Why I Won’t Be Eating Eggs Anymore

I’ve been thinking about going to an egg-free diet for a while now, and this video and article reifies why I’ll now be doing so:

Hy-Line admitted to the Associated Press that “instantaneous euthanasia” (e.g. grinding up male chicks) is a standard practice and claims that it is also supported by the animal veterinary and scientific community. (Male chicks are less valuable because they can’t lay eggs or be raised quickly enough for meat.) Mercy for Animals estimates that 200 million male chicks are killed annually and United Egg Producers confirmed this figure.

No federal law exists to ensure the humane euthanasia of animals on farms or hatcheries. According to the Humane Society of the United States, even egg farms that sell cage-free eggs, get their hens from hatcheries that kill their male chicks. (This to me is the worst news of all because it means few commercially sold eggs are truly “blood-free.”)

Squirrel Photobomb

I guess the animal kingdom can get in on the fun, too. An account from the photographers:

We had our camera set up on some rocks and were getting ready to take the picture when this curious little ground squirrel appeared, became intrigued with the sound of the focusing camera and popped right into our shot.

Examples of the human form can be found here.

Why Do Animals Masturbate?

Besides the obvious reason, the seldom studied question may relate to the evolution of human physiology:

The recent finding that masturbation improves the quality of human sperm supports the notion that it’s an evolved trait and not merely a byproduct of our physiology. According to a branch of evolutionary theory called “sperm competition” that developed in the late-1960s, natural selection can produce just such a change in reproductive behavior. The theory focuses on polyandrous species—i.e., those in which a single female takes multiple partners and the sperm from several potential fathers might end up competing to fertilize the same egg. Under those conditions, the relative quality of male ejaculate very clearly determines whose genes are passed on to the next generation.