NOAA increases award to $20,000 as endangered Steller sea lions continue to turn up dead in the Copper River Delta.

Multiple endangered Steller sea lions have been found dead with evidence of human interactions along the Copper River Delta this summer. These animals do not appear to have been struck and lost during subsistence hunting by Alaska Natives, which is allowed under federal law. As of June 2, seven animals had been found, some with evidence of gunshot wounds or other human interactions. Since then, at least 15 additional Steller sea lions have been reported or found during surveys conducted by NOAA Fisheries in collaboration with the United States Coast Guard. Some had evidence of gunshot wounds. Investigations are underway on all of these mortalities. The number of carcasses seen this summer during NOAA surveys on the Copper River Delta is greater than during previous years’ efforts. 

Note: NOAA Fisheries has revised the original web story posted on July 26, 2023, to better reflect the original intent. At this point we don’t know who is responsible for the recent marine mammal mortalities, and our language in the original web story wrongly implied that we knew fishermen were at fault. 

Report violations when you see them. NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement is offering an increased reward amount of up to $20,000 for information that leads to a civil penalty or criminal conviction in these killings. Anyone with information about the illegal killing of endangered Steller sea lions or protected harbor seals in the Copper River Delta should contact the investigating agent at (907) 250-5188 or through NOAA’s Enforcement Hotline at (800) 853-1964. To report dead, injured, or stranded marine mammals, call the Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding Network at (877) 925-7773. When reporting a stranded marine mammal, please include the following information: 

• Date
• Location of stranding (including latitude and longitude)
• Number of animals
• Condition of the animal (alive or dead)
• Species (if known) 

Photos or videos taken from a safe and legal distance can also provide valuable information to stranding network responders. Only trained and permitted responders should approach or pick up a stranded marine mammal.

The western population of Steller sea lions is protected under the Endangered Species Act, which prohibits harassing, harming, or killing listed species. Killing marine mammals is also a violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Shooting seals and sea lions is against the law unless you are an Alaska Native subsistence harvesting for food or handicraft. The population of these endangered Steller sea lions is in decline. Protect seals and sea lions and don’t illegally shoot seals and sea lions.

Illegal killing of a seal or sea lion may result in:

• Spending up to a year in jail
• Forfeiture of your vessel
• Paying criminal fines and civil penalties

More Information

• Marine Life in Distress: What You Can Do

Chicken producers are misleading consumers with misinformation.

By Karen Davis, PhD, President, United Poultry Concerns.

Published in LA Progressive, July 4, 2023, and live on Nation of Change

On June 13th the animal advocacy organization Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) rescued and reported their removal of nineteen chickens from trucks delivering the 6-week old birds to a slaughterhouse in Sonoma County owned by Petaluma Poultry, a subsidiary of Perdue Farms. Petaluma Poultry markets its chickens as “free-range” and “organic” under brand names like Rocky and Rosie.

A report covering several investigations of Petaluma Poultry published by DxE the same day of June 13th shows scenes of sick, crippled, dying and dead chickens living in filth and being treated by workers with extreme cruelty. The report includes veterinary diagnoses of Petaluma Poultry chickens from several locations infected with zoonotic bacteria (transmissible to humans) in their blood and other body parts.

Petaluma Poultry is not an isolated case in an otherwise truthful industry targeting customers willing and able to pay high prices for “humanely-raised” chickens as opposed to “factory-farmed” birds.

Los Angeles-based Jidori Chicken provides yet another example of misleadingly marketed chickens “raised free range, humanely, at small farms in California.” From 2020 to 2022, slaughterhouse investigators for Slaughter Free Network documented “some of the worst animal abuse and filthy conditions we’ve ever seen,” in what surely must violate California’s sanitary and animal cruelty statues.

U.S. egg producers, like poultry meat producers, have similarly been shown by investigators to misrepresent how the hens are housed and treated.

U.S. egg producers, like poultry meat producers, have similarly been shown by investigators to misrepresent how the hens whose high-priced eggs they market as humane, free-range, and organic are actually housed and treated.

An example is Nellie’s Free Range Eggs. Owned by the New Hampshire-based company, Pete and Gerry’s Organics, Nellie’s Eggs, which can cost up to $8 a dozen, are labeled “Certified Humane.” In 2019, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals filed a lawsuit alleging that Nellie’s Eggs falsely depicts hens ranging on open pastures and being cuddled by children, when in fact Nellie’s hens are crammed inside long confinement sheds holding 20,000 hens per shed with little more than a square foot of living space for each hen.

In 2009, I became involved with a farm called Black Eagle, which portrayed itself as “the largest organic, free-range, egg producer in the state of Virginia.” The farm president said the hens had “places to roost inside, exposure to natural light and air, and access to the outside with an average of five feet of space per bird within a fenced yard.”

Meanwhile, that same year, documents obtained by an attorney in the course of investigating a complaint about malnourished dogs at Black Eagle Farm revealed an absentee owner, unpaid bills, and malnourished pigs and sheep. Unexpectedly, a veterinarian with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services discovered a building with 25,000 hens described in her report as “thin to emaciated,” with many dead and dying birds on the floor. Farm personnel told her the hens had been unfed for seven days in November, five days in December, and for two straight weeks earlier in the year.

Lest it be thought that the conditions I’m describing are rare or are no longer practiced by the majority of alternative egg producers, I must point out that, while some businesses may treat their hens better, investigations of alternative poultry and egg farms typically reveal practices and attitudes that do not meet consumer expectations – expectations that are cultivated not only by the companies and retailers they do business with, but also by animal welfarists who employ “humane” farming language that glosses over the facts with nebulous assertions and omissions. Omissions include, but are not limited to, showing hens foraging in a field while never showing them being grabbed upside down by their legs and thrown into gas-killing carts or transport crates. More often than not, the difference between “humane” farms and factory farms is moot.

In part the deception arises from the popular notion that free-range, cage-free, and organic farming is essentially a collection of small, local enterprises, distinct from industrialized operations like, say, Tyson Foods and Perdue Farms in the meat industry, or Cal-Maine and Rose Acres in the egg industry.

But as a 2019 report on the organic food industry in The Washington Post explains, contrary to the pristine image of organic egg production, “many conventional egg producers have organic subsidiaries that operate on a vast scale, 100,000 laying hens housed in a huge building, their federally mandated access to outdoor space winkingly fulfilled by screened porches.”

The fact is that constricting and diminishing the life of animals is built into raising them for food. Their own food is chosen; their social, familial, and physical environment is controlled; their reproductive organs and activities are manipulated; and how long they live is determined by humans. They can be abused and killed at will based on economic “necessity.” An example in poultry and egg production is the routine culling – removal from the flock for killing – of birds who are not gaining weight fast enough or laying enough eggs. Whatever compassion a person may initially feel for birds slated for commercialization, once they become a business, the business mentality takes over.

The business mentality prioritizes a commitment to soothing rhetoric over harsh reality, a shielding of the customer from the practical facts of animal farming with palliative platitudes and pretenses. All agribusiness companies claim “high animal welfare standards.” But at best, it is only by comparison with the worst conditions and practices of industrialized animal farming that any commercial animal farm can claim to be “humane.”

For a close look at the issues presented in this article by a range of contributors, see the new book The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs, edited by Hope Bohanec and published in 2023 by Lantern Publishing & Media.

KAREN DAVIS, PhD is the President and Founder of United Poultry Concerns, a nonprofit organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domesticated birds including a sanctuary for chickens in Virginia. Inducted into the National Animal Rights Hall of Fame for Outstanding Contributions to Animal Liberation, Karen is the author of numerous books, essays, articles and campaigns. Her latest book is For the Birds – From Exploitation to Liberation: Essays on Chickens, Turkeys, and Other Domesticated Fowl published by Lantern Publishing & Media. Karen hosts a biweekly podcast series titled Thinking Like a Chicken – News & Views!