Untangling who’s who in animal welfare

| By Nancy McKenney, MNPL, CAWA
Categories: Advocacy, Blog
A common question I’m asked is: “What are the differences between all the animal organizations?” There are numerous animal organizations — both locally and nationally — and it can be confusing to know how, or even if, they’re connected. From names like SPCA, ASPCA, humane societies and various “rescue” organizations, shifting through the alphabet soup …

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Factory Farming through a Social Justice Lens

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Categories: Advocacy, Blog, Humane Education
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Each semester, Marin Humane welcomes a group of students into our Student Service Clubs. These animal-loving students spend the semester learning about Marin Humane become animal advocates through their work. Middle and high school students in the Junior and Senior Roots & Shoots clubs develop a community service project to guide their semester. These clubs …

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When Cuteness Causes Suffering

| By Lisa Bloch
Categories: Advocacy
Late last month, a woman brought a 5- to 6-week-old puppy to Marin Humane and said she found it outside a store in Novato. The poor little pup, likely an English bulldog or American bully, had clear deformities in its legs and couldn’t walk. Our veterinarians quickly determined it had a congenital deformity in its …

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It’s time to switch to a plant-based diet

| By Carina DeVera
Categories: Advocacy
This article was originally published in the Marin Independent Journal on January 18, 2021. Is dairy farming cruel to cows? A recent essay by Andrew Jacobs in the New York Times asks an uncomfortable question. Contrary to the “happy cow” caricatures depicted in dairy industry advertising, these social and nurturing animals endure systematized suffering on …

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Pandemic reveals how our factory farm system is broken

| By Carina DeVera
Categories: Advocacy, Blog
In a recent CNN segment, a hog farmer in Minnesota is seen in apparent distress at the prospect of having to euthanize his thousands of pigs due to reduced slaughterhouse capacities. Indeed, meat-packing plants across the nation have closed because of COVID-19 outbreaks, leading to staggering numbers of pigs, cows and chickens being “depopulated” — …

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