Want to use your skills to make a difference for farmed animals? Know someone whose experience would be a great fit? Applications for this exciting job are due by 3 p.m. on June 8. Read on for the full details and how to apply.
Position Overview
Compassionate Action for Animals (CAA) is currently hiring a 10-hours-per-week Program Assistant to begin in February 2022, with a pay rate of $15 per hour. This role offers an opportunity to expand advocacy for farmed animals in the Twin Cities metro and greater Minnesota. This position can be done entirely in the CAA office and at event locations, or can be done as a hybrid of office, home, and on-location work.
As the Executive Director of Minnesota’s largest farmed animal advocacy organization, I can’t help but reflect on the ways my experience of isolation following a positive COVID test is similar and different to the life of a turkey raised for the Thanksgiving table. To help us picture an individual, I’ll use the name Big Tom. I got this name from the name of the giant sculpted turkey outside of Frazee, MN. (Why is the sculpture there? Minnesota produces 45 million turkeys a year, more than any other state). Here I’ll describe the life of the Big Tom who lives in one of the sheds just off Minnesota Highway 10.
Big Tom and I are both closed off from the rest of the world. I have to be alone, but I’m in my comfortable room. My isolation lasts only ten days. My family helps from beyond the door. Big Tom has been in the same windowless shed since he was a young poult. Rather than being alone, he’s with thousands of other birds.The only light he gets is artificial, turned on to encourage him to eat, but kept low to discourage fighting with the stressed males around him. Droppings aren’t cleaned until after the turkeys leave for slaughter, so after four months, it reeks of ammonia despite the ventilation.
Big Tom gets disease protection from the antibiotics in his feed, a practice which also weakens the protection humans get from antibiotics. (In 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) released guidelines calling for the elimination of routine use of antibiotics in food-producing animals, including for disease prevention purposes, but the U.S. has taken no action.)
But those antibiotics won’t protect him from the virus stalking him: bird flu. Bird Flu is now starting to outbreak in Europe and Asia. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/15/bird-flu-europe-asia) Frighteningly, it could become our next pandemic as well. The CDC is already preparing. (https://www.precisionvaccinations.com/us-cdc-prepares-potential-bird-flu-outbreak)
Many of us here in Minnesota get to see turkeys in the wild, and know they generally live in groups. Mothers and their young band together, living communally. This is a bit like my multi-generational household: all of us get more adults to share the responsibility of raising the young. Turkeys like Big Tom don’t get maternal care, however, just an incubator replaced by a shed filled with other un-mothered young like themselves.
Big Tom’s food and water wouldn’t vary, but would be steady. Because, of course, the point is for Big Tom to grow, and grow fast. If a human baby grew at the same rate as Big Tom, it would weigh 1,500 pounds by the age of 18 weeks!
Due to this high rate of growth, Big Tom is at high risk for abnormal gait, hip lesions, and skeletal disease. And if these issues eventually make it hard for him to get to his food and drink? Well, vet care for these issues isn’t cost effective, and losses are part of the business model.
Penny, who lived at Spring Farm Sanctuary, in Long Lake, got to live a very different life. There, his cognition, emotions, personality, and sociality were valued. His caregivers knew how to read her emotions by looking at his snood (the piece of flesh that dangles a bit over and alongside the beak). He could be with other birds and humans when he wished or retreat to his own private space of his own choosing, just like I can when not in isolation.
Due to antibiotics, bird flu, and the damage being done to human health by the overconsumption of animal products, our well being and that of Minnesota 45 million turkeys are intertwined. Processed turkey (cold cuts) have been determined to be a carcinogen by the World Health Organization (https://www.iarc.who.int/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/pr240_E.pdf). Research shows that leaving Big Tom off our plate is likely to improve our personal health– now, not just in a future in which we are able to count on antibiotics and don’t suffer a bird flu pandemic.
According to the American Dietetic Association, shifting plant-based can help slow or reverse issues like heart disease and diabetes. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19562864/). Many consumers are making the change, with the Hartman group reporting that nearly half of consumers look for foods labeled “plant-based” when shopping. (https://www.ift.org/news-and-publications/food-technology-magazine/issues/2021/august/columns/consumer-trends-plant-based-food-market)
As we approach this Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for my returning health, my family, and wealth of delicious plant-based dishes that can help us to spare Big Tom from a lifetime of suffering by leaving him off our plates.
CAA Community Organizer Tamuno Imbu has just built a new partnership to serve youth of color with The Link. The Link was founded in 1991 by two local Black leaders and former Minnesota Vikings players, Jim Marshall and Oscar Reed. The organization was established to help youth on the Northside of Minneapolis who were struggling with poverty, homelessness, getting victimized by crime or recruited into criminal activity. Grounded in community, The Link’s driving philosophy was to do “whatever it took” to help young people on the Northside.
The chefs and founders of Reverie, Kirsten Wiegmann and Jeffery Therkelsen, are the official Twin Cities Vegan Chef Challenge Champions. Kirsten and Jeff were awarded a $150 cash prize and certificate, presented at a special online ceremony on March 20.
I’m delighted to share that our hiring committee has selected a new Communications Coordinator: Sandy Hitchin!
Help us spread the veg love by making a #snaptheveg video and posting it on social! We’ll choose one person each week to win a $25 gift certificate to the Camden Farmer’s Market. Check out our sample video and directions below.
I’m delighted to share that, thanks to support from Animal Charity Evaluators’ Effective Animal Advocacy Fund, we are adding a community organizer to our staff: Tamuno Imbu!
It is well documented that the outbreak of COVID-19 came from our treatment of animals.
The disease transferred from animals to humans at a meat market.
Our current worldwide focus is, sensibly, on slowing down the virus’s rapid spread. We would also be wise to lay the groundwork for the return to a healthier world.
Do you have connections to and experience working with communities of color in the Twin Cities? Do you live a plant-based lifestyle? Then this position may be for you!
Read on for the full details and how to apply.
