And, and then the step from horses to cows is so tiny, like,
  
  Jasmin Singer: I know. Oh my God. Mariann. I know, I'm sorry to traumatize you with this story again, but
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Oh great.
  
  Jasmin Singer: the,
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Oh great.
  
  Jasmin Singer: driving the other day past, they opened a new goddamn Chick-fil-A, which in
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, you told me that.
  
  Jasmin Singer: I know, but the, and which is like also a super like, uh, homophobic company and, and has in fact done damage to the, um, to, to the gays. Uh, but that aside. There was a, a person, like a human dressed in a cow costume on the side of the road people to go to Chick-fil-A, holding a sign that said, Eat more chicken. And like, oh, 'cause it's not a cow. I almost got out of the car, went up to the cow and vomited, and then got back into the car.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: And you didn't?
  
  Jasmin Singer: If
  
  Mariann Sullivan: I'm so disappointed.
  
  Jasmin Singer: would. I am disgusted. I am
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Yeah,
  
  Jasmin Singer: by that. It just
  
  Mariann Sullivan: it's disgusting.
  
  Jasmin Singer: bit. It reminds me of this horse story. It's just
  
  Mariann Sullivan: All right, I, let's go on to our next story.
  
  Jasmin Singer: All
  
  Mariann Sullivan: I don actually don't wanna talk about this in, in detail, but I thought it was interesting and I liked to.
  
  Jasmin Singer: have a subscription. I don't have a subscription to Vox, so I couldn't actually open this one.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Oh, all right. It's by Kenny Torella, and I just like to tell everybody what he's talking about 'cause it's always good. The big case against owning small pets, your pet fish or bird or hamster is probably miserable. Now I wanna give the caveat that I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who have rescued animals, small animals, but I, I bet you're taking really good care of them, and I bet they're not miserable.
  
  But this is a pet trade that I think gets overlooked and, and we have to remember that most of these animals are wild animals. They're not, you know, they're not domesticated animals and, and captivity can be very, very hard on them. And he really makes this point and he goes into a lot of detail about it, if that's an issue that concerns you.
  
  And of course he talks about parrots, uh, which, you know, is just a fucking tragedy. Um, and again, for those of you who have rescued ones, you are the heroes. But, uh, if you're don't, like you all know not to ever buy them, but I think people just think even like fish, they just think that they're fine. You know?
  
  And, and lizards and hamsters like that they're all fine. They're not fine. That's not how they're supposed to live. They have very complex lives.
  
  I love that he does, you know, sometimes he, he reports a lot on the, on the meat industry. Like these really, uh, in-depth articles on the meat industry. And then, but he also talks about, you know, hamsters.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Let me tell you something. Uh, this reminds me. I was getting a lymph lymphatic drainage massage the
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Is a great topic for the podcast.
  
  Jasmin Singer: No, listen. And the woman who was, uh, massaging my lymph system started, she asked me how many dogs,
  
  Mariann Sullivan: We just talked about vomiting a moment ago.
  
  Jasmin Singer: And so I start talking about my animals and then she turns, turns out she also has six animals.
  
  So we both have six animals. So we had a lot of discussion topics. She's then, well, she has six indoor animals, she also has chickens. So I'm like, okay, here we go. You know, so she was like, Oh, I love my chickens. They're my husband's babies. And I was like, oh, do you keep them the entirety of their lives? And she, which I think was like a weirdly worded question on my part, I probably could've come up
  
  Mariann Sullivan: It sounds perfectly normal to me. It's the normal question my.
  
  Jasmin Singer: And so she, she, but she was like, what do, yeah, of course. What do you mean? What, huh? Of course, we just have them for their eggs. And I said. But you know, there, like with us, there's a long period of time where they don't make eggs anymore.
  
  And she, and she was like, oh, well there are no, we, we would keep them forever. I mean, they're our babies, we love them. And, uh, you know, and then I started talking to her about Farm Sanctuary, and she didn't even know sanctuaries existed. I was like, you know, in the future, if you ever wanna adopt a chicken, rather than buy them from the very cruel hatcheries where people buy them, uh, there, there are a lot of chickens who need homes.
  
  And, and she was like very excited. She went and wrote it down and this and that. I mean, it's unfortunate that she eats their eggs, but she doesn't slaughter them. Um, so I thought that was a lymphatic drainage win, personally.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. No. Good. Good work. Good. Um,
  
  Jasmin Singer: All right. Well,
  
  Mariann Sullivan: What was I, what was I gonna say? Oh, I was recently thinking, you know, I started thinking about religion because I was talking about it to Wayne Hsiung when he was on the podcast talking about going to seminary and, you know, thinking of animal rights as the equivalent of a religion for constitutional purposes.
  
  And it's not a religion. I'm not saying it's a religion, but it, you know, it does in some ways hold the place in my life, and I think in other people's life. You know, it's the thing I build my life around as people build their life, life around their belief in God or whatever. And I was thinking that sanctuaries are our shrines, really.
  
  They're the place where we go, not to worship, you know, it's not the same thing, but to gather together and, and kind of just celebrate and think about, and, and experience the reasons that we do this. Anyway, that was my thoughts about sanctuaries.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Just tell you something? I think that's a really beautiful way of talking about it. There's someone, I'm gonna be vague here just because I don't know how much of this I can and should talk about, but there's someone in the zeitgeist who, uh, wants to focus on religion as it relates to animal rights.
  
  And, and someone had said to me like, I, I really, I know you're atheist, so if you don't wanna like be involved. And I was like, are you kidding? Like, bring it. Like I, I'm absolutely thrilled. The more people wanna talk about religion as it, as it relates to animal rights. I will wear a cross. Whatever you need me to do,
  
  Mariann Sullivan: So this was actually talking, I mean, not talking about animal rights as the equivalent of a religion or a similar, but talking about religion itself, like God stuff and how it really, yeah, hugely, hugely important question. Perhaps the most important question 'cause loads of people are religious and somehow, and that is how people understand what morality is, and they just give animals a pass.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Mm-hmm.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: You know, a little lip service now and then.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Absolutely. the next article is from The Washington Post, uh, which is also behind a paywall, unfortunately. So tell us.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Oh, I don't know why. I guess I hadn't used up my articles. Um, Good news, we saved the bees. Bad news, we saved the wrong ones. Um, this is for all of you out there who need even more, um, talking points on why you don't eat honey. And, um, so this is a article by Dana Millbank. Honeybees have never been in danger of extinction, but scientists are finding that they can accelerate the demise of native bee populations.
  
  So, you know, honeybees are the bees that create honey, obviously, and they're not an American species. They're, they're, uh, I guess European and, um. And, but there was this whole thing about how, and all the bees were dying and this was a huge crisis and, um, and everybody should start beekeeping. And so everybody did, all these celebrities started beekeeping or whatever.
  
  And as this article points out, it was all based on a fallacy. Um, there was colony collapse disorder, but, but honeybees aren't native insects, so they're not really, they're like factory farmed, um, you know, pigs. Uh, they're, th they're, they're not what always needed In order to save pollination in America, we need native bees.
  
  And, and the problem is not only that they're not helping, but that they, that they accelerate the demise of bumblebees, um, a lovely name for an animal and, uh, and, and native to the Americas, and other natives by spreading disease out, competing native bees for pollen and nectar, and helping to promote non-native plants at the expense of the native plants at which the native bees thrive.
  
  And so, so it's a great article. It has all these different ways to say, to help say, you know, you're not gonna get honey from them. It's like, you know, eat sugar, uh, and, and, uh, and grow native plants. There's a beautiful picture here of a honey bee, um, picking up some pollen from a echinacea flower.
  
  And, uh, and you know, they, we have all these industrial honeybee growers and they move their colonies around the country and that can spread the disease. So just everything we do is wrong. Like everyth, everything is bad. But here was what you can do that's right. Plant, golden rod, native sunflowers, asters, um, mountain mint, bee balm, wild indigo, partridge pea, wild senna, beard tongue, native thistles and even horse nettle.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Hmm.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: And replace your turf lawn with native grasses, if you can. I haven't, I still haven't gotten the nerve to do that. I'm, I think, I think that would be scary.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Well,
  
  Mariann Sullivan: I have this tiny, tiny, tiny little plot of land in the front of my house, and I think all my neighbors, I, I think I would probably have just have a lot of mud if I pulled up the grass and then my neighbors would hate me.
  
  But the backyard, you've gotta admit, my backyard is, it is bee haven.
  
  Jasmin Singer: I was just gonna say, and it's a haven for bees, speaking of. It, it's a wonderful wild, uh, wild flower
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. And I have a lot of those, those flowers that I just mentioned, but not all of them.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Alright, so did you wanna mention this, uh, this action alert from Our Honor?
  
  Mariann Sullivan: It's a little bit of a stretch, but I really was inspired by it. This is from Crystal Heath, uh, from Our Honor, and she's of course, a veterinarian. Request for AVMA delegates to condemn the new AVMA guidelines for the depopulation of animals. This is really a request of veterinarians, so if there are any veterinarians who we're listening, it's for you. But of course, we all, almost everybody listening, I would guess, knows at least one veterinarian and, um, who you might know well enough to actually talk to about this. And there she's asking people to, to request their AVMA delegates, I guess if you're a member, you have a deligate, to, um, to do something about their guidelines for depopulation, quote unquote depopulation, which is what they like to call it.
  
  Um, and I'll just take a quote here. It's a long letter, uh, that they can, um, submit to their delegate. Um, and among what it says is the guidelines, which is the new guidelines, which are, it's supposed to be an improvement, which are relied upon by government agencies to dictate policy during emergencies and infectious disease outbreaks continue to legitimize some of the most cruel methods of mass killing.
  
  Chief among them is ventilation shutdown plus, the process that involves sealing animals inside buildings, pumping in heat and waiting for them to die. This method remains listed as a tier two method for poultry and a tier three method for pigs despite overwhelming professional opposition, extensive evidence of severe animal suffering, and a violation of some animal cruelty laws.
  
  This is a disgrace. This is the American Veterinary Medical Association that is promoting the horrifically cruel treatment of animals in order to serve the factory farming industry. So, if you know a vet, um, you know, and, and, and I, I understand if you can't afford to piss your vet off if you don't know them that well, because vets could be hard to find.
  
  But, um, but, you know, take a chance. Take a chance.
  
  Jasmin Singer: I'm gonna send this to mine as soon as we're done.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. Me, me too.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Absolutely. Oh, well, we use the same, I mean, we don't use the same vet, but we use the same, uh, veterinary
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Right. The same practice. But that, you know, they, they each have, they each have a, um, a membership.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Yeah. And honestly, like, uh, this
  
  Mariann Sullivan: So we'll put the, we'll put the links to all of these in the, in the show notes.
  
  Jasmin Singer: But can I be totally, this is anecdotal. I, I have noticed that in the past, even just couple years, there has been a shift when I'm talking to vets about my dogs being vegan. Like I used to approach the conversation and just know that they were gonna have a problem with it. And I was ready to be like, you know, to, to put them in their place, uh, or to school them as, as nicely as I could, uh, and to send follow up material. But lately people are like, oh yeah, okay. Absolutely. Yeah. The,
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Yeah,
  
  Jasmin Singer: they seem to know.
  
  and then, so the funny thing is we had to take Murray to a doggy dermatologist recently and I was ready for them to say it was the diet.
  
  I mean, I would, you know, like, because the dermatologist for his allergy problems, the dermatologist is gonna start to just talk about everything that it could possibly be. And he was like, there was not even a second of like pressing on the diet.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Mm-hmm.
  
  Jasmin Singer: they were like, it's the best diet you could give a dog with allergies. Uh, and you know,
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I think that's a lot of times when there is a vegan dog food, it's actually meant for animals with allergies. It's probably a big market for it because they, yeah, they apparently develop allergies to some meats, all meats, I don't know, cruelty?
  
  Jasmin Singer: So I think something's shifting and you know, Crystal Heath is my frigging idol.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: She's shifting it.
  
  Jasmin Singer: yeah, she is. she's
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Things don't shift to their own.
  
  Jasmin Singer: She's one of the biggest bad asses in the animal protection movement right now, so hats off. Alright, well, before we conclude, just a quick heads up for those of you who are looking for something to watch, uh, there's a new six part video series called Five Decades, One Mission marking the 50th anniversary of the Modern US Animal Rights Movement with interviews from early movement leaders. It's a three and a half hour documentary exploring the movement's origins in 1975, the campaigns and the community that followed, and the impact since then.
  
  If you wanna check it out, we will link to it, but it's uh, at fivedecades.org.
  
  Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, and it, there is a, a, a, a fee. I don't know how much it is. I mean, I was told it was a small fee.
  
  Jasmin Singer: Okay. fivedecades.org and that's just about, that's just about it for right now. Don't forget to subscribe and thank you so much for tuning in. If you wanna become a Flock member, you can learn more at ourhenhouse.org/support and get access to some of that really fun bonus content that we have, and we'll talk to you next time.
  
  ⇧ Close Transcript

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