"The organization stops short of calling for the elimination of factory farms. "It's not a matter of creating Old McDonald's-type conditions," said Paul Shapiro, who heads the nonprofit's End Factory Farming campaign. "Our goal is to reduce the suffering these animals endure." California's Proposition 2, the 2008 ballot initiative that by 2015 will free egg-laying chickens from their cages, marked the animal protection group's most public and successful foray from its historic campaigns to stop the clubbing of baby seals in Canada and dog fighting and puppy mills in the U.S. The landslide victory came despite threats of higher prices -- anywhere from a penny an egg more to 25 percent more per carton. The animal welfare group has convinced some of the country's largest users -- fast food restaurants such as Wendy's, Burger King, Starbucks and Dennys, and retailers such as Safeway and Costco -- to make at least a gradual switch to cage-free eggs. Red Robin will go totally cage free by the end of 2010".
Probably animal activists may even succeed in "liberating" diary and meat animals also from stressful confinement as it is happening to day. Recent documentary films highlighting the cruelty perpetrated in chicken and meat processing factories in the western countries have captured the imagination of the consumers and it is a question of time before consumer resistance will force the meat industry to improve the current practices that will ensure humane approach while raising and slaughtering the animals.
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