The booming poultry industry in the US is destroying lives and landscapes:
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/21/parker/index.html?source=weekly

Even before canaries were brought into coal mines to alert miners to the presence of poisonous gas, birds were giving us early warning calls signaling the earth’s deteriorating environmental health. Worldwide, some 1,212 of 9,775 bird species—one out of every eight—are threatened with extinction. Destruction and degradation of habitat is the number one danger, threatening 87 percent of these vulnerable birds.

As an ever-expanding human population has altered natural places around the globe—wetlands, grasslands, and forests—bird numbers have fallen. Global bird populations have shrunk by up to 25 percent since pre-agricultural times, largely because of conversion of habitat to farms. Over the past 300 years, farmland has expanded from 6 percent of the earth’s surface to nearly a third.

 
Read Janet Larsen:
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2005/Update50.htm

A 50,000-signature petition organised by the Dr Hadwen Trust, calling for renewed efforts to replace animal experiments, was delivered to Lord Sainsbury's Office of Science and Technology by Green MEP Caroline Lucas.

Dr Lucas said existing animal tests have never been validated to modern standards and, as well as being extremely cruel, are slower and more expensive than non-animal alternatives. She said: "Replacing animal experiments with modern non-animal alternatives is not simply an animal rights issue - it will improve the effectiveness of toxicity testing and benefit the protection of human health and the environment."

http://www.drhadwentrust.f2s.com/J_NE_News&Events.html