The Problem with Orcas in Captivity

Orcas have long been a topic of controversy at Seaworld due to their inhumane treatment and the physical toll taken on their health because of it. Over recent years small changes have been made in favor of animal welfare, however, Seaworld has faced controversy with claims that these decisions are purely profit-driven, and drastic enough changes to animal welfare have not yet been made. 

Image credit; Seaworld to End Theatrical Killer Whale Show

Orca Behavior in the Wild 

Orcas are extremely social, traveling and hunting in pods of up to 40. Females carry babies for 17 months and often nurse for up to 2 years, then waiting between 3 and 10 years to breed again. Orcas are extremely intelligent and communicate using echolocation and sounds that are recognized by other members of the pod. Orcas eat a very diverse diet of different types of fish, squids, penguins and other ocean mammals. This diet is often not well mimicked in captivity, leading to health problems. In addition to a diverse diet, Orcas swim up to 40 miles a day and dive anywhere between 100 and 500 feet a day, several times a day. Orcas in captivity do not have access to enough room to mimic this natural behavior. 

Orca Reproduction in Captivity

Capturing Orcas from the wild has been illegal since 1972, resulting in Seaworld breeding animals in captivity. In the wild female orcas begin reproducing around age 15, however, in captivity females as young as 8 have been reported pregnant. Females typically breed every 3 to 10 years, however, in captivity, they are artificially inseminated to breed constantly. There have also been reported problems of inbreeding between animals.

As of 2016 Seaworld has reported that it will no longer be breeding Orcas, and the current Orcas at Seaworld will be the last ones. Although this can be seen as a large step in the right direction for animal welfare, it should not be overlooked that this decision is likely profit-based. Stocks and profits at Seaworld have plummeted in recent years due to controversy over animal welfare mainly caused by the “Blackfish” documentary.  Profits would have continued to plummet if changes were not made, and Seaworld has worked to make as little change as possible while maintaining profits. 

We understand some customers are upset and you may feel betrayed, but in a simple way, the data and trends showed it was either a SeaWorld without whales or a world without SeaWorld,” he said. “We are an organization that needs to have cash flow to [succeed] and unfortunately, the trends were not in our favor.” -Seaworld CEO Joel Manby

SeaWorld Explains Why It Stopped Breeding Orcas

Orca Health in Captivity 

In captivity, Orcas are often plagued with numerous health problems. Most commonly, male Orcas develop collapsed dorsal fins, most likely as a result of not being able to mimic their natural swimming patterns while in captivity. Additionally, Orcas develop severe teeth issues due to grinding their teeth against their tanks out of stress and attempts to escape. This causes severe nerve damage and infection that is often preemptively treated with antibiotics, leading to antibiotic resistance. 

The main cause of Orca death in captivity is from Pneumonia and similar infections that cannot be cured with antibiotics due to antibiotic resistance. These health problems are rarely seen in the wild, and almost never seen to this extreme. Until recently it was widely believed that Orcas were only expected to live until age 30, however, their maximum lifespan is actually closer to 60 or 70. At Seaworld, Orcas have an average lifespan of 14. 

Seventy orcas have been born in captivity around the world since 1977 (not counting another 30 that were stillborn or died in utero), according to records in two databases maintained by cetacean experts. Thirty-seven of them, including Kayla, are now dead. Only a handful of wild-caught orcas have lived past age 30. No captive-born orca yet has.”

Orcas don’t do well in captivity. Here’s why.

Although Seaworld has made changes there are still many animal welfare issues that go on behind close doors involving many different animals. Former Seaworld employees reported that all decisions are made by corporate, and are profit-driven. One former employee has reported that when trainers speak out against animal cruelty they are fired. This treatment of animals and lower-level employees is a result of corporate greed with one thing in mind: making as much money as possible. 

Sources


Is Treated Lumber Safe For Food Gardens? Maybe…

Pressure-treated wood is rot and insect resistant. It’s typically used for decks, mailbox posts, light posts, playgrounds, utility polls, picnic tables, home building foundations, and much more. Pressure-treating wood saturates wood under pressure with a chemical preservative. Wood that is pressure-treated can last many years when in contact with concrete and dirt where other wood would begin to rot. (image credit)

If you’re like me, you’ve wished you could use reclaimed pressure treated lumber for a garden bed to grow food in. I had heard that pressure-treated lumber was too toxic to be near food but there were two discarded utility poles in my neighborhood that I wanted to use in my urban farm. So I did some research, and I found out that I definitely do not want to use those utility poles! But I also found out that pressure-treated wood produced more recently is probably perfectly safe to use.

Until the early 2000s, pressure-treated wood was typically treated with chromated copper arsenate (CCA), which is an extremely toxic chemical. Arsenic is easily absorbed into the body but it does not exit the body nearly as easily. Those utility poles I wanted were made this way. You shouldn’t even touch utility poles.

If pressure-treated wood has a greenish tint to it, as utility poles often do, then it has been pressure-treated with CCA. Utility poles are still usually treated with CCA.

Recommended: How To Heal Your Gut 

In 2002, after growing concern due to studies and questions raised about CCA toxicity, the EPA pushed lumber manufacturers to find a non-arsenic based formula to treat lumber. In late 2003, CCA manufacturers voluntarily ended the use of CCA in residential wood products. Manufacturers switched to using copper and chromium-based chemical preservatives. The two main types of treatment for residential construction today are copper quat (ACQ) and copper azole (CA).

ACQ is said to have very little relative risk. Research was done to determine how much of the chemical a person could conceivably touch and then put in their mouth. Results showed that ACQ-treated wood is non-toxic to skin as well as any normal oral exposure. Other studies have shown that copper can leach from the wood but we need more research on this to know if it has a toxic effect on the environment. ACQ wood has problems with corrosion so be careful to choose screws and other metal fasteners, wisely.

Copper azole treatments contain copper, boric acid, and tebuconazole (type B does not contain boric acid). CA is a water-based preservative that can be cleaned and painted.

Copper Azole and Alkaline copper quaternary treatments both contain a fungicide. The copper deters insects and the fungicide prevents soil rotting the lumber.  

Is ACQ and CA Pressure Treated Lumber Safe?

Safer, for sure. Manufacturers are confident, of course, that these treatments pose no health or environmental problems. I think that the risks with CA and ACQ pressure-treated wood are minimal. Research is ongoing. What I can say is that I would much rather eat food from my own garden grown with ACQ or CA pressure-treated wood over anything I’d get in the grocery store. But I really like to use reclaimed wood. In fact, most of the wood I use is reclaimed, and I’m guessing at least half of the treated lumber I get is more than 20 years old.

If you want to grow the healthiest, best organic food possible it’s probably not a good idea to use any kind of pressure-treated lumber.

If you just found out that your raised garden bed was made with arsenic-treated wood, if rebuilding is not an option, know that plants will not absorb arsenic when they have enough phosphorous.

Sources:


Google and Amazon are now in the oil business

Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have long touted the need to reduce the use of fossil fuels. These tech companies, along with their bought-and-paid-for neo-liberal politicians, led many of us to believe that big tech’s AI is the hero we need to save us from climate disaster.

Times have changed. Shareholders want more. The Wall Street Journal and Gizmodo have reported that these three companies are deeply invested with the fossil fuel industry, attempting “to help them squeeze as much oil and gas out of the ground as possible,” and they’re using artificial intelligence to do that.

Remember when Google got too big and too pragmatic for that silly “Don’t be evil” phrase for their code of conduct?

In 2018, the oil and gas industries spent an estimated $1.75 billion on AI — a sum that is projected to balloon to $4 billion by 2025. To get their piece of that pie, big tech companies are developing AI for oil companies, even as they publicly celebrate their sustainable initiatives.

Adam Cole, Vox

Vox asks you to join the Open Sourced Reporting Network to help us report on the real consequences of data, privacy, algorithms, and AI.



France Bans Three Dozen Glyphosate-Based Products

The French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety has taken away the marketing licenses for 36 glyphosate-based products. The products will no longer be available for purchase in France, which accounts for almost three-quarters of glyphosate products sold in France. Several Roundup products are included on the list, another blow to pharmaceutical giant Bayer. France is not the only country to ban glyphosate-based products recently, as there is increasing scrutiny on the herbicide worldwide.

Bayer Problems

Since Bayer acquired Monsanto in June 2018, public questioning of glyphosate has drastically increased. The company has been on the losing side of three major decisions in the U.S., with the initial payout amounts totaling more than 2 billion USD (the awards would later be reduced by judges).

Increasing Bans

France is the European Union’s largest producer of cereals, poultry, beef, and wine. Losing a large portion of business from French farmers is not ideal for Bayer, but bans or restrictions on glyphosate are becoming a more common occurrence. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a group of nations in the Middle East consisting of Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has banned the chemical completely since last year. Austria is the first European country to approve a total ban of glyphosate while Germany has announced plans for total bans in the future. Several smaller municipalities around the world have enacted restrictions on public and non-commercial use of glyphosate.

The United States is not included in the number of countries planning to limit glyphosate usage. Quite the opposite, actually. When the government of Thailand announced plans to ban glyphosate on December 1st, U.S. officials warned that the regulations would interfere with grain trade, as U.S. crops are heavily sprayed with that herbicide. Once again, the U.S. government puts profit over citizen health, even over those in other nations.

Sources:


Air Pollution Linked to Higher Number of Hospitalizations for Blood, Skin, and Kidney Conditions

Scientists all over the world are becoming increasingly aware of the damage air pollution does to human health, and a new study from researchers at Harvard has found a link between airborne fine particulate matter and increased hospitalizations for common blood, skin, and kidney conditions. Researchers saw higher instances of hospitalizations for septicemia, urinary tract infections, kidney failure, skin and other tissue infections, and electrolyte disorders. The biggest culprit here is PM2.5, extremely fine particulate matter generated by fossil fuel combustion, power plants, airplanes, wildfires, and other combustion reactions. The study also determined that a little goes a long way. Scientists saw hospitalization numbers rise, even with short-term exposure and at PM2.5 levels lower than current World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.

Recommended: Holistic Guide to Healing the Endocrine System and Balancing Our Hormones

PM2.5?

PM2.5 is defined as particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter. The smallest particles visible to the human eye are 50 micrometers, and at 2.5 micrometers, these particular particulates are smaller than pollen, plant, or mold spores. Due to their tiny size, these particles bypass the nose and throat, settling in the lungs or even circulatory system. Long-term exposure to PM2.5 can result in heart disease, stroke, asthma, and chronic kidney disease, among other conditions.

Air Conditions

American air quality is greatly improved over the last twenty years. PM2.5 levels, in particular, have dropped 39 percent since 2000. That will likely change, as the Trump administration continues to undermine the Clean Air Act. Recent attempts have moved to disregard methane emissions from power plants, rollback mandates that require states to minimize smog production, and challenge zero-emissions vehicle standards in California. This study and countless others have made the case that this will not be good for our health.

Recommended: How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut 

According to the WHO, 7 million people die each year from conditions caused or exacerbated by fine particle matter in the air. The United States has remained relatively unscathed, but if air quality standards are relaxed, that could change very quickly.

Sources:


Four out of Five Samples of Walmart Pork Contained Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria

In a recent report released by World Animal Protection (WAP) entitled U.S. Pork and the Superbug Crises, 80 percent of the samples tested from Walmart Stores in the Mid-Atlantic region contained bacteria resistant to at least one antibiotic. On the samples that tested positive for antibiotic-resistant (AR) bacteria, 37 percent exhibited resistance to at least three classes of antibiotics. More than a quarter of AR bacteria found on Walmart pork was resistant to Highest Priority Critically Important Antimicrobials (HPCIA), the treatments the World Health Organization (WHO) has determined to be the most essential for human medicine. WAP concludes their report…

This retail pork testing revealed the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria on pork products. The findings complement strong existing research on how excessive antibiotics use on farms is creating the conditions for superbugs to thrive, and the opportunities for transmission to the food chain.”

Sad Walmart

Researchers began with a total of 160 pork samples, 80 of them purchased from a number of different Mid-Atlantic Walmart locations and 80 from a competing national retailer. After dividing samples into 32 batches and testing them at a Texas Tech University Laboratory, they found Enterococcus in 27 batches, E. coli in 14 batches, Salmonella in six batches, and Listeria in four batches. 41 of those 51 bacteria were resistant to at least one class of a medically important antibiotic. 21 were multi-drug resistant (resistant to three or more classes), and three bacteria were resistant to six classes of antibiotics.

Recommended: How To Heal Your Gut 

Samples of Walmart pork were more likely to test positive for two or more bacteria in a batch than the other national retailer. All of the batches that had three or more bacteria were obtained from Walmart. All of the seven strains of bacteria displaying resistance to the WHO’s highest priority antimicrobials were found on Walmart pork samples. We reached out to Walmart in regards to this report. According to Blair Cromwell, a senior manager for Global Responsibility Communications at Walmart’s Corporate Affairs,

We don’t agree with their findings. To my knowledge, we really don’t have a record of them reaching out to us.

The company also released an official statement in regards to their Swine Assurance Program.

“Walmart and Sam’s Club are committed to providing our customers with access to safe, affordable, and sustainable food as well as promoting the humane treatment of animals.  We only accept fresh pork from animals raised under the standards of the National Pork Board’s (NPB’s) Pork Quality Assurance (PQA) Plus Program.

Sad Hogs

Pigs destined for the American supermarket are not treated well. Sows spend their frequent pregnancies confined to small gestation crates, piglets often have their tails docked, ears notched, and teeth removed without anesthesia, and unsanitary living conditions leave factory-farmed pigs susceptible to a wide range of infections. These are among the reasons that factory-farmed pigs in the U.S. are given almost as many antibiotics as people (27.1 percent for pigs, 27.6 for people). The 75 million factory-farmed pigs consume the same amount of antibiotics as 375 million people.

Related: Stop Eating Like That and Start Eating Like This – Your Guide to Homeostasis Through Diet

Sad Truths

This is not a new problem. Sulfonamides, the first effective antimicrobials, were introduced in 1937, and resistance to that treatment was reported before the end of that same decade. This problem has been happening since the beginning of antimicrobials. Yet here we are, repeating the same process over again.

Depending on your sources, 70 to more than 80 percent of antibiotics sold in the U.S. are destined for food animals. The flagrant use of these drugs has been a huge factor in the development of AR bacteria and the resulting health crises the world faces. If something doesn’t change, these microbes will kill an additional 10 million people a year by 2050. We are perilously close to being out of time.

Sources:


Bayer See an Increase in Lawsuits After Glyphosate Verdicts

The numbers are in! Lawsuits against the world’s most popular herbicide, Round-up, have increased dramatically from 18,400 cases in July to 42,000 cases in October.

German company Bayer AG purchased agricultural behemoth Monsanto in June of 2018, and since then the pharmaceutical company has suffered three significant losses in rulings against glyphosate. Due to these, Bayer has seen a significant rise in the number of claims filed against the herbicide. The company comments in a statement shared with Reuters…

With the substantial increase in plaintiff advertising this year, we expect to see a significant surge in the number of plaintiff filings over the third quarter.”

Related: How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut 

In Order

The first verdict was bit of a shock.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate, the active ingredient in Round-up, as “probably carcinogenic in humans” in March of 2015. The United States federal government, especially the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), doesn’t agree with that status. When the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment declared glyphosate as carcinogenic to humans, the EPA went as far as to issue a news release to notify companies that the agency would not approve product labels stating that glyphosate causes cancer. In light of that opposition, arguing to a jury that the herbicide causes cancer when the federal government disagrees would be a fool’s errand. Yet Dewayne Johnson received a verdict for $289 million dollars in San Francisco County superior court in August 2018 (that award would later be cut down to $78 million). Lawyers estimate that Bayer’s brand new acquisition is facing 4,000 similar cases.

Related: Foods Most Likely to Contain Glyphosate

Those numbers didn’t seem to bother the company. CEO Werner Baumann went on various news shows in February 2019 to discuss the company’s 2018 stats and reported positive results. During a CNBC interview, Baumann said the company was optimistic looking into 2019. According to the interviewer, Bayer was facing 11,000 lawsuits.

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/02/27/bayer-ceo-says-company-is-confident-about-growth-in-2019.html

It seems Baumann’s optimism was misplaced, as Bayer lost another California lawsuit during March of 2019. The plaintiff was awarded $80 million (that amount would later be reduced by the presiding judge to $26 million). This decision had clear consequences. Retail giant Costco stopped selling Round-up, and Bayer stock prices dropped almost $4,000 in less than two weeks.

May 2019 brought another verdict against the company. The amount of money awarded to the two plaintiffs increased significantly, with the jury awarding each person $1 billion in damages (that sum would later be reduced by a different judge to $86.7 million). Bayer’s second-quarter report in July 2019 stated that there were 18,400 lawsuits in regard to glyphosate and cancer.

Now we have over 42,000 people involved in lawsuits against Bayer and glyphosate. The number of glyphosate lawsuits has more than doubled in the past four months. The judge presiding over the second verdict against Bayer, Vince Chhabria has mandated confidential mediation aimed at settling the 900 cases he currently oversees, but it is unlikely that will be enough to slow down the number of lawsuits accumulating.

Related: Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections 

Decisions

This doesn’t seem like a big deal. There have only been three verdicts against the company. While juries awarded the plaintiffs substantial amounts, all three judgments have been later reduced. Bayer seems to have accepted this as the cost of doing business.

The increase in lawsuits against glyphosate is a positive thing. It’s a necessary thing. But it isn’t nearly enough. Roundup has been on the market since 1974. The amount of plaintiffs seems small when you consider the damage that had been done by forty-five years of using this product. Even more importantly, Bayer won’t care until they see this affect their bottom line – their stock prices. It remains to be seen if that will entice them to do the right thing for the environment and human health.

Sources: