Welcome to WTA!
Our aim is to improve transparency in the markets for meat, eggs and dairy so that consumers can base their purchasing decisions on complete information. We invite you to search and contribute to the contents of WTA and to keep these points in mind:
- All those who share information about their businesses on WTA do so willingly. Please be relentless in your due diligence and respectful of all who choose to contribute honest information.
- Since we do not audit farms, restaurants or any other business, we cannot vouch for claims that they make. The only immediately verifiable claims about farming practices are those coming from one of the certification/rating agencies that provide 3rd-party audits (Animal Welfare Approved, Global Animal Partnership, Regenerative Organic Certified, Certified Humane, American Grassfed Association…). Beyond, or in addition to, these certifications, trustworthiness is for you to determine using any and all resources at your disposal.
- Our efforts are motivated by the following premises...
- While death is always painful (this is an evolutionary requisite), it is a necessary part of life and nature. Hiding from this fact usually leads to additional suffering.
- Humans evolved eating animal products, via hunting and husbandry, over many millennia. Avoiding this fact often leads to malnourishment.
- Traditionally, humans have reared animals mostly in symbiosis with their natural environment, but today this is the case for a minute fraction of farm animals. Ignoring this fact results in destroyed ecosystems and miserable animals and people.
- There is an abundance of research and resources available regarding all of these topics. We will try to provide helpful links in the Resources section. The Ethical Omnivore Movement (EOM) is a very active and comprehensive source of such information.
- As one who now considers myself an “Ethical Omnivore” or “Humaneitarian”, I want to eat animal products, but only those whose production meets my ethical and environmental standards. This site was created to make it easier for me to find the businesses that I’m proud to support. And if it works for me, it should work for you. In the end, only you can decide which companies deserve your business, and for that you should have full information.
- WTA in no way recommends trading/investment/speculation in any form of cryptocurrency including Dogecoin. It’s totally, absolutely outside our area of interest, responsibility, etc.
- That said, the blockchain and it’s related innovations, including cryptocurrencies, are in a stage of rapid and unpredictable evolution and if there are opportunities to utilize these technologies in ways which promote our goal of supply-chain transparency, we may as well look into them. To this effect, Tom has a green light to go ahead with the Dogepal project.
- Dogepal is the vehicle through which we will offer advertising space and accept donations to keep WTA running efficiently. WTA users who choose to “allow monetization” will be able to access other functions which Tom can explain much more clearly than I.
What is Dogecoin/Dogepal and what does it have to do with this website?
This website has been a few years in the making and would probably be still stuck in mud if not for a serendipitous reunion with an old schoolmate and brilliant programmer, Tom Carbon. He offered to take on this programming challenge and the results have so impressed that we’re now co-founders and owners of WTA.
Now Tom is also quite the cryptocurrency enthusiast and developer. As passionate as I am about facilitating supply-chain transparency, Tom is about Dogecoin (the “crypto” with which he’s involved) and increasing its circulation and functionality. So we’ve had some frank discussions about what would be an acceptable overlap between our two concerns and I believe we’ve agreed on these conclusions:
So here's Tom...
Buenos dias, yo soy Thomas!
In Memoriam
In 1971, at the age of 58, my grandfather Robert Boulger retired from a career in dentistry, sold off most assets, and with my grandma EJ left his native Redondo Beach to begin a new career in cattle ranching on the 50 acre plot he’d purchased near Paso Robles, CA. For the next 15 years, until his passing, he would buy about 40 calves from a cow-calf operation, fatten them for 1-2 years on his green, oak-strewn pasture, then sell them at auction in Templeton (whence they were generally taken to finishing lots.) Each cycle would involve strong emotional bonds between my grandpa and his cows and there was a genuine sadness when it was time to part ways. Growing up in the greater LA area, I was incredibly blessed to have these ranch experiences which, along with Camp O-Ongo, provided a depth and amazement to life that few of my peers could conceive.
Thanksgiving and Easter were when family members from northern to southern California would converge at the Boulger Ranch to reunite and help grandpa with farm tasks. One of these members was my uncle, the roofer, surfer, ranch hand and renaissance man Tom Boulger. Tom had many obsessions, a major one being diet, and over time he eventually chose to exclude all animal products from his. While my dietary choices followed a different path, he succeeded in passing on to me this obsession which is the genesis of WTA.
So I dedicate this project to both of you without whom this website would not exist. Robert Boulger (1913-1984) and Tom Boulger (1946-2015) may your compassionate, pioneering souls rest peacefully and may Whence This Animal do justice to your legacies.