Rising Anxieties in Animal Politics and Industry

The meat industry is sweating, and honestly, it’s about time. This week we cover a staggering array of stories showing just how rattled animal agriculture has become — from a desperate columnist panicking over $400 million in animal rights funding, to the USDA casually funneling $5.5 billion in taxpayer money to prop up an industry that apparently can’t survive on its own merits. Meanwhile, 51 Ridglan Farms rescuers face prosecution for removing beagles from a now-shuttered cruel facility, bird flu triples across Washington dairy herds with “strict biosecurity measures” that are clearly not working, a former vegan politician throws animals under a taco truck, and the UK government actually says the words “to prevent further suffering” out loud. The anxieties aren’t just rising — they’re doing a victory lap.

• Ridglan Farms prosecutions: A court commissioner found probable cause to move forward with charges against 51 defendants involved in the rescue of 22 beagles from the now-closed Ridglan Farms breeding facility in Dane County, Wisconsin — frustrating, but very much part of the theory of change.
• The meat industry’s Moskovitz meltdown: A Meatingplace columnist is sounding the alarm that effective altruism-funded AI executives could funnel up to $30 billion a year into anti-factory farming campaigns — and his big counterargument is that rural America should use data centers as leverage. Yes, really.
• USDA’s $5.5 billion beef bailout: The SPUR initiative is pouring $500 million in direct payments and $5 billion in guaranteed loans into beef slaughter facilities — because nothing says “free market capitalism” like socialism for slaughterhouses.
• Bird flu surges in dairy: Washington’s infected dairy herds tripled to 27 in a single week, spreading to a second county and infecting a dairy worker, despite “strict biosecurity measures” that seem about as effective as a screen door on a submarine.
• UK to phase out CO2 stunning of pigs: The UK government announced plans to end CO2 stunning of pigs — calling them “highly sentient and intelligent animals” — in a rare instance of a government acknowledging that animals can suffer and then actually doing something about it.

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