第2781期:How to end factory farming(3)

And this. This is a trash can full of live baby chicks. I honestly didn't believe this one when I first heard about it. It just sounded like comic-book villain stuff. But it's real. The egg industry has no need for the seven billion male chicks born annually. So it kills them on their first day alive in this world, typically by throwing them in the trash or into a giant meat grinder.还有这个。这是一只装满活小鸡的垃圾桶。老实说，第一次听到这个时，我根本不相信，听起来就像漫画里反派的恶行。但这是真的。蛋类产业对每年出生的大约七十亿只雄性小鸡没有任何用途，因此它们在生命的第一天就被杀死，通常的做法是直接扔进垃圾桶，或丢进巨大的绞肉机。

I could go on, but don't worry, I won't. We're all done with the images.我可以继续讲下去，但别担心，我不会了。关于图片的部分到此为止。

I'm guessing you're not a fan of what you just saw. And you're not alone. Eighty-eight percent of Americans told a recent survey that they think gestation crates and battery cages are unacceptable. Try finding any other issue that 88 percent of Americans can agree on today.我想你对刚才看到的东西一定不喜欢。而你并不孤单。最近一项调查显示，88%的美国人认为妊娠栏和电池笼是不可接受的。如今，你几乎找不到另一个能让88%的美国人达成共识的问题。

It's not surprising, though. We as a society have already decided that animal cruelty is wrong. If you treated your dog the way that a factory farm treats their pigs, you'd be committingfelonyanimal cruelty in most US states.这并不令人意外。作为一个社会，我们早已认定虐待动物是错误的。如果你像工厂化养殖场对待猪那样对待自己的狗，在大多数美国州，你都会被判定为严重的虐待动物罪。

And this isn't just about the animals. Factory farms, which densely crowd together hundreds of thousands, even millions of near genetically identical, immune-compromised individuals, are the perfect breeding grounds for disease. They control these diseases with antibiotics. Tons of them. In fact, even as we face an antibiotic resistance crisis in humans, we are feeding far more antibiotics to farm animals than we use in all human medicine. But antibiotics can't stop viruses, which is why we have a bird-flu pandemic sweeping through America's factory farms right now.而且，这不仅仅关乎动物。工厂化养殖场把几十万、甚至上百万基因几乎相同、免疫力低下的个体挤在一起，这正是疾病的理想温床。它们用抗生素来控制疾病——大量的抗生素。事实上，即使人类正面临抗生素耐药性危机，我们给农场动物喂食的抗生素依然远远超过用于人类医疗的总量。但抗生素无法对抗病毒，这就是为什么如今美国的工厂化养殖场正在爆发禽流感大流行。

After I learned all this, I dedicated my life to ending the worst abuses on factory farms. And the good news is, I've seen more progress in the last decade than in all prior decades combined. On these three practices, we are close to a tipping point.在了解到这些之后，我将自己的一生都投入到终结工厂化养殖中最严重的虐待行为中。好消息是，过去十年里我看到的进展，比之前几十年的总和还要多。在这三种做法上，我们正接近一个转折点。

Take the gestation crates. Advocates have won bans on them in 11 US states, from California to Florida. The Brazilian pork industry, led by giants like JBS, is moving away from the crates entirely.以妊娠栏为例。倡导者已经在美国11个州推动禁用它们，从加州到佛罗里达都有。由JBS等巨头主导的巴西猪肉产业，也正在全面摆脱妊娠栏。

Take the battery cages. Advocates have won promises from the world's largest supermarket and fast food chains to stop sourcing eggs from caged hens. McDonald's is now 100 percent cage-free in its US and Canadian egg supply, and Costco is nearly there too.再说电池笼。倡导者成功让全球最大的超市和快餐连锁企业承诺，不再采购笼养鸡蛋。麦当劳目前在美国和加拿大的鸡蛋供应已完全实现非笼养，Costco也几乎达到了这一标准。

Forty-four percent of US hens are now out of cages, up from less than 10 percent a decade ago.如今，美国有44%的产蛋母鸡已经摆脱了笼养，而十年前，这个数字还不到10%。