ABSTRACT
In an increasingly urbanized, industrialized West, most people have little contact with living animals beyond interactions with “pets,” a trip to the zoo or the occasional encounter with urban wildlife, often viewed as pests. Farmed animals, once commonly seen grazing in open fields, are now bred and raised in cramped conditions behind the walls of factory farms. In 1862, 90 percent of the American population were family farmers, living in close proximity to their free-range cows, sheep, goats, and chickens. That figure declined over the next few decades and into the early twentieth century, so that by 1920, with growing urbanization and migration to cities, only 30 percent of Americans were farmers. Corporate farming gradually replaced small family outdoor farms with enclosed confined animal feeding operations. Today, only 2 percent of the current population are farmers. Likewise, numbers of those engaged in hunting and fishing show a slow decline, attributed in part to suburban sprawl that leads to reduced habitat, as well as a younger generation less interested in spending time outdoors.
