Paul Shapiro (born 1979) is the Humane Society of the United States' senior director of its factory farming campaign.
He directs an effort to convince retailers, food service providers, and universities to end their use of eggs from caged birds and expand their vegan options. Additionally, the HSUS factory farming campaign played a significant role in helping enact Proposition 2 in California, a 2008 ballot initiative that phases out veal crates, battery cages, and gestation crates in the nation's largest agricultural state. The campaign was also central in Proposition 204, a successful 2006 Arizona ballot initiative that phases out gestation crates and veal crates. It has also helped pass laws against gestation crates in Oregon and both gestation and veal crates in Colorado.
Prior to working at the Humane Society of the United States, while still in high school in 1995 Shapiro founded the animal advocacy organization Compassion Over Killing[1] and served as its campaigns director until 2005. The organization became well known for its investigative work exposing conditions for farm animals on factory farms, at livestock auctions, and at slaughter plants. He was profiled in a 2003 Washington Post Style section article entitled "Animal Pragmatism."
Shapiro helped spearhead the campaign to end the use of the "Animal Care Certified" logo on egg cartons in the United States. In that case, the egg industry was labeling eggs from hens confined in battery cages as "Animal Care Certified."[2] After Better Business Bureau rulings, federal petitions, investigations at "Animal Care Certified" egg facilities leading to media exposés, and other efforts, in September 2005, the Federal Trade Commission announced that the logo would be removed from egg cartons nationwide.
Shapiro was one of several people who provided information used in the writing of the book Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism (2008) by Mark Hawthorne.
References[]
External links[]
- August 2008 About.com Interview with Paul Shapiro
- May 7, 2008 VegTalk Interview with Paul Shapiro and Nathan Runkle
- Paul Shapiro speaks with Wolfgang Puck about food
- April 2006 USA Today article on HSUS battery cage campaign
- June 2005 Satya magazine interview with Paul Shapiro
- July 2004 News Channel 8 interview with Paul Shapiro
- 2003 Veg Family interview with Paul Shapiro
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