Andy Lally And Spencer Pumpelly Join The Race To Protect Farm Animals

It may seem like an unlikely partnership, but in the race to protect animals from the abuses of factory farms, NASCAR driver Andy Lally and TRG driver Spencer Pumpelly took to the fields of Farm Sanctuary.

“We are excited to have Andy and Spencer’s support and hope their kindness to farm animals will inspire others to do what they can to help protect these terribly abused individuals,” Farm Sanctuary President and Co-Founder Gene Baur said, according to Farm Sanctuary's press release.

The racing champions are both vegan -- they do not consume meat, milk, cheese or eggs and do not wear any animal by-products, such as leather or wool.

“By this point in human evolution, we should be smart enough and kind enough to live without torturing other living beings just so we can enjoy lunch, especially when there are so many delicious plant-based options available,” Lally said.

This was Pumpelly's second visit to the Watkins Glen-based shelter and he said he was "honored to support Farm Sanctuary and the people who are devoted to defending others,” he said, according to the press release.

Many other athletes have spoken up for animal rights. According to PETA, basketball star Dennis Rodman was the first man and first sports star to pose for the organization's "Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" series. Regarding how animals are made into fur coats, Rodman said, "It's heart-wrenching to see what they go through."

Other athletes who have supported PETA initiatives include basketball player Candace Parker, football player Lance Briggs, mixed martial artist Mac Danzig, and basketball player Ron Artest.

One of Farm Sanctuary's most recent campaigns fights against cruel confinement of farm animals. This includes gestational crates. These are two-foot-wide metal enclosures used to keep sows bred to provide piglets to the pork industry, according to Farm Sanctuary.

In June, Mercy For Animals used undercover videos of pork industry animal abuse to pressure large grocery chains to stop buying from abusive farms. The agriculture industry has pushed to make undercover filming of farm animal abuse illegal.

Battery farms are also a focus for Farm Sanctuary. Their website states that more than 280 million egg-laying hens in the U.S. are confined to battery cages. The cages are 16 inches wide and are often packed with four hens, according to Farm Sanctuary.

Last month, Southbury Patch reported the Humane Society of the United States and the United Egg Producers entered a "landmark agreement" to improve the treatment of egg-producing hens.

Farm Sanctuary also targets veal crates. According to the organization, calves raised for veal are prohibited from any movement to produce pale-colored flesh and are raised to deliberately induce borderline anemia. According to The Humane Society, "Dairy farmers separate calves from their mothers within the first few days of birth and often sell them to veal producers who cram them into crates, tethered by their necks for nearly their entire five-month lives. Inside these enclosures, the calves can barely move."

Recently, a number of doctors have taken on the widespread use of antibiotics to treat livestock, which they say can make infections in humans harder to treat.

Farm Sanctuary's Gene Baur said in the press release regarding Lally and Pumpelly's efforts with animal rights, “These compassionate racing champions prove that nice guys finish first."

Comments

[g-moi]

04:20 PM on 08/18/2011

“By this point in human evolution, we should be smart enough and kind enough to live without torturing other living beings just so we can enjoy lunch, especially when there are so many delicious plant-based options available,” Lally said.

What a great statement. I'm with you.

[lrobb]

12:23 PM on 08/18/2011

Humans are genetically wired ominvores whose brains and opposable thumbs put them at the top of the food chain. We require vitamins, like B12, to live which can only be found easily in meat. The optimal amount of meat, fish or poultry for most humans per day, however, is only the size of your clenched fist.

Working to improve the environment in which any meat-producing species is raised and killed for food does not require you to become either a vegan or vegetarian. It requires you to purchase your meat from selected sources outside of a factory farm and publicize the more egregious activities of same.

It also requires you to understand what you are eating. Veal is force fed calf, foie gras is force fed goose, and pigs are more intelligent than and almost as friendly as a Golden Retriever. I would not choose to eat any of these because it offends my sensibilities, but I certainly can't force my distaste on anyone else.

On the other hand, my grandfather ran 1500 head of range-fed Black Angus. I can assure you, there is nothing about one of those steers which would keep me from enjoying a good steak once in a while.

[DenverWilliam]

05:06 PM on 08/17/2011

Im more concerned with factory farms....chickens raised in cages in their own filth. Hogs that never see the light of day. These farms are going to get alot of people and animals sick someday

[wescus]

02:04 PM on 08/17/2011

Never heard of either of them... Maybe if they ate meat they'd have the energy to compete well enough to get some name recognition...

[lrobb]

12:52 PM on 08/17/2011

Shearing a sheep is not torture unless you think the sheep being cool in Summer and humans being warm in Winter is a bad thing. Cows and chickens produce milk and eggs whether we ingest them or not.

Too many people these days have no clue why they are eating much less what. Your choices for a sufficient amount of B12 to support human life are dirt, seaweed or meat. Fish counts. Oysters count a lot.

If you are squeamish about eating "baby chickens" when you scramble an egg, you don't know much about livestock. Hens produce eggs sans roosters just like women produce eggs sans men. You can't buy a fertilized egg from the grocery store.

Stay away from pork, however, unless you want to eat something as intelligent and almost as friendly as a Golden Retriever.

[janalyce]

02:12 PM on 08/17/2011

I think a lot of people don't mind eating meat or eggs. They mind the animals being tortured all their lives.....so that we can eat meat and eggs.

[lrobb]

02:37 PM on 08/17/2011

I don't know about your chickens, but my three ladies of the side yard are far from tortured. They have a rolling henhouse cooled by a muffin fan in summer and heated by an electric bulb in winter. Their house is rolled to a new spot with fresh grass and bugs every four days. They have a suburban middle-class cleaning lady.

They are so afraid of me that when I go "tck, tck, tck..." they cheerfully amble to the fence to see what largess I have brought them. (Rhode Island Reds are extremely friendly and easy to handle besides good layers.)

The neighbors like the little egg gift baskets I send around when we can't use the girls' full production since they are now laying for only two of us. Been keeping chickens for 20 years. Who knew it would become trendy?

[PlzUseYourBrain]

10:42 AM on 08/18/2011

Do soms research. PR departments in any industry are paid to keep dirty laundry away from our passive consumption.

1. That's a naive sense of how most wool is harvested. Humans have reconfigured other species for eons and without regard to the regretful toll on the maniuplated. Wellbeing of animals kept/ bred for specific, lucrative purposes is no more important than it's profitable. Google it -- slower, gentler sheering of reasonably-hairy animals in pretty pasture or quick and bloody sheering of painfully genetic mutants?

2. Milk isn't from rainbows. Why would cows perpetually produce? They must routinely impregnate her, taking resulting offpsring (in spite of stress/ pain resulting from breaking powerful, biologically-rooted drives to bond) over and over until her body's useless for anything but burger patties ... what did you think keeps the veal industry knee-deep in motherless animals?

3. Vegans avoid eating eggs because they're "baby chickens"? Hens produce regardless of presence of fertilizing rooster, so default is no baby. Think of it as delicious, protein-rich ... mucous. I'm fine with unfertilized eggs from happy hens whose wellbeing is unlinked to productivity. Problem is living conditions of laying hens -- in such unnatural proximity as to necessitate "debeaking" so they can't peck each other to death. Go ahead, contact the company to confirm. That's just their beginning.

I'll spare you more blathering -- never actually commented before. Just wanted to ask folks to look into the whole truth and past the cartoonish representation on jug label.

[Blackstonia]

11:47 AM on 08/17/2011

He's totally dreamy, what a package!

[Kenny Torrella]

09:45 AM on 08/17/2011

I couldn't help but going vegan after seeing meatvideo.com... Has anyone else seen it?

[tresluv]

06:25 AM on 08/17/2011

Not a fan of this sport, but good for these guys, and all the other athletes who stand up for humane conditions for farm animals. In my book, these are the "real" men.

[CivilDebate10]

11:14 PM on 08/16/2011

Can't wait for my next steak.. mmmmm

[catlover68]

10:20 PM on 08/16/2011

Real men are kind to all animals & don't eat them....good for them!

[karen lyons kalmenson]

07:22 PM on 08/16/2011

Gentle men, start your engines, and thank you for following a humane route :-D

[Moose Luck 99]

07:11 PM on 08/16/2011

Lally drives a Ford too that is a plus :)

It is great vegans support farm animals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joBsU_W6KGA

http://aircrap.org/

[Davey Johnson]

06:37 PM on 08/16/2011

Lally is one of a new breed of NASCAR drivers coming from the open-wheel, road course world. But he's not the first NASCAR driver to bring some progressivism to the sport.

[Abena in Africa]

06:38 AM on 08/17/2011

I like it!