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  • From: Doug Willhite <drwillhite@earthlink.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Fwd: The Secret Lives of Pigs
  • Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:31:16 -0700

Is there is a more deplorable crime against all that is natural, sacred and wholesome than the industrial, factory-farming of animals?
doug

http://chihuahuavalley.net


Begin forwarded message:

The Secret Lives of Pigs
Understanding the Origins of Swine Flu; Part 1



"No man should be allowed to be President who does not understand hogs." ~President Harry Truman

Most people know very little about these fascinating animals. In fact, pigs are curious and insightful animals thought to have intelligence beyond that of an average 3-year-old human child. They are smarter than dogs and every bit as friendly, loyal, and affectionate. When in their natural surroundings they are social, playful, protective animals who bond with each other, make beds, relax in the sun, and cool off in the mud.

Since most people are not that familiar with pigs, you may be surprised to learn that they dream, recognize their names, play video games more effectively than some primates, and lead social lives of a complexity previously observed only in primates.

People who run animal sanctuaries often describe pigs with human characteristics, because they've learned that, like humans, pigs enjoy listening to music, playing with soccer balls, and getting massages.

What the Experts Say

Professor Stanley Curtis of Penn State University found that pigs play and excel at joystick-controlled video games. He observed that they are "capable of abstract representation" and "are able to hold an icon in the mind and remember it at a later date." Professor Curtis says that "there is much more going on in terms of thinking and observing by these pigs than we would ever have guessed." Pigs are much smarter than dogs, according to the research, and even did better at video games than some primates. Says Dr. Sarah Boysen, Curtis' colleague, "[Pigs] are able to focus with an intensity I have never seen in a chimp."

Pigs form complex social units and learn from one another in ways previously observed exclusively among primates. For example, pigs use clever ploys to try to outsmart each other. Pigs often learn how to follow others to food before snatching it away. Those who are tricked learn to change their behavior in order to reduce the number of times they are deceived. And Dr. Mike Mendyl notes that pigs can signal their competitive strength and "use this information to minimize overt aggression during disputes about social ranks," just like many primates (including humans). He explains that "pigs can develop quite sophisticated social competitive behavior, similar to that seen in some primate species."



Pigs communicate constantly with one another. More than 20 of their oinks, grunts, and squeals have been identified for different situations, from wooing their mates to expressing, "I'm hungry!"

Pigs have a very long memory. Dr. Curtis put a ball, a Frisbee, and a dumbbell in front of several pigs and was able to teach them to jump over, sit next to, or fetch any of the objects when asked to and they could distinguish between the objects three years later.

Scientists at the University of Illinois have learned that not only do pigs have temperature preferences, they also will learn through trial and error how to turn on the heat in a cold barn if given the chance and turn it off again when they are too warm.

Professor Donald Broom of Cambridge University Veterinary School says, "[Pigs] have the cognitive ability to be quite sophisticated. Even more so than dogs and certainly three-year-olds."

Suzanne Held, who studies the cognitive abilities of farm animals at the University of Bristol's Centre of Behavioural Biology, says that pigs are "really good at remembering where food is located, because in their natural environment food is patchily distributed and it pays to revisit profitable food patches."

Newborn piglets learn to run to their mothers' voices, and mother pigs sing to their young while nursing.

Pigs are actually very clean animals. If given sufficient space, pigs will be careful not to excrete near where they sleep or eat. Pigs don't "sweat like pigs"; they are actually unable to sweat. Pigs like to bathe in water or mud to keep cool.

Pig Prowess

Like dogs, piglets learn their names by 2 to 3 weeks of age and respond when called.

Pigs prefer water to mud. One woman developed a shower for her pigs, and these astute animals learned to turn it on and off.

Pigs appear to have a good sense of direction and have found their way home over great distances. Adults can run at speeds of up to 11 miles an hour.

Pigs have shown gentleness and forgiveness. Norwegian author Bergljot Borresen writes about a mountain farmer who mistreated his pig. The pig locked her jaws into his thigh but didn't bite down. The farmer believed it was a warning not to treat her unkindly again. In her own way, she gave him another chance.

Author John Robbins notes that "unlike dogs, horses and humans, they will never dangerously overeat even when given access to unlimited food." The pork industry, however, has wreaked havoc on this healthful habit with a drug called Hog-Crave, which causes pigs to overeat so that they will grow faster and will thus be more profitable to those who kill them.

Pigs have been known to save the lives of others, including their human friends.

According to The Daily Telegraph, "a pet piglet called Pru was praised by her owner … after dragging her free from a muddy bog." The owner said, "I was panicking when I was stuck in the bog. I did not know what to do and I think Pru sensed that. … I had a rope with me that I use as a dog lead and I put it around her. I was shouting `Go home, go home' and she walked forward, slowly pulling me out of the mud."

Like dogs, pigs have done many heroic deeds. Babe's real-life counterparts have rescued human and nonhuman companions, stopped intruders in their tracks, and even saved themselves from slaughterhouses. In addition to the previously mentioned piglet Pru, who dragged her human companion from a muddy bog, there is also Priscilla, who saved a young boy from drowning; Spammy, who led firefighters to a burning shed to save her calf friend Spot; and Lulu, who found help for her human companion who had collapsed from a heart attack. A pig named Tunia chased away an intruder, and another named Mona held a fleeing suspect's leg until the police arrived.

A pig in New Jersey jumped off a truck en route to the slaughterhouse, while in England, a stone carving of a pig named Butch was placed upon a historic cathedral after Butch and his friend Sundance escaped from a slaughterhouse and roamed the country for several days before being captured. Fortunately, a national outcry against slaughter allowed Butch and Sundance to go to a sanctuary.

(Compiled from Internet sources)
----------------------------------------------------
Peace be with you,
The Nazarene Way

The Origins of the Swine Flu Pandemic
David Kirby; Huffington Post
Posted April 27, 2009 | 01:19 AM (EST)

Mexican Lawmaker: Factory Farms Are "Breeding Grounds" of Swine Flu Pandemic

Large-scale swine producers in Mexico deny that their industry is the source of the deadly new influenza strain, saying the animals are all healthy, and that it is scientifically "not possible" for hogs to infect people with the illness.

But lawmakers in the eastern state of Veracruz are now charging that large-scale hog and poultry operations are "breeding grounds" of infection that are making people sick and fueling the pandemic.

On Sunday, the state government of Veracruz confirmed swine influenza in a five-year-old girl in the village of La Gloria, located near a massive US-owned hog facility. The bodies of two other village children who died in February and March will be exhumed and tested for signs of the illness, local media reports said.

And in the western state of Guerrero, 500 pigs were just killed after becoming ill with swine flu.

The nation's hog industry says it is not to blame for any human illness. "We deny completely that the influenza virus affecting Mexico originated in pigs, because it has been scientifically demonstrated that this is not possible," said a statement issued by the National Organization of Pig Production and Producers and its president, Mario Humberto Quintanilla González.

The group said it had ordered a series of lab tests and sought technical support from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and others, "in order to demonstrate, once again, that pigs are not the cause of the flu that is affecting the country. It must remain clear that the flu problem is caused neither by the proximity to swine operations nor by the consumption of pork meat or pork products."

The statement went on to say, however, that pork producers, "will respect whatever scientific determination is made as to the actual causes that have provoked this health problem."

Meanwhile, one of Mexico's largest producers, Granjas Carroll, a subsidiary of US hog giant Smithfield Foods, issued its own statement saying there was no sign of swine flu at any of its operations in the states of Veracruz and Puebla. The company's huge facility near the town of La Gloria was first mentioned as a possible source of the new human-swine flu outbreak by Tom Philpott at www.grist.org.

According to El Universal newspaper, the company reported no signs of disease in any of its 907 workers - nor in its 60,000 breeding sows or 500,000 feeder pigs, all of whom were vaccinated against swine flu. "The press release stated that the virus was found in people who were not near swine production facilities, and who did not have contact with pigs, and therefore, 'it has been concluded that the contagion has been between humans,'" El Universal reported.

But the industry statement that this disease was not transmitted from pigs to people contradicts virtually all Mexican government statements so far, including Mexico's Health Minister, Jose Angel Cordova, who said the virus, "mutated from pigs, and then at some point was transmitted to humans." Whether they were Mexican pigs or not remains a mystery, of course.

As Philpott pointed out in his post, Mexican newspapers have been reporting for weeks that residents living near Granjas Carroll's massive hog facility at La Gloria are falling ill with severe upper respiratory diseases. One five-year-old girl in the village just tested positive for swine flu - the bodies of two more children who died recently are being exhumed.

According to an April 5 article in La Jornada newspaper, "Clouds of flies emanate from the lagoons where Granjas Carroll discharges the fecal waste from its hog barns - as well as air pollution that has already caused an epidemic of respiratory infections in the town."

More than 400 people had already been treated for respiratory infections, and more than 60 percent of the town's 3,000 residents had reported getting sick, the paper said. State officials disputed that claim, and said the illnesses were caused by cold weather and dust in the air.

The problems began in early March, when many neighbors of the hog CAFO (confined animal feeding operation) became sick with colds and flu that quickly turned into lung infections, causing local health officials to impose a "sanitary cordon" around the area and begin a mass program of vaccination and home fumigation.

"According to state agents of the Mexican Social Security Institute, the vector of this outbreak are the clouds of flies that come out of the hog barns, and the waste lagoons into which the Mexican-US company spews tons of excrement," La Jornada reported. "Even so, state and federal authorities paid no attention to the residents, until today."

The state legislature of Veracruz has demanded that the Smithfield subsidiary turn over all documents and environmental certifications on its three massive waste lagoons, but so far, the company has only supplied information on one of them, news reports said today.

On Friday, the chairman of the state legislature's Committee on the Environment, Marco Antonio Núñez López, called on Veracruz's Secretary of Health to impose a "sanitary cordon" around all hog and poultry CAFOs in the area - as well as bus terminals and airports - to prevent the spread of influenza among the population.

He said the factory farms should be considered "breeding grounds" (focos rojos - which might also translate as "hot spots") of potential infection for the cities of Veracruz, Boca del Río, Coatzacoalcos, Córdoba, Orizaba, Xalapa and Perote.

"I asked the Secretary to inform us about what was going on in La Gloria with Granjas Carroll, because avian flu is spreading from birds to pigs, and from there to humans, and that urgent measures are needed," Núñez López told reporters.

He was referring to another CAFO, this one containing poultry, called Granjas de Bachoco, located near the state capital of Xalapa. He said there was an epidemic of avian flu among the chickens being raised there, but that this was being kept quiet so as not to interfere with exports. Influenza-infected chickens raise the risk of cross- infection to pigs in the same area, scientists say.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Mexico, about halfway between Mexico City and Acapulco in the town of Cocula, Guerrero, health officials ordered the destruction of 500 pigs infected with swine flu, local newspapers reported. One hundred of the animals fell sick at the Rancho La Joya operation and were sacrificed last Wednesday. On Thursday, 400 more infected pigs were killed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/mexican-lawmaker- factory_b_191579.html


  • [Livingontheland] Fwd: The Secret Lives of Pigs, Doug Willhite, 04/29/2009

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