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animal rights

Written September 26, 2026 by claude-opus-5 · method 1.6

Pivotal

Owners voting their values can deliver most of this outcome.

Most of the suffering this subject is about happens inside businesses their owners can direct, and the largest share of it is settled by purchase orders.

Animal rights is not one obstacle. It is a handful of very different ones, and they do not sit at the same distance from a shareholder vote. The largest by a long way is the confinement of animals raised for food: World Animal Protection's Factory Farming Index puts 76 billion animals in factory farms in 2020, and factory farming now produces most of the animal sourced food in the world. Nothing else on this page is within three orders of magnitude of it.

That obstacle is decided by companies, and we can show it rather than assert it, because companies have already decided it both ways. Smithfield Foods began taking individual gestation stalls out of every company-owned sow farm and replacing them with group housing. McDonald's told its own shareholders that its United States business reached 100% cage-free eggs by the end of 2023, two years ahead of the target it set itself. Roughly 45% of American sows are already out of gestation crates. A practice that half an industry has stopped and half has not is a choice, and a choice made inside a company is one its owners can direct.

The reach runs from both ends of the chain. At one end are the processors who own the sheds: Tyson Foods, Smithfield, Hormel, Pilgrim's Pride. At the other are the restaurant and retail groups whose purchasing specifications decide what a shed is allowed to contain, and that end is where the weight is. Sixty United States food retailers representing more than 90% of American food sales, McDonald's and Costco and Cracker Barrel among them, have publicly opposed gestation crates. A bank sits in the chain too: a 2025 resolution at Citigroup cited an identification of Citi as one of the three largest financiers of factory farming, carrying around 18% of the lending and underwriting to companies tied to it.

The other obstacles are real and they are smaller, and the lever reaches them less far. Fur farming in Europe has collapsed by 86% in a decade and the deciding actor on what remains is the European Commission. Commercial dog breeding is thousands of private breeders and a licensing agency that revoked no licence and levied no fine in 2025. Wildlife farming is enormous in animal numbers and the chain that carries it, brokers and couriers and online platforms, has no share we could put a figure to from what we read. Animal testing sits in between: a company decides which tests to run, but so does a regulator deciding which it will accept, and both have to move.

What is most worth a reader's attention is the state of the record. The advocacy here is real and it worked. AbbVie became the first pharmaceutical company to abandon the forced swim test after meeting PETA, a meeting that followed PETA's resolutions at AbbVie, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Pfizer. Dow, DuPont and 3M agreed to standing dialogues with PETA's scientists. The Humane Society of the United States and Green Century Capital Management took gestation crates to Tyson's shareholders. The Accountability Board took cage-free eggs to McDonald's. In 2024 a poultry welfare disclosure proposal at McDonald's drew 36% of the votes cast for and against, which for an animal welfare proposal is a very large number.

And then it stopped. No animal welfare proposal went to a vote at McDonald's in 2025 or 2026, or at Tyson Foods in 2026. The pattern is older than that: animal advocacy shareholder campaigns fell by more than half from a peak of 37 in 2010 to about 15 a year by 2013. A resolution needs 5% in its first year to come back the next, and in 2011 the SEC let McDonald's leave out a Humane Society proposal precisely because the 2010 version had fallen below six percent. The lever is not failing on this subject. It is idle.

No person has reviewed this report. Every claim was checked against the page it cites. If we got something wrong, tell us. How we score dependency.

What stands in the way, scored

Six obstacles, ranked by the number of animals each one reaches. The rating of the report is the rating of the heaviest, never an average.

Ordered by how far each depends on shareholder democracy, and within that by severity as the analyst ranked it, drawing on The Factory Farming Index, World Animal Protection (2025).

1. Intensive confinement of animals raised for foodPivotal

Companies involved: Tyson Foods, Inc. (shareholders vote here); Smithfield Foods, Inc. (shareholders vote here); Hormel Foods Corporation (shareholders vote here); Pilgrim's Pride Corporation (shareholders vote here); McDonald's Corporation (shareholders vote here); The Wendy's Company (shareholders vote here); Restaurant Brands International Inc. (shareholders vote here); Costco Wholesale Corporation (shareholders vote here); Citigroup Inc. (shareholders vote here)

No animal welfare proposal went to a vote at Tyson Foods' 2026 annual meeting or at McDonald's 2026 annual meeting, on the Item 5.07 reports of those meetings. An EDGAR full-text search finds no shareholder proposal by The Humane League at any company.

The second question is answered under the obstacle below, which is the same companies' political spending and is rated on its own.

The largest obstacle on this page by three orders of magnitude. World Animal Protection's Factory Farming Index estimates 76 billion animals were factory farmed in 2020, and factory farming now produces the majority of animal sourced food.

Conduct decides this one. Whether a pig can turn around and whether a hen has a cage is set by a housing specification, and housing specifications are written by companies and enforced through what they will buy. The test the method asks is not whether shareholder advocacy has already moved a company but whether any company has chosen otherwise, and here several have: Smithfield Foods began replacing individual gestation stalls with group housing at every company-owned sow farm, McDonald's reached 100% cage-free eggs in the United States two years early, and around 45% of American sows are already out of crates. The lever reaches this obstacle at three points in the chain. The processors own the sheds. The restaurant and grocery groups write the purchase orders, and sixty of them holding more than 90% of American food sales have already said gestation crates are wrong. The banks finance it, and a 2025 resolution at Citigroup cited work identifying Citi as one of the three largest financiers of factory farming, carrying about 18% of the lending and underwriting into it. One caution belongs on the record: Tyson Foods is a controlled company under New York Stock Exchange rules, so a vote there is a signal to a controlling family rather than an instruction to a board.

Confirmed for this obstacle (25)
  • World Animal Protection's Factory Farming Index estimates that 76 billion animals were factory farmed in 2020, with 46% of the chickens, pigs and cattle in China, Brazil, the USA and Indonesia. source
  • Factory farming now produces the majority of animal sourced food. source
  • Sixty US food retail companies representing more than 90% of US food sales, among them McDonald's, Costco and Cracker Barrel, have publicly opposed the use of gestation crates. source
  • Smithfield Foods began phasing out individual gestation stalls at all of its company-owned sow farms and replacing them with group housing, and said it would work with its contract growers on conversion. filing
  • The Humane Society of the United States filed a notice of exempt solicitation at Tyson Foods in December 2013 urging shareholders to vote for a proposal asking the board to report the business risks of indefinitely allowing gestation crates in Tyson's supply chain. filing
  • The person relying on the exemption in that Tyson filing was The Humane Society of the United States. filing
  • Green Century Capital Management filed Shareholder Proposal No. 1 on Tyson Foods' 2016 proxy statement. filing
  • At Tyson Foods' annual meeting on 5 February 2016, Shareholder Proposal No. 1 asked the company to disclose the risks and operational impacts of indefinitely allowing gestation crates in its supply system. filing
  • That Tyson gestation-crate proposal drew 116,822,919 votes for and 797,339,317 against. filing
  • McDonald's told shareholders in its 2024 proxy statement that its US business reached 100% cage-free eggs by the end of 2023, two years ahead of its own schedule. filing
  • The Accountability Board was the proponent of Proposal 7 at McDonald's 2024 annual meeting, which sought measurable targets for switching to cage-free eggs worldwide. filing
  • That cage-free proposal was withdrawn by the proponent and never presented at McDonald's 2024 annual meeting. filing
  • A poultry welfare disclosure proposal at the same 2024 McDonald's meeting drew 176,954,527 votes for and 314,787,022 against, which is 36% of the votes cast for and against. filing
  • McDonald's shareholders rejected a cage-free eggs proposal in 2010 by 33,042,542 votes for to 593,239,933 against. filing
  • The Humane Society of the United States submitted a shareholder proposal to McDonald's for its 2011 annual meeting. filing
  • The SEC staff let McDonald's leave that 2011 proposal out of its proxy materials because the 2010 proposal on substantially the same subject had received less than six percent of the vote. filing
  • At McDonald's 2022 annual meeting a proposal seeking disclosure of gestation stall use in the company's US pork supply chain was withdrawn by the shareholder proponent. filing
  • The two Icahn Group nominees at McDonald's 2022 meeting, Leslie Samuelrich and Maisie Lucia Ganzler, drew 7,579,400 and 9,162,756 votes, against 451,739,999 for the lowest-polling company nominee. filing
  • No animal welfare proposal went to a vote at Tyson Foods' 2026 annual meeting: the shareholder proposals voted on concerned class-based voting disclosure and waste lagoons. filing
  • No animal welfare proposal went to a vote at McDonald's 2026 annual meeting either: the two shareholder proposals voted on concerned an independent chair and action by written consent. filing
  • Tyson Foods is a controlled company under NYSE rules and is exempt from governance rules that apply to companies without a controlling shareholder. filing
  • A 2025 shareholder resolution at Citigroup cited an identification of Citi as one of the top three financiers of factory farming, providing roughly 18% of all loans and underwriting services to companies tied to factory farms. source
  • The World Bank's International Finance Corporation has written that failing to keep pace with changing consumer expectations on animal welfare could put companies and their investors at a competitive disadvantage. filing
  • A shareholder proposal asking Amazon for additional reporting on animal welfare standards was not approved at its 2023 annual meeting, drawing 410,038,754 votes for and 6,878,186,316 against. filing
  • Biglari Holdings put The Accountability Board's shareholder proposal to a vote in April 2024, where it drew 2,161 votes for and 167,587 against. filing

Shareholder advocacy on record

  • 2013: The Humane Society of the United States at Tyson Foods, Inc. Asked the company to Report the business risks and operational impacts of indefinitely allowing gestation crates throughout the supply chain.. We found no documented change at Tyson attributed to this proposal.. Source
  • 2016: Green Century Capital Management, Inc. at Tyson Foods, Inc. Asked the company to Disclose the risks and operational impacts of indefinitely allowing gestation crates in the supply system.. 116,822,919 for and 797,339,317 against, of votes cast.. We found no documented change at Tyson attributed to this proposal.. Source
  • 2010: The Humane Society of the United States at McDonald's Corporation Asked the company to Switch to cage-free eggs.. 33,042,542 for and 593,239,933 against, of votes cast.. The thin vote cost the subject its place: the SEC staff let McDonald's omit the 2011 proposal because the 2010 one had drawn under six percent.. Source
  • 2022: Carl Icahn at McDonald's Corporation Supported by The Humane Society of the United States. Asked the company to Elect two directors and disclose gestation stall use in the United States pork supply chain.. The two Icahn nominees drew 7,579,400 and 9,162,756 votes against 451,739,999 for the lowest-polling company nominee, and the gestation stall proposal was withdrawn by the proponent.. We found no documented change at McDonald's attributed to this campaign.. Source
  • 2024: The Accountability Board, Inc. at McDonald's Corporation Asked the company to Set measurable targets for switching to cage-free eggs worldwide.. Withdrawn by the proponent and not presented at the annual meeting.. McDonald's opposition statement set out its cage-free progress market by market, which is the disclosure the proposal was asking to be made measurable.. Source
  • 2023: Filer not established at Amazon.com, Inc. Asked the company to Report on the efficacy and shortcomings of Whole Foods' animal welfare standards and auditing procedures.. 410,038,754 for and 6,878,186,316 against, which is 5.6% of the votes cast for and against.. We found no documented change at Amazon attributed to this vote.. Source
  • 2024: The Accountability Board, Inc. at Biglari Holdings Inc. Asked the company to The Accountability Board's shareholder proposal, put to the April 2024 annual meeting.. 2,161 for and 167,587 against, of votes cast.. We found no documented change at Biglari Holdings attributed to this proposal.. Source
  • 2024: Filer not established at McDonald's Corporation Asked the company to Additional disclosure on poultry welfare.. 176,954,527 for and 314,787,022 against, which is 36% of the votes cast for and against.. We found no documented change at McDonald's attributed to this vote.. Source

Already working on this

Humane World for Animals (advocate)Green Century Capital Management, Inc. (advocate)☆ FollowThe Accountability Board, Inc. (advocate)☆ FollowWorld Animal Protection (advocate)Harrington Investments, Inc. (advocate)☆ Follow

Care about this, and have not voted their shares on it

  • The Humane League Runs corporate cage-free campaigning at exactly these companies. An EDGAR full-text search for its name alongside “shareholder proposal” across DEF 14A, PRE 14A and 8-K filings returns nothing.Ask them to vote
  • Mercy For Animals Publishes the animal welfare scorecards that companies cite in their own opposition statements, including Amazon's. An EDGAR full-text search returns it only in those statements, never as a proponent.Ask them to vote
2. Animals in research and chemical safety testingNecessary

Companies involved: AbbVie Inc. (shareholders vote here); Eli Lilly and Company (shareholders vote here); Pfizer Inc. (shareholders vote here); Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (shareholders vote here); Abbott Laboratories (shareholders vote here); The Dow Chemical Company (shareholders vote here); 3M Company (shareholders vote here); Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. (shareholders vote here)

We found no documented lobbying by these companies against the acceptance of non-animal methods in the documents we read. The European Commission and the FDA are both moving toward replacement, and the industry documents we read describe cultural inertia rather than opposition.

Over 15 million animals were used for regulatory testing in the European Union between 2015 and 2023, almost 40% of them for chemical safety assessments.

Companies have to move and so do regulators, which is what Necessary means. A company chooses which tests to run beyond what it is required to run, and AbbVie showed it: it became the first pharmaceutical company to end the forced swim test, after a meeting with PETA that followed PETA's resolutions at AbbVie, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Pfizer. Dow, DuPont and 3M have standing dialogues with PETA's scientists that began the same way. Where a regulator stops requiring a test, what is left is a company deciding whether to run one anyway, and that decision belongs to its owners. But the regulators are the other half, and they are still moving: the European Commission says progress on replacement is too slow, and the FDA announced a plan in April 2025 to phase out the animal testing requirement for monoclonal antibodies and other drugs. Neither side alone finishes this.

Confirmed for this obstacle (8)
  • Over 15 million animals were used for regulatory testing in the EU between 2015 and 2023, almost 40% of them for chemical safety assessments. source
  • The FDA announced a roadmap on 10 April 2025 to phase out the animal testing requirement for monoclonal antibodies and other drugs in favour of human-centric new approach methodologies. source
  • AbbVie became the first pharmaceutical company to end the forced swim test, after a meeting with PETA. source
  • That meeting followed PETA's submission of shareholder resolutions at AbbVie, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Pfizer asking them to end the forced swim test. source
  • Dow, DuPont, 3M and other chemical, pharmaceutical and medical device companies agreed to regular dialogues with PETA scientists in response to its resolutions. source
  • People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals submitted a shareholder proposal to Eli Lilly for its 2018 annual meeting. filing
  • The SEC staff declined to let Eli Lilly exclude that proposal, finding the company had not substantially implemented it. filing
  • Abbott Laboratories carried a shareholder proposal on transparency in animal research in its 2012 proxy statement. filing

Shareholder advocacy on record

  • 2018: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals at Eli Lilly and Company Asked the company to Strengthen policy and practice on contract animal laboratories and report to shareholders.. The SEC staff declined to let Eli Lilly exclude it, finding the company had not substantially implemented it.. We found no documented change at Eli Lilly attributed to this proposal.. Source
  • 2018: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals at AbbVie Inc. Asked the company to Stop funding, conducting or commissioning the forced swim test.. AbbVie became the first pharmaceutical company to adopt a policy against the test.. Source
  • 2012: Filer not established at Abbott Laboratories Asked the company to Transparency in animal research.. We found no documented change at Abbott attributed to this proposal.. Source

Already working on this

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (advocate)Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (advocate)
3. The pork industry's campaign to nullify state farm animal welfare lawsHelpful

Companies involved: National Pork Producers Council (an industry group, no shareholder vote); National Pork Board (an industry group, no shareholder vote); Tyson Foods, Inc. (shareholders vote here); Smithfield Foods, Inc. (shareholders vote here); Hormel Foods Corporation (shareholders vote here)

Tyson Foods' shareholders voted on a lobbying disclosure proposal at the 2016 annual meeting, asking for the company's payments to tax-exempt organizations that write and endorse model legislation to be disclosed.

Sits directly on top of the largest obstacle: the measures it aims at set the housing standards for breeding pigs across the United States market.

This is corporate political activity, named and documented. The National Pork Producers Council has spent nearly $45 million on federal lobbying since 1999, holds close to $40 million in assets, and has board members drawn from companies worth billions. It has taken $66 million in mandatory checkoff money from the National Pork Board since 2004, through trademark and rent arrangements; the council says the deals were approved by the USDA and that a legal challenge to one of them was dismissed. It led the campaign for the EATS Act and its successor the Save Our Bacon Act, which exist to void California's Proposition 12 and Massachusetts' Question 3. The reason this is rated Helpful rather than Pivotal is that the campaign keeps losing. Nineteen federal court decisions have gone against the council and its allies, including the Supreme Court in NPPC v. Ross. The House attached the provision to its farm bill and the Senate would not take it, its agriculture chair saying he could not find sixty votes. There is majority opposition in both chambers. Political spending that narrows and delays an outcome without stopping it is spending that slows, and the state laws it was aimed at are in force.

Confirmed for this obstacle (9)
  • The National Pork Producers Council has spent nearly $45 million on federal lobbying since 1999. source
  • The National Pork Board has paid the National Pork Producers Council $66 million in farmer checkoff contributions since 2004. source
  • The National Pork Producers Council held close to $40 million in assets at its most recent nonprofit filing and its board members represent companies worth billions of dollars. source
  • The House of Representatives folded the Save Our Bacon provision into its version of the 2026 farm bill and passed it in April on a 224-200 vote. source
  • The Senate dropped its version of the bill after the Republican Agriculture Chair said he could not find the 60 votes it needed. source
  • Nineteen federal court decisions on these state laws have all gone against the National Pork Producers Council and its allies, including the Supreme Court ruling in NPPC v. Ross upholding California's Proposition 12. source
  • California voters approved Proposition 12 in 2018 with more than 60% in favour and Massachusetts voters approved Question 3 in 2016 with nearly 80%. source
  • There is majority opposition to the EATS Act in both the House and the Senate. source
  • Roughly 27% of US pork producers have made or are making investments to comply with Proposition 12, and 45% of all sows are already out of gestation crates. source

Already working on this

The Accountability Board, Inc. (advocate)☆ FollowHumane World for Animals (advocate)

Care about this, and have not voted their shares on it

  • The Humane League Campaigns on farmed animal confinement, and an EDGAR full-text search for its name alongside “shareholder proposal” returns no filing of its own to put the trade association's spending in front of shareholders.Ask them to vote
4. Wildlife farming and the commercial wildlife tradeHelpful

Flagged for review. No company a shareholder vote reaches is named in this obstacle's chain by the documents we read. The rating is unchanged by that; it is recorded so a reader knows what is missing.

We found no documented corporate political spending against wildlife trade regulation in the documents we read. The obstacle is rated on the first question alone.

World Animal Protection models 5.5 billion wild animals farmed worldwide at commercial facilities, across at least 90 countries between 2000 and 2022.

The animals here are counted in billions and the chain that carries them is the hardest on this page to put a shareholder vote against. Wild animals are farmed and traded for pets, entertainment, ornaments, luxury food, fashion and traditional medicine, and the industries are enabled by national regulations that treat the animals as commodities. Trafficking on top of that is organised crime, and the law enforcement officers who work on it say their own governments under-prioritise and under-resource it. The legal and illegal trades both run through brokers, importers, exporters, distributors, wholesalers, retailers and buyers, and social media and online platforms are named as accelerants of the sales. Listed carriers, platforms and retailers therefore sit in this chain, and saying the outcome is beyond shareholder reach would be a claim we cannot carry. What we also cannot carry is a figure: nothing we read puts a share of this trade with companies a vote reaches, and without the share the honest answer is that conduct helps at the margin here rather than deciding it.

Confirmed for this obstacle (7)
  • Millions of wild animals are traded as pets, used as entertainment or tourist attractions, and turned into ornaments, luxury food, fashion products or traditional medicine. source
  • The growth of the commercial wildlife trade is enabled by social media and online platforms that facilitate wildlife sales. source
  • Both legal and illegal wildlife trades run through brokers, importers, exporters, distributors, wholesalers, retailers and buyers. source
  • The wildlife farming industries that cause the worst suffering are enabled by national regulations that encourage treating these animals as commodities. source
  • Wildlife law enforcement personnel report that the issue is inadequately prioritised, under-resourced and under-staffed by their governments. source
  • World Animal Protection's model estimates 5.5 billion wild animals are farmed worldwide at commercial facilities to supply the pet, entertainment, ornament, food, fashion and traditional medicine industries. source
  • At least 90 countries hosted wildlife farms between 2000 and 2022, and wildlife farming is often poorly regulated with sparse record keeping. source

Already working on this

World Animal Protection (advocate)
5. Fur farmingHelpful

Flagged for review. The fur farms themselves and the International Fur Federation are privately held, so no shareholder vote reaches the production end. The listed fashion and retail companies at the demand end are not named in the documents we read.

A formal complaint to the European Ombudsman alleges industry capture of the Commission's deliberations. The industry doing the capturing is privately held, so the political spending here is not spending a shareholder vote can reach.

Global fur production has fallen from roughly 140 million animals in 2014 to about 20 million by 2025, and EU production is down 86% in a decade to 6.3 million animals.

The deciding actor here is a government. More than 1.5 million Europeans signed a citizens' initiative for an EU-wide ban and the European Commission decided against one, proposing stricter welfare standards for the sector instead, a decision now the subject of a complaint to the European Ombudsman alleging the deliberations were captured by the industry. The industry that captured them is not one a shareholder vote reaches: fewer than a thousand fur farms remain in the EU, employing around two thousand people, and they are private. What a vote does reach is the demand side, the fashion houses and retailers who decide whether to sell fur at all, and the trade's own promotion runs on exactly those names. That is a real lever and it is not the one that decides the outcome, which is what Helpful means.

Confirmed for this obstacle (4)
  • EU fur production has fallen 86% over a decade to 6.3 million animals in 2024, and global fur production has fallen from about 140 million animals in 2014 to roughly 20 million by 2025. source
  • Fewer than 1,000 fur farms remained active across the EU in 2024, employing roughly 2,000 people. source
  • The European Commission decided against an EU-wide fur farming ban, proposing stricter welfare standards for the sector instead, in response to a citizens' initiative backed by more than 1.5 million people. source
  • A formal complaint to the European Ombudsman alleges that the Commission's deliberations on fur were captured by the industry it was scrutinising. source

Already working on this

Humane World for Animals (advocate)
6. Commercial dog breedingHelpful

Flagged for review. No listed retailer is named in this obstacle's chain by the documents we read. The rating is unchanged by that; it is recorded so a reader knows what is missing.

We found no documented corporate political spending against commercial breeding regulation in the documents we read. The obstacle is rated on the first question alone.

Around 2,500 commercial dog dealers held USDA licences in 2025, and hundreds of thousands of dogs are used by commercial breeding facilities to produce puppies sold in pet stores and online.

The proximate actor here is a regulator that is not regulating. The USDA licensed around 2,500 commercial dog dealers in 2025, documented over 680 failures to meet minimum standards, revoked no licence and collected no fine, and its own Inspector General found 80% of the breeders it revisited were still not providing required care. The breeders themselves are private. What keeps this above Independent is the sales end: puppies from these facilities are sold to the public directly, through pet stores and online, and a retailer deciding what it will stock reaches a breeder no inspection reached. What we cannot do is put a number on that end. Nothing we read establishes what share of these sales passes through companies a shareholder vote reaches, and without the share, conduct helps at the margin here rather than deciding it.

Confirmed for this obstacle (5)
  • Around 2,500 commercial dog dealers held USDA licences in 2025, both high-volume breeders and brokers who buy and resell puppies for profit. source
  • No dog dealer lost a USDA licence and none paid a fine in 2025. source
  • Commercial breeding facilities supply hundreds of thousands of dogs whose puppies are sold in pet stores and online. source
  • Puppy mill owners sell puppies to the public directly or through pet stores. source
  • A USDA Office of Inspector General audit found that 80% of licensed breeders it revisited were still not providing required care. source

Already working on this

ASPCA (advocate)

Care about this, and have not voted their shares on it

  • Humane World for Animals Campaigns against puppy mills and retail puppy sales. Its shareholder filings on the EDGAR full-text search are all at restaurant and food companies, none at a pet retailer.Ask them to vote

What owners can do

  • Vote alongside The Accountability Board at McDonald's and alongside Green Century Capital Management and Humane World for Animals at Tyson Foods, which are the organizations with animal welfare proposals already on the record at those companies.
  • Look first at the buying end rather than the producing end. A purchasing specification at a restaurant or grocery group reaches sheds that no vote at the processor would reach, and more than 90% of American food sales sit with companies that have already said in public that gestation crates are wrong.
  • Ask for a target with a date on it rather than a statement of principle. The McDonald's proposal that has travelled furthest asked only for measurable targets for the cage-free switch in the markets where the company has not yet made it.
  • Watch the 5% line. A proposal that misses it cannot be put again the next year, and a subject can be locked out of a company's proxy for a season by a single thin vote.
  • Ask the organization you support whether it votes the shares it holds. Several of the largest animal protection organizations hold equities and have no shareholder advocacy on the record at the companies named here.
  • Ask a bank the same question as a meat company. Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase have both faced resolutions asking whether their boards look at animal welfare at all when they lend.

Where this sits on our maps

Organizations to know

  • Humane World for Animals (shareholder advocacy on record) Filed the 2013 Tyson gestation crate proposal and the 2010 and 2011 McDonald's cage-free proposals, as The Humane Society of the United States.
  • Green Century Capital Management, Inc. (shareholder advocacy on record) Filed Shareholder Proposal No. 1 on Tyson Foods' 2016 proxy, and its president stood as an Icahn Group nominee at McDonald's in 2022.☆ Follow
  • The Accountability Board, Inc. (shareholder advocacy on record) Proponent of the 2024 McDonald's proposal seeking measurable worldwide cage-free targets, and the source of the analysis tracing $66 million from the pork checkoff to the pork lobby.☆ Follow
  • World Animal Protection (shareholder advocacy on record) Used shareholder activism at Walmart over routine antibiotic use and at Tesco over pork from pigs kept in gestation crates in Thailand, and publishes the Factory Farming Index.
  • Harrington Investments, Inc. (shareholder advocacy on record) Put animal welfare oversight resolutions to Citigroup in 2025 and JPMorgan Chase in 2023, aimed at the financing end of the chain.☆ Follow
  • The Humane League (shareholder advocacy on record) Runs corporate cage-free campaigning at exactly these companies. An EDGAR full-text search for its name alongside “shareholder proposal” across DEF 14A, PRE 14A and 8-K filings returns nothing.
  • Mercy For Animals (shareholder advocacy on record) Publishes the animal welfare scorecards that companies cite in their own opposition statements, including Amazon's. An EDGAR full-text search returns it only in those statements, never as a proponent.
  • Tyson Foods, Inc. (publicly listed) Named in the chain of "Intensive confinement of animals raised for food".☆ Follow
  • Smithfield Foods, Inc. (publicly listed) Named in the chain of "Intensive confinement of animals raised for food".☆ Follow
  • Hormel Foods Corporation (publicly listed) Named in the chain of "Intensive confinement of animals raised for food".☆ Follow
  • Pilgrim's Pride Corporation (publicly listed) Named in the chain of "Intensive confinement of animals raised for food".
  • McDonald's Corporation (publicly listed) Named in the chain of "Intensive confinement of animals raised for food".☆ Follow
  • The Wendy's Company (publicly listed) Named in the chain of "Intensive confinement of animals raised for food".☆ Follow
  • Restaurant Brands International Inc. (publicly listed) Named in the chain of "Intensive confinement of animals raised for food".☆ Follow
  • Costco Wholesale Corporation (publicly listed) Named in the chain of "Intensive confinement of animals raised for food".☆ Follow
  • Citigroup Inc. (publicly listed) Named in the chain of "Intensive confinement of animals raised for food".☆ Follow
  • People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (shareholder advocacy on record) Has filed animal testing resolutions since 1987 and holds the only documented company reversals on this obstacle.
  • Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (shareholder advocacy on record) An EDGAR full-text search places its name in proxy statements at Abbott Laboratories, Walgreen, Elizabeth Arden and Select Medical Holdings, so it is a body already inside the proxy process on this obstacle.
  • AbbVie Inc. (publicly listed) Named in the chain of "Animals in research and chemical safety testing".☆ Follow
  • Eli Lilly and Company (publicly listed) Named in the chain of "Animals in research and chemical safety testing".
  • Pfizer Inc. (publicly listed) Named in the chain of "Animals in research and chemical safety testing".☆ Follow
  • Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (publicly listed) Named in the chain of "Animals in research and chemical safety testing".☆ Follow
  • Abbott Laboratories (publicly listed) Named in the chain of "Animals in research and chemical safety testing".☆ Follow
  • The Dow Chemical Company (publicly listed) Named in the chain of "Animals in research and chemical safety testing".
  • 3M Company (publicly listed) Named in the chain of "Animals in research and chemical safety testing".☆ Follow
  • Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. (publicly listed) Named in the chain of "Animals in research and chemical safety testing".☆ Follow
  • ASPCA (shareholder advocacy on record) Reviews and publishes the USDA's inspection and enforcement records for licensed dog dealers each year.

Sources

  1. The Factory Farming Index (josephpoore.com)
  2. Rebranded EATS Act Eliminates Nation’s Most Important Farm Animal Welfare Laws (centerforahumaneeconomy.org)
  3. j1220130px14a6g.htm (sec.gov)
  4. p1222150px14a6g.htm (sec.gov)
  5. TYSON FOODS INC (TSN) (CIK 0000100493) 8-K 2016-02-11 (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
  6. MCDONALDS CORP (MCD) (CIK 0000063908) DEF 14A 2024-04-08 (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
  7. O49244px14a6g.htm (sec.gov)
  8. mcd-20240522 (sec.gov)
  9. Form 8-K (sec.gov)
  10. McDonald's Corportion; Rule 14a-8 no-action letter (sec.gov)
  11. mcd-20220526 (sec.gov)
  12. TYSON FOODS, INC. (TSN) (CIK 0000100493) 8-K 2026-02-09 (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
  13. mcd-20260520 (sec.gov)
  14. TYSON FOODS, INC. DEF 14A 2025-12-17 (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
  15. Citigroup (C)(2025) Resolution - Harrington Investments (harringtoninvestments.com)
  16. Exclusive: Inside the pork industry’s $66 million pipeline to a powerful lobbying group | Vox (Kenny Torrella)
  17. The Meat Industry’s Tireless Effort to Keep Live Pigs in Coffins - The American Prospect (Zachary Groz)
  18. The $30M fight over pigs, pork and state power (san.com)
  19. Brussels, 1.6.2026 C(2026) 3497 final (single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu)
  20. FDA roadmap to reducing animal testing: a regulatory and scientific paradigm shift in nonclinical safety assessment | Stem Cell Research & Therapy | Springer Nature Link (link.springer.com)
  21. Pharmaceutical Behemoth Ends Near-Drowning Tests on Animals | PETA (peta.org)
  22. Shareholder Campaigns (peta.org)
  23. Eli Lilly and Company; Rule 14a-8 no-action letter (sec.gov)
  24. ABBOTT LABORATORIES (ABT) (CIK 0000001800) DEF 14A 2012-03-15 (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
  25. 2025 USDA Enforcement Report (Melina Nolas)
  26. Solving the Puppy Mill Problem: Using “Carrots and Sticks” to Encourage Compliance with the Animal Welfare Act (Weglarz, Drew W)
  27. Bred for profit: The truth about global wildlife farming (World Animal Protection)
  28. The hidden cruelty behind the global wildlife trade (World Animal Protection)
  29. Countering organised wildlife trafficking: insights from law enforcement personnel on challenges and opportunities (Michelle Anagnostou, Brent Doberstein)
  30. Fur farming faces public fury, a moratorium now looks possible | Euractiv (Euractiv)
  31. EU to reject fur-farming ban despite enormous petition – POLITICO (politico.eu)
  32. J-Lo, Rihanna and Kardashians: How fur is fighting an EU ban – POLITICO (politico.eu)
  33. Shareholder Activism to help animals (animalask.org)
  34. tm2315877d1_8k.htm (sec.gov)
  35. bh-20240417 (sec.gov)
  36. Animal Testing | Proxy Preview (Proxy Preview)

About this report

The rating answers two questions: how far the outcome depends on companies changing what they make, how they make it and what they sell, and how far it depends on companies dropping their political influence against it. The higher answer sets the rating: Independent, Helpful, Necessary or Pivotal.

This is the deep report. A frontier model researched it against documents captured as it read them, and every fact it recorded carries an excerpt from one of those documents. Each excerpt was matched to its document twice: on the machine that did the work, and again here. The ratings are analytical judgments under our method, not findings of any organization named here.

74 claims were checked against the document each cites: 74 held and 0 did not.

What we read. 36 documents were held for this report and every quotation was checked against them.

Every claim, and what became of it (74)
  • Confirmed · World Animal Protection's Factory Farming Index estimates that 76 billion animals were factory farmed in 2020, with 46% of the chickens, pigs and cattle in China, Brazil, the USA and Indonesia.
  • Confirmed · Factory farming now produces the majority of animal sourced food.
  • Confirmed · Sixty US food retail companies representing more than 90% of US food sales, among them McDonald's, Costco and Cracker Barrel, have publicly opposed the use of gestation crates.
  • Confirmed · Smithfield Foods began phasing out individual gestation stalls at all of its company-owned sow farms and replacing them with group housing, and said it would work with its contract growers on conversi
  • Confirmed · The Humane Society of the United States filed a notice of exempt solicitation at Tyson Foods in December 2013 urging shareholders to vote for a proposal asking the board to report the business risks o
  • Confirmed · The person relying on the exemption in that Tyson filing was The Humane Society of the United States.
  • Confirmed · Green Century Capital Management filed Shareholder Proposal No. 1 on Tyson Foods' 2016 proxy statement.
  • Confirmed · At Tyson Foods' annual meeting on 5 February 2016, Shareholder Proposal No. 1 asked the company to disclose the risks and operational impacts of indefinitely allowing gestation crates in its supply sy
  • Confirmed · That Tyson gestation-crate proposal drew 116,822,919 votes for and 797,339,317 against.
  • Confirmed · McDonald's told shareholders in its 2024 proxy statement that its US business reached 100% cage-free eggs by the end of 2023, two years ahead of its own schedule.
  • Confirmed · The Accountability Board was the proponent of Proposal 7 at McDonald's 2024 annual meeting, which sought measurable targets for switching to cage-free eggs worldwide.
  • Confirmed · That cage-free proposal was withdrawn by the proponent and never presented at McDonald's 2024 annual meeting.
  • Confirmed · A poultry welfare disclosure proposal at the same 2024 McDonald's meeting drew 176,954,527 votes for and 314,787,022 against, which is 36% of the votes cast for and against.
  • Confirmed · McDonald's shareholders rejected a cage-free eggs proposal in 2010 by 33,042,542 votes for to 593,239,933 against.
  • Confirmed · The Humane Society of the United States submitted a shareholder proposal to McDonald's for its 2011 annual meeting.
  • Confirmed · The SEC staff let McDonald's leave that 2011 proposal out of its proxy materials because the 2010 proposal on substantially the same subject had received less than six percent of the vote.
  • Confirmed · At McDonald's 2022 annual meeting a proposal seeking disclosure of gestation stall use in the company's US pork supply chain was withdrawn by the shareholder proponent.
  • Confirmed · The two Icahn Group nominees at McDonald's 2022 meeting, Leslie Samuelrich and Maisie Lucia Ganzler, drew 7,579,400 and 9,162,756 votes, against 451,739,999 for the lowest-polling company nominee.
  • Confirmed · No animal welfare proposal went to a vote at Tyson Foods' 2026 annual meeting: the shareholder proposals voted on concerned class-based voting disclosure and waste lagoons.
  • Confirmed · No animal welfare proposal went to a vote at McDonald's 2026 annual meeting either: the two shareholder proposals voted on concerned an independent chair and action by written consent.
  • Confirmed · Tyson Foods is a controlled company under NYSE rules and is exempt from governance rules that apply to companies without a controlling shareholder.
  • Confirmed · A 2025 shareholder resolution at Citigroup cited an identification of Citi as one of the top three financiers of factory farming, providing roughly 18% of all loans and underwriting services to compan
  • Confirmed · The World Bank's International Finance Corporation has written that failing to keep pace with changing consumer expectations on animal welfare could put companies and their investors at a competitive
  • Confirmed · The National Pork Producers Council has spent nearly $45 million on federal lobbying since 1999.
  • Confirmed · The National Pork Board has paid the National Pork Producers Council $66 million in farmer checkoff contributions since 2004.
  • Confirmed · The National Pork Producers Council held close to $40 million in assets at its most recent nonprofit filing and its board members represent companies worth billions of dollars.
  • Confirmed · The House of Representatives folded the Save Our Bacon provision into its version of the 2026 farm bill and passed it in April on a 224-200 vote.
  • Confirmed · The Senate dropped its version of the bill after the Republican Agriculture Chair said he could not find the 60 votes it needed.
  • Confirmed · Nineteen federal court decisions on these state laws have all gone against the National Pork Producers Council and its allies, including the Supreme Court ruling in NPPC v. Ross upholding California's
  • Confirmed · California voters approved Proposition 12 in 2018 with more than 60% in favour and Massachusetts voters approved Question 3 in 2016 with nearly 80%.
  • Confirmed · There is majority opposition to the EATS Act in both the House and the Senate.
  • Confirmed · Roughly 27% of US pork producers have made or are making investments to comply with Proposition 12, and 45% of all sows are already out of gestation crates.
  • Confirmed · Over 15 million animals were used for regulatory testing in the EU between 2015 and 2023, almost 40% of them for chemical safety assessments.
  • Confirmed · The FDA announced a roadmap on 10 April 2025 to phase out the animal testing requirement for monoclonal antibodies and other drugs in favour of human-centric new approach methodologies.
  • Confirmed · AbbVie became the first pharmaceutical company to end the forced swim test, after a meeting with PETA.
  • Confirmed · That meeting followed PETA's submission of shareholder resolutions at AbbVie, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Pfizer asking them to end the forced swim test.
  • Confirmed · Dow, DuPont, 3M and other chemical, pharmaceutical and medical device companies agreed to regular dialogues with PETA scientists in response to its resolutions.
  • Confirmed · People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals submitted a shareholder proposal to Eli Lilly for its 2018 annual meeting.
  • Confirmed · The SEC staff declined to let Eli Lilly exclude that proposal, finding the company had not substantially implemented it.
  • Confirmed · Abbott Laboratories carried a shareholder proposal on transparency in animal research in its 2012 proxy statement.
  • Confirmed · Around 2,500 commercial dog dealers held USDA licences in 2025, both high-volume breeders and brokers who buy and resell puppies for profit.
  • Confirmed · No dog dealer lost a USDA licence and none paid a fine in 2025.
  • Confirmed · Commercial breeding facilities supply hundreds of thousands of dogs whose puppies are sold in pet stores and online.
  • Confirmed · Puppy mill owners sell puppies to the public directly or through pet stores.
  • Confirmed · A USDA Office of Inspector General audit found that 80% of licensed breeders it revisited were still not providing required care.
  • Confirmed · Millions of wild animals are traded as pets, used as entertainment or tourist attractions, and turned into ornaments, luxury food, fashion products or traditional medicine.
  • Confirmed · The growth of the commercial wildlife trade is enabled by social media and online platforms that facilitate wildlife sales.
  • Confirmed · Both legal and illegal wildlife trades run through brokers, importers, exporters, distributors, wholesalers, retailers and buyers.
  • Confirmed · The wildlife farming industries that cause the worst suffering are enabled by national regulations that encourage treating these animals as commodities.
  • Confirmed · Wildlife law enforcement personnel report that the issue is inadequately prioritised, under-resourced and under-staffed by their governments.
  • Confirmed · World Animal Protection's model estimates 5.5 billion wild animals are farmed worldwide at commercial facilities to supply the pet, entertainment, ornament, food, fashion and traditional medicine indu
  • Confirmed · At least 90 countries hosted wildlife farms between 2000 and 2022, and wildlife farming is often poorly regulated with sparse record keeping.
  • Confirmed · EU fur production has fallen 86% over a decade to 6.3 million animals in 2024, and global fur production has fallen from about 140 million animals in 2014 to roughly 20 million by 2025.
  • Confirmed · Fewer than 1,000 fur farms remained active across the EU in 2024, employing roughly 2,000 people.
  • Confirmed · The European Commission decided against an EU-wide fur farming ban, proposing stricter welfare standards for the sector instead, in response to a citizens' initiative backed by more than 1.5 million p
  • Confirmed · A formal complaint to the European Ombudsman alleges that the Commission's deliberations on fur were captured by the industry it was scrutinising.
  • Confirmed · A shareholder resolution must reach 5% support in its first year to be put again the following year, 15% in the second and 25% after that.
  • Confirmed · Animal advocacy shareholder campaigns fell by more than half from a peak of 37 in 2010 to about 15 proposals a year in 2013 and 2014.
  • Confirmed · World Animal Protection has used shareholder activism at Walmart over the routine use of antibiotics on farmed animals and at Tesco over pork from pigs kept in gestation crates in Thailand.
  • Confirmed · A review of four empirical studies found direct evidence that investors can affect companies through shareholder engagement, especially where the costs of the reform are low.
  • Confirmed · A study of environmental shareholder campaigns found an average 13% reduction in pollution by the firms targeted.
  • Confirmed · Shareholder resolutions do not need majority support to move a company, since acquiescing can cost less than alienating part of the register.
  • Confirmed · In 2012 an alliance of Carl Icahn and the Humane Society of the United States pressed McDonald's to stop buying from producers still using gestation crates for pregnant pigs.
  • Confirmed · A shareholder proposal asking Amazon for additional reporting on animal welfare standards was not approved at its 2023 annual meeting, drawing 410,038,754 votes for and 6,878,186,316 against.
  • Confirmed · Biglari Holdings put The Accountability Board's shareholder proposal to a vote in April 2024, where it drew 2,161 votes for and 167,587 against.
  • Confirmed · The forced swim test resolutions were filed at AbbVie, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Pfizer, and PETA withdrew at AbbVie after the company agreed not to use the test.
  • Confirmed · Confinement is a choice made inside a company rather than a condition imposed on it, and one company choosing differently is what shows the choice exists.
  • Confirmed · A vote reaches this obstacle from both ends of the chain: the processors that own the sheds and the restaurant and retail groups whose purchasing specifications decide what the sheds are allowed to co
  • Confirmed · The pork lobby has narrowed and delayed animal welfare law without stopping it, which under this method is political spending that slows an outcome rather than blocking it.
  • Confirmed · Where a regulator no longer requires an animal test, what remains is a company deciding whether to run one, and that decision belongs to the people who own the company.
  • Confirmed · The conduct that produces this harm sits with thousands of private breeders and the agency that licenses them, and the share of the sales chain held by companies a shareholder vote reaches is not esta
  • Confirmed · Listed carriers, platforms and retailers sit in the wildlife chain, but no source we hold puts a figure on the share they carry, so the lever is recorded as reaching this obstacle without the weight e
  • Confirmed · Fur is decided by governments and by the fashion houses that choose whether to sell it, and the farms themselves are private, so no shareholder vote reaches the production end of it.
  • Confirmed · A proposal withdrawn after the company moves is a win that leaves no vote behind it, which is why a record read only through vote percentages understates what this lever has done.

First drafted September 26, 2026, reviewed and republished September 26, 2026. Scoring method revision 1.6.

Which passes have run, and what ran them

The passes can run on different models, so each one records its own. Where a model was asked for by a name that moves, the exact build that answered is shown.

  • The deep run · September 26, 2026 · Read 9 documents and wrote 74 claims, each with an excerpt from one of them. The run's own verifier repaired 0 and dropped 0 over 1 pass.local runner · claude-opus-5

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