4. Unnaturally Cruel: Rolston on Animals, Ethics, and the Factory Farm

摘要: In 2010, over nine billion animals were killed in the United States for human consumption. This included nearly 1 million calves, 2.5 sheep and lambs, 34 cattle, 110 hogs, 242 turkeys, well 8.7 chickens (USDA 2011a; 2011b). Though hundreds of slaughterhouses actively contributed to these totals, more than half cattle just mentioned at fourteen plants. A slightly greater percentage hogs was only twelve 2011a). Chickens processed a total three hundred ten federally inspected facilities 2011b), which means that if every facility operated same capacity, each would have slaughtered fifty-three birds per minute (nearly one second) day, adding up twenty-eight apiece course months. Incredible as figures may seem, 2010 an average year agricultural animals. Indeed, decade now number mammals annually US has come or above mark, such enormous totals are possible by virtue existence equally network industrialized suppliers. These high-volume farming operations – dubbed “factory farms” general public, “Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs)” state federal agencies defined ways they restrict animals’ movements behaviors, locate bodies less space, increasingly mechanize many aspects traditional husbandry. As recent report Department Agriculture put it, this form animal agriculture “concentrates large numbers relatively small confined spaces, […] substitutes structures equipment (for feeding, temperature controls, manure