114 rabbits were confiscated from a bunny mill in November of 2011. Many of the rabbits were living outside in the cold and rain, with no food and water, living in their own filth. Domesticated rabbits that live outdoors commonly fall victim to extremes in temperature, predator attack and a number of other life-threatening ailments. Though these rabbits were intended to be sold as pets, breeding rabbits in mills is [...]
In Oakland, where officials are now overseeing a zoning update for urban agriculture, interest groups are preparing for a bloody battle. As anyone who reads Marion Nestle knows, industrial food thrives on obscuring the truth. Exaggerated health claims, selective labeling, and misleading scientific qualifications underscore the sad reality of big food’s habit of obfuscation, a habit that refuses to let accuracy interfere with profit. Given the depth of this problem, [...]
CBS5 San Francisco reports on the Oakland Planning Department’s crusade to legalize backyard slaughter in the city. Is selling rabbit pot pies out of your backyard a human right? Colleen Patrick-Goudreau featured in this segment, explaining the reasons to keep urban farming policy as it is — crops only.
And locals aren’t the only ones appalled. The Oakland planning proposal to deregulate animal slaughter and officially sanction backyard “husbandry” is the focus of James McWilliams’ blistering critique in The Atlantic. It turns out that reconstructing the city’s yards and vacant lots as “sustainable” animal farms and urban “homesteads” is a bit problematic. (Warning: some descriptions are graphic.) Judging from the comments, the proposal is just as contentious outside the [...]
When a neighbor heard the screams, she panicked thinking a child had been injured. She raced to her backyard and looked frantically for the source of the blood-curdling cry. Peering over the fence, she was horrified to find a man restraining a piglet, blade raised to cut her neck. For months, she had snuck the piglet treats, fascinated by the idea of having a farm animal in her urban neighborhood. [...]
Maxwell the rooster, had been living for a month or two on the median at the Oakland I-580 offramp at MacArthur/Mills. Someone likely was living with Maxwell in their backyard, but dumped this young rooster when he started crowing and it became obvious that he was not a hen. At the freeway offramp, Maxwell made a roost in the lower branches of a small tree, and would come down the [...]
On July 21, in a darkened auditorium adjacent to the elevated BART tracks at 57th and MLK, the Oakland Planning Department held a community workshop on urban agriculture. With 300 plus attendees clamoring to shout above one another, the loudest voices dominated the discussion, and other perspectives were silenced without redress. The goal? To “build community” and to incorporate “issues of concern” surrounding urban agriculture. The outcome? Failure on both [...]
Kiko is a delightfully sweet and friendly rabbit – you would never know that just days ago, she was rescued from a storage unit in the backyard of an apartment building in Oakland, where she was being raised for meat, and had been fed nothing but white rice. She was one of 21 rabbits confiscated by the East Bay SPCA and Oakland Animal Services. They were found in inhumane conditions, [...]
With access to healthful fruits and vegetables lacking in many areas of Oakland, the city is modifying its zoning regulations to make it easier for people to grow and sell edible plants. As an urban gardener in Oakland, I support these changes 110 percent. The problem is that some are also pushing the city to allow for animal farming and slaughter, and some people have already begun killing animals illegally. [...]
KRON 4 television broadcast from June 1st, 2011 showing the horrible conditions that one Oakland animal farmer kept rabbits in, with the intent to slaughter them for food. More information about the confiscation is available via Oakland Animal Services. Below are photos taken on the day of the bust by animal control officers.
