PLEASE NOTE:

This Program for the 2013 AFS Conference is still being

updated as more information becomes available.

PANEL DESCRIPTIONS:

Panel: Fur bearing animals:

             (1) Trapping; penning

             (2) Fur farmed animals

             (3) The fur industry strategy and influence

             (4) Political Activism for fur bearing animals

             (5) Throphy hunting fur animals

             (6)  A report of anti-fur activism:  Advancements & challenges

FUR BEARING ANIMALS PANEL:

Fur is back! Why and what can we do about it:  Fur farms in the U.S & worldwide; Fur industry's tactics to continue a culture of fur users/abusers by exploitation of young people and children; Anti-fur activism, a candle in the dark;  Wildlife in America: Trapping in the US: No protection of wildlife from extreme abuse; Penning: the cruelest blood sport; Running a rescue center; Wildlife conservation issues: Policy & legal reforms; Changing the paradigm: From “pest” to co-existing with urban fur bearing animals; ”How to launch a business saving wildlife from the hands of “pest control."

Each year, millions of furbearing animals are killed under the auspices of "nuisance wildlife control" and millions more are killed in the name of fashion. Indiscriminate body-crushing traps are used to capture and kill furbearing animals who are deemed a "nuisance" or who are valued only for the fur on their backs. Fur-bearing animals are also killed by “bloodsports” like hunting and penning. It is important for the public to be aware of these practices, and to take action.  The AFS Conference panels kick off with an in-depth focus on fur-bearing animals. This panel of animal welfare experts will discuss trapping, the fur industry, the practices of hunting and penning fur-bearing animals, and proactive anti-fur advocacy. More information to be added soon.

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Strategy and Message Development For Animal Advocacy

Description: Do you want to get better results for animals from your campaigns, programs, or outreach? If so, join us to discover the secrets to creating communications that motivate positive change. You'll learn what happens behind the scenes to craft strategy and messages that influence people and win campaigns. Find out what you must know before you develop talking points, flyers, brochures, ads, tabling displays, websites, blogs, or other social media.

Part 1: Strategy defined

- The elements of campaign strategy

Part 2: The Persuasion Game

- Message defined

- The elements of a winning campaign message

- Message development 101: how do you create a message for your animal protection campaign?

Part 3: Public Opinon

- You can't move public opinion unless you understand what the public thinks and feels

- What are the public opinion trends?

- What does the polling and focus group research say?

Part 4: Case Study

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INTERNATIONAL: South Africa: Fur issues, Vivisection; South Korea: The first anti-fur movement, first faux-fur fashion; dogmeat; China: First ever NO-fur movement; current progress of animal groups in China; Absence of animal protection laws; China's first ever NO-fur movement; The rescue of thousands of cats and dogs destined for food & fur .

INTERNATIONAL SKYPE SESSION INTERVIEW with Special Anti-Fur Activists from Israel & Chile

VIVISECTION:  Exposing & eliminating the waste of tax dollars for

                     unnecessary research/testing.

Cosmetics Safety and Policy:

A brief overview of how cosmetics are regulated in the US, then detail the problems with using animals to test for safety. I move into a short discussion of nonanimal methods and then give an international policy perspective for the issue, including the on-going state of cosmetics reform in the US. Audience members will walk away with a better understanding of how animals are used in cosmetics manufacturing, what other countries around the world are doing about it, as well as what they personally can do about the issue.

UNITED POULTRY CONCERNS: Chicken abbatoirs; The Foie gras/Down Connection; feathers in fashion

Panel: Horse exploitation: The Great Betrayal

           (1) Horse Slaughter and the destruction of the Mustangs:  Holland

           (2) The horse industry:    Allen

Equines fill a bewildering breadth of roles in our society. We use horses for racing, showing, carriage rides, rodeo, recreational riding, companion animals and many other purposes. Therefore, assuring their welfare is an equally complex issue.  It should be no surprise that this diversity leads to controversy in their treatment. At the heart of the issue is whether equines should be treated as livestock or provided the relative protection given companion animals. The one connecting thread between all of these horses is horse slaughter. Its presence determines the fate of horses from every one of these categories and in the past decade horse slaughter has gone from a “secret” to the subject of widespread controversy and enormous disinformation. The horse slaughter panel will provide a historical and statistical perspective on the history of slaughter from the early 1990s through the closing of the US horse slaughter plants in 2007 and up to today. It will show that the closings did not slow the slaughter of US horses, but merely sent them to Mexico and Canada for slaughter. As if not bad enough, an illegal slaughter industry has developed in Florida. Having shown this context, experts in several different aspects of equine welfare will present unique insight into their fields of expertise. Attendees will see the true life and fate of carriage horses; what goes on behind the scenes at some rodeos; how even horses with good homes are stolen for slaughter; and finally the fate that awaits many of these horses at a Mexican slaughter plant or an illegal backyard slaughter operation.

Panel:  The Non-humans of China

            (1)  Helping stray animals in China: TBA

            (2)  Other animal issues in China:  TBA

The Panel on Chinese animals is composed of animal caring groups in China who are dedicating themselves to save lives of stray animals as well as educate people on how to care for their companion animals.  Compassionate Chinese citizens are coming together  against all odds to bring about changes for animals in China.  The Anti-Fur Society has been working directly with these grassroots groups, and the progress made towards helping animals are indeed worth our applause.  Please check our website where some of the groups associated with AFS are listed, and more to be added soon: www.people4chineseanimals.org   The group will be speaking specifically about their work in China regarding rescuing stray animals, TNR and educating the public. But most importantly, they are a part of a huge growth of animal rights in China and their immense effort to bring in changes and animal protection laws code.  One of the speakers, Michael Zhao has produced a documentary on animal caring citizens who sacrifice all they have to take care of animals.  It is a very well made documentary and will give the viewers a picture of the current struggle to help animals in the Chinese society.

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

I.  Advocating Effectively for Chickens and Turkeys Bred for Meat Production: Bringing Their Hidden Suffering to Light

A fundamental difficulty in drawing public attention to the plight of factory-farmed animals is that virtually every situation in which they appear is a mass situation. Except for the “veal” calf, whose solitary confinement stall and large sad eyes draw attention to him- or herself as a desolate individual, all that most people see looking at animal factories are endless rows of battery-cages, wall-to-wall turkeys, thousands of chickens or pigs, a muddy feedlot filled with countless cattle. They hear deathly silence or indistinguishable “noise.” They see a brownish sea of bodies without conflict, plot or endpoint.

To the public eye, the sheer number and expanse of animals surrounded by metal, wires, dung, dander and dust renders them invisible and impersonal. Their misery is not even minimally grasped by most viewers, who are not socialized to perceive “food” animals as sensitive individuals with projects of their own of which they have been stripped.

The problem is most evident with “broiler” chickens and turkeys raised for meat. Unlike the more “dramatic” suffering of hens beating their wings against cage bars or of ducks having metal tubes rammed down their throats, the suffering of broiler chickens and turkeys is hidden inside their bodies within the vast anonymous compounds in which they are confined. A reporter for The Guardian described broiler chickens in a chicken house he visited as “a sea of stationary grey objects.”

In my talk I will present ways in which animal advocates can help bring the hidden suffering of “meat-type” birds into public consciousness, with a stress on the unnatural burden of suffering these birds embody – skeletal, metabolic, and genetic. My talk will include images of the contrast between normal chickens and turkeys and genetically-altered “meat-type” birds.

II.                Can the “Golden Age” of “Humane Meat” Be Reclaimed?

Appalled by the cruelty and environmental degradation of industrialized animal farming, many people are calling for a return to traditional models of animal production as a humane solution to factory farming. They propose a modernized Golden Age of “compassionate” farming, in which farmers treat the land and the animals they raise and slaughter with “respect.” Thus The New York Times editorialized in “A Humane Egg” on July 11, 2010: “Animals with more space are healthier, and they are no less productive. Industrial confinement is cruel and senseless and will turn out to be, we hope, a relatively short-lived anomaly in modern farming.”

I will discuss the argument for “humane” farming from three main points of view:  environmental, ethical, and practical. First, I’ll address the claim that smaller farms are environmentally friendlier than large industrial farms. Second, I’ll discuss the ethics of bringing animals into the world simply to be eaten and exploited by us. Third, I’ll discuss the realities of backyard and “small-scale” poultry and egg farming, using as examples two relatively small-scale farms in Virginia: Polyface and Black Eagle.   

III.             Moving Beyond the Rhetoric of Apology for Animal Right to Affirmative Activism

In order to avoid contributing to some of the very attitudes toward other animals that we seek to change, we need to ask fundamental questions about the way that we, as advocates for animals, actually conceive of them. One question concerns our tendency to deprecate ourselves, the animals, and our goals when speaking before the public and the press. Often we “apologize” for animals and our feelings for them, as epitomized by the “I know I sound crazy for caring about a chicken, but . . .” or “I know most people think chickens are stupid, but . . .” or “even though other animals aren’t as smart as we are . . .”

If we find ourselves “apologizing” for other animals and our advocacy on their behalf, we need to ask ourselves why. Is it an expression of self-doubt? A deliberate strategy? In my talk I will give eight examples of the “rhetoric of apology in animal rights” and eight examples of the “rhetoric of affirmation” in animal rights.  

IV.             Guide to Staffing Tables & Leafleting for Animal Rights & Vegan Advocacy

Since we generally have little time to spend with each particular person when staffing a table or leafleting on the street, we must strive to make as much of our time as possible. We must project a positive image of ourselves and our cause, engage in effective verbal communication, and demonstrate our knowledge of our subject. In my talk, I will present Five Do’s and Five Don’ts of effective leafleting and tabling, starting with the admonition to READ the information you are passing out to the public and NEVER distribute literature that you have not personally read and agreed with. I will begin with two basic questions to the audience: How many of you actually sit down and read the literature you are handing out to the public before handing it out? If you don’t read the literature you are putting into other people’s hands, why don’t you?