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Thanks to the 562 people who have signed the petition to FARM to ban H$U$ from the (so-called) "animal rights" conference. Please read the thoughtful comments. As expected, Paul Shapiro and the well-financed corporate butchers of H$U$ delivered a slick and sleazy presentation that bemoaned animal eating, a position not normally offered elsewhere, bemoaned pig confinement, while having a mass murderer of pigs employed as a director, and while conducting experiments on wild horses with drugs made from pig eggs, and bemoaning battery cages for chickens while promoting the egg industry's agenda for battery cages for chickens. Down with H$U$, the meat industry's self-appointed voice for "animal rights"!!! TAKE BACK THE ANIMAL RIGHTS MOVEMENT FROM THE BUTCHERS OF H$U$!!! No one elected Wayne Pacelle and H$U$ to be a voice for animals or animal rights activists!!! Hey Hey Ho Ho, H$U$ has got to go!!! http://www.change.org/petitions/farm-farm-animal-rights-movement-ar-2012-ban-hsus-from-the-2012-animal-rights-conference

Shearing is generally seen as an innocuous procedure, like getting a haircut, even as a kindness by humans who relieve the sheep of those hot, heavy fleeces. It may come as a surprise to learn that wild sheep shed their wool naturally, and that it is only through selective breeding that farmed sheep have become dependent on humans for such a basic aspect of their welfare. Instead of growing a thick coat for winter and shedding it in summer as they would do in nature, they are now subject to the vagaries of wool prices and the schedules of farmers, leaving them vulnerable to extreme weather conditions. An estimated one million sheep die in the 30 days after shearing. Following the deaths from hypothermia of 1200 sheep near Bairnsdale in April 2004, a livestock manager advised, with a noted lack of concern, that "it was not unusual for freshly shorn sheep to die in the cold weather". Similarly, a British industry spokesman remarks enthusiastically that "winter shearing is the future of sheep farming. You take their coats off, they have to eat more to keep warm. You end up with a better meat-to-bone-and-fat ratio."