For a wild octopus yearning to stretch her arms beyond impassable blades of Astroturf and glide off into the depths of the Pacific, any farm is a factory farm. And by positing itself as an octo-friend, a champion of the seas, an environmental savior, Hawaii's octopus farm obscures its role in building this new industrial machine and setting us on an uncharted course we can’t ever come back from.
If you got a COVID vaccine, or any vaccine—or really any medical intervention over the past several decades—you can be sure that the blue blood of 450-million-year-old prehistoric arthropods known as horseshoe crabs was used to keep you safe. But in the U.S., lurking behind this magic potion is a fragile industry stubbornly dependent upon the traumatic bloodletting of a vulnerable species, compounded by a sea of red tape thwarting the widespread adoption of a viable alternative.
It's been a rough week--well, year. After days on end of activism in response to brutal headlines, sometimes you need a breather. These sea puppies are the answer.
Saltwater aquariums, though prized for their glorious colors and living reefs, are a massive undertaking. And the havoc the exotic fish trade wreaks on tropical sea life is no secret. But for people who are itching to adorn their homes with vibrant fish, science came up with an easy solution: fluorescent freshwater fish. And the pet industry lapped it up--but at what cost?
He was supposed to live 70 years. Instead, as he traveled to his forever home in paradise, a series of mistakes and, ultimately, negligence killed him.
At the door of a Maryland townhouse, I stood in the rain as a man thrust a plastic container into my hands. I ran back to the car, dripping, and hopped in. There, we opened the lid—and we were immediately floored by a pungent odor much like that of a fishing pier. I was pretty … Continue reading All She Had Was This Plastic Cage and Some Pebbles
His name is Scott David. But in 2015, when millions laid eyes on the footage he collected inside Quality Pork Processors (QPP), one of the fastest pig-killing facilities in the country, he was known to the public only as "Jay," an anonymous undercover investigator for Compassion Over Killing (COK)
