WASHINGTON D.C., UNITED STATES, October 28, 2006: Each year in the United States, 10 billion land animals are raised and killed for meat, eggs, and milk (this works out to a staggering 1.14 million animals killed per hour, not counting fish, which are killed in equal number.) Statistically, farm animals comprise 98 percent of all animals in the country with whom we interact directly, and that staggering percentage does not even include the estimated 10 billion aquatic animals killed for human consumption. Indeed, the numbers of animals killed by trappers and hunters; in classrooms, research laboratories, and animal shelters; and on fur farms; and those animals raised as companions or used for entertainment by circuses and zoos, collectively make up only 2 percent of the animals in some established relationship with humans.
These farm animals — sentient, complex, and capable of feeling pain and frustration, joy and excitement — are viewed by industrialized agriculture as mere meat-, egg-, and milk-producing machines, and their welfare suffers immensely as factory farm profit outweighs their well-being. Yet, despite the routine abuses they endure, no federal law protects animals from cruelty on the farm, and the majority of states exempt customary agricultural practices — no matter how abusive — from the scope of their animal cruelty statutes. The welfare of farm animals often loses out to the economic interests of factory farmers who can make larger profits by intensively confining animals and breeding them for rapid growth with little regard for the amount of suffering the animals endure. Included are the many reference documents used in this report and related links where readers can learn more.