November is World Vegan Month, beginning with World Vegan Day on November 1. Established by The Vegan Society, World Vegan Month aims to amplify veganism and strengthen the global movement for animal liberation. Join our events and initiatives in November to promote living vegan and speaking up for animals, including a virtual expert activist panel event on the new Beyond Cage-Free Coalition.

The word “vegan” is often misconstrued as just a way of eating. More than a diet that excludes animal-derived products, veganism is the ethical principle that humans should live without exploiting animals. It is a justice movement that asserts that animals are not here to be used as slaves, resources, or commodities for us. 

They exist for their own reasons and, as sentient individuals with the capacity to suffer and the desire to live, are inherently worthy of respect and protection. Each animal is someone who deserves the right to their own body, the freedom to nurture their babies, and the opportunity to live and enjoy their life free from human harm.

Defending The Most Vulnerable and Ignored

Turkeys and chickens are intelligent, social, and emotionally complex individuals. Like all animals, they experience pain, fear, and grief, but they can also experience joy, curiosity, playfulness, contentment, and affection when they feel safe. They can form friendships and enjoy exploring, scratching in the soil, dustbathing, and basking in the sun. 

The hens are attentive mothers who fiercely protect their chicks, sheltering them beneath their wings, while the males warn their flocks of predators and alert the hens to food. Yet, in animal farming, they are bred to grow at unnaturally rapid rates, causing immense pain, injuries, deformities, and debilitating health problems. They are also subjected to forced impregnation, extreme confinement, agonizing mutilations, transport in cages, and slaughter while still conscious.

More than 500 million turkeys are slaughtered worldwide every year, including approximately 46 million in the United States for the Thanksgiving tradition alone. Chickens are the most exploited and slaughtered land animals on Earth, by both the meat and egg industries. They need our voices to defend them. 

Beyond Cage-Free Coalition & Expert Panel Virtual Event

Monday, November 16, 12:30 pm - 1:45 pm PT

Join us for an urgent online webinar on the animal advocacy movement at a crossroads.

Major animal welfare funders have invested millions in corporate welfare reforms, particularly “cage-free” egg campaigns. Yet years of peer-reviewed research, as compiled in PETA’s White Paper on the Failure of Cage-Free Housing Systems to Reduce Overall Hen Suffering, suggests these housing systems offer limited welfare gains, may leave conditions unchanged, or introduce other forms of suffering, while requiring more resources and increasing environmental harms.

“Cage-free” eggs and other reassuring-sounding labels and marketing can lead consumers to believe that the animals are treated well, encouraging continued consumption. As a result, these campaigns risk entrenching and expanding the horrors of animal farming, thus potentially increasing animal suffering over time.

In Defense of Animals is proud to be part of the Beyond Cage-Free Coalition, urging advocates and philanthropic funders to redirect resources toward a plant-based food system transformation. This shift would reduce animal suffering by reducing the number of animals forcibly bred into the food system while helping to reverse the climate crisis, protect forests and wild animals, prevent pandemics, conserve natural resources, improve public health, and strengthen global food security. 

Speakers:

Anita Krajnc

Anita Krajnc is Executive Director of Animal Save Movement, a global network of groups bearing witness to farmed animals, and the Co-Founder and Global Campaign Coordinator for the Plant Based Treaty. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Toronto and is co-author of “The Secret Life of Pigs: Stories of Compassion and the Animal Save Movement” (2024).

Dr. Faraz Harsini

Dr. Faraz Harsini is a biomedical and food systems scientist, founder and CEO of Allied Scholars for Animal Protection (ASAP), and former Alternative Proteins Senior Scientist, whose work spans animal protection, public health, environmental sustainability, and human rights. With ASAP chapters at 40 universities across the United States, Dr. Faraz Harsini is building the largest infrastructure for effective animal advocacy on university campuses.

Robert Grillo

Robert Grillo is the founder and director of Free from Harm, which is dedicated to advancing plant-based, animal-free food systems for a safer, more humane and sustainable future. He is also a founding member of the Beyond Cage-Free Coalition and the author of ‘From Farm to Fable: The Fictions of Our Animal-Consuming Culture’. 

Register for the live event, and get access to the replay:

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Beyond Humanewashing

Alongside sharing the benefits of a plant-based food system for humans, other animals, and the planet, we must also advocate for the ethical imperative to end animal exploitation and expose the deceptive marketing that hides its cruel, violent realities and promotes unnecessary products and uses that we are better off without.

Farmed animals are the most vulnerable, tormented, and killed animals on Earth. We must not resign ourselves to the overwhelming scale and horrors of animal farming by settling for so-called improvements in animal welfare that leave their enslavement and killing intact. 

The goal and message must be empty cages, not bigger ones, “humane” slaughter, or more acceptable forms of exploitation. We must challenge the underlying injustice and confront its root cause: the false assumption that we are entitled to use animals when we don’t have to.

Join us to speak up for all animals, as we would want someone to speak up for us if we were in their place. 

Stay Informed, Take Action, Inspire Change:

Learn more about the Beyond Cage-Free Coalition and sign and share the Open Letter to the AI industry and Effective Altruism community. 

In-person: Join us at the San Francisco Vegan Fest
Saturday, November 14 | 11 a.m. — 5 p.m. PT
SMC Event Center
1111 Gough Street, San Francisco, CA

• Stop by the In Defense of Animals’ table to say hello and learn more about our work. Don’t miss the 1 p.m. panel on animal rights activism, featuring Lia Wilbourn, our Farmed Animals Campaign Specialist, and other speakers.

Sign our alert to help end the horror of rodeos.

Understand the cage-free scam.

Discover more about who turkeys and chickens really are.

Read and download our free handouts on humanewashing.

Learn about the science and benefits of plant-based eating.

Join our free monthly online Vegan Mentor Support Group. 

Know the truth of what happens to animals in all industries that
exploit them: watch Dominion.