Have you ever stopped to think how amazing sea creatures can be? And I'm not talking about the beauty of a whale's song or the playfulness of jumping dolphins. I'm not even talking about the fact that some sea turtles can swim the ocean for 150 years. Although all those things are pretty awesome!

I'm talking about the creatures who live far beneath the waves in the deepest darkest waters of the ocean. The creatures who, if it weren't for videos like this one, we may never have the chance to see.

Aren't those pictures some of the most amazing things you've ever seen? It's called bioluminescence. Forget fireworks - nature's lightshows are SO much more awe-inspiring. Check out this picture of millions of dinoflagellates lighting up a whole wave!

It just goes to show, the ocean's full of creatures who are so much more incredible (and clever!) than we often give them credit for (and that includes fish who sadly end up on dinner plates!). I just had to share this cool video with you guys!

Unleashed Note: A little while ago, 4_da_animals1 posted a thread to the forum describing her experiences doing part time work at a small dairy farm. Most of us already know that male calves (who obviously can't produce milk) are killed as a waste product of the industry. But we were intrigued and disturbed to hear about her day to day encounters, so we asked her to write a guest blog. 

With all the dairy chocolate gobbled up at Easter, we thought this would be the perfect time to share her story:

Having recently turned vegetarian, I can now tell you one way to guarantee to become vegan is to work on a dairy farm.

Needing a job for the summer holidays, I was skimming through the country paper and saw an ad for a job on a dairy farm. Mum had been breathing down my neck to get a job; nothing much else was on offer; and to be honest I was curious to see how dairies treat their animals first hand, so I rang the manager to see if the spot had been taken. It hadn't.

I would be in charge of feeding gorgeous baby calves for a few hours a couple of times a week, and being paid for it. What could go wrong? Turns out being a calf feeder is not all I thought it would be. I had heard stories about the dairy industry being cruel - male calves taken from their mothers and trucked off to slaughter every week - but nothing really hits you in the heart more than seeing the kinds of day to day cruelty these poor creatures go through firsthand.

With images of gorgeous happy calves skipping up to me for a feed, I headed down to the farm with a smile on my face, and high expectations. These expectations, however, were crushed within a few mere hours.

The first thing I clearly remember from stepping outside the car was the smell. The smell of mass amounts of faeces. In front of me were hundreds of cows packed in a small iron pen, one by one being pushed through these huge machines with tubes being attached to their udders - a person behind them, making loud noises and hitting their behinds with a rubber tube, to push them forward.

I was told to throw some rubber boots on, and get in with the cows. The lady pushing the cows forward would be in charge of me, to teach me what to do. As I headed towards her, all I could see were piles and piles of faeces in the pen - so large  that I would get stuck in it. The cows were forced to move through the sludge, which the workers called "mud" to get onto the concrete in front of the milkers. Some cows would trip and fall into the "mud" face first. Some cow's behinds were covered in sores and dried "mud", others were limping, but all were forced further and further forward to be finished by break time.

The one thing I will never get out of my head is the sadness in those cow's eyes. With hung heads, you could tell they could feel every hit, and if you tried to approach them, they would run off, with genuine fear in their eyes of you, the two legged being with a big stick.

Once a cow had given birth, a worker would take the baby away from the mother, and shove him into a tiny trailer attached to the back of the quad bike, awaiting a calf feeder to take him down with the others. Some calves were stuck in that cage for up to 12 hours.

The calves were placed 5 or 6 to a pen. To move a calf into a different pen, they were picked up and thrown over the fence, then left to gather their own feet. Standing in front of the calves' pens for the first time, I looked to my left and was faced with a pile of dead calves covered in flies being thrown on the back of the quad to be taken to the "death pit". In front of me, in the pens, were cute wobbly calves, covered in all different shades of faeces - from other sick calves and calves with the equivalent of diarrhea, which is lethal to a baby calf if not treated within days of getting sick.

It's a calf feeder's responsibility to separate the sick calves from the healthy, and tell the manager when more medicine needs to be ordered. If the manager isn't told, it doesn't happen, and the calves suffer and die as a result. This happened frequently, as the majority of workers just didn't care. They were simply there to get their hours.

Deprived of a mother to drink milk from at a leisurely pace, calves have two opportunities to drink milk per day, having to consume 2 litres of milk on both occasions. If a calf refused to feed from the plastic feeders on the fence, they had a tube shoved down their throat and were forced to feed, with a quiet moan escaping them as the tube slid in. As you make sure each calf consumes its 2 litres, you cannot escape the overwhelming wails of the mother cows that have just had their babies taken from them.

Every single male bobby calf, and any female that was born with a male as twins gets sent to slaughter. The female twins are included, as they have a higher rate of future miscarriage. Miscarriage means no baby, which means no production of milk. Every five days, the truck comes to take the bobby calves to slaughter and their miserable life comes to an end.

Needless to say, I didn't last long working there. And my time there has triggered my decision to go vegan. I do not know of many people who would agree to this treatment of such kindhearted creatures. This was a small country dairy, I could not possibly imagine the kinds of things big companies get away with.

I'm glad I can now give people a first hand account of how animals are treated on dairy farms. And I'll be taking every opportunity I can to inform others! We, as consumers need to show through what we choose to eat and buy that we do not agree with ill-treatment of other living creatures!

Want to uncover more dirt on dairy? Check out this video, tracing the life of a bobby calf:

Whenever Easter is upon us I start thinking of the usual suspects: rabbits and chickens (although what a rabbit has to do with eggs I'm still trying work out!). I've not had a lot to do with bunnies but chooks hold a firm place in my heart, even though they're sometimes referred to as ...well, bird brains!

A study last year proved that chickens are in fact, incredibly clever. So much so that they have different calls for things like food, and because of this females are more likely to choose their mates based on intelligence (ie "how good is he at finding food and then telling me about it?")

I already knew that chooks are pretty special, and this was confirmed during a nutrition assignment I did two years ago at Uni. Each group had 20 day old chicks (10 boys and 10 girls) that had been bred for the meat industry (called broiler chickens). We were to feed them, weigh them, assess their health, etc every day for 6 weeks, even on weekends. I knew what their fate was at the end of the project so I offered to take ours home. I knew I could find homes for 20 chooks and probably even more. But my supervisor told me it was pointless. You see broiler chickens can't live past 7 weeks even if they aren't sent to slaughter.

After years of selective breeding for fast growth, these baby birds were growing at an epic rate right before our eyes. Meat chickens now grow three times faster than normal. By 6 weeks old they are the size of fully grown birds, only they are still babies, chirping and struggling to move their massive bodies using underdeveloped baby legs.

That was a very tough 6 weeks for me. These birds got to know us and were friendly and funny. One girl would even run to the edge of the cage when she saw us coming, so sweet. Number 5 was her name. Isn't that cold? Number 5.

During the project, two of our birds died. One boy had a blocked crop (the part on their throat where the food gets kind of ground up and digested), possibly after he'd accidently swallowed some sawdust from the floor litter, so he kept eating as his crop became huge and his body became malnourished. He was starving and we knew he wouldn't get better without medical treatment. But that would involve putting him on different feeds, which would ruin the project data, God forbid. Eventually a uni worker 'euthanised' him by chopping his head off. Imagine if we euthanised our pets this way! The second boy flipped onto his back while I was refilling the feed one day. His wings flapped frantically, slamming the cage floor as I desperately called for help. Then he just stopped and lay still. His young overworked heart had given out under the immense weight of his mutant body. He was finally at peace, and I stroked him goodbye through tears.

By week 6 of the project, Number 5 didn't run to greet us anymore. She couldn't. She could hardly move at all. Not even to reach the feeders or the water trays which were actually moved up higher and higher to encourage the chicks to stand. But it was just too painful for her. It was almost like the feeder trays were mocking our hungry friend.

The final day was the worst. The girls in my group and I picked up our birds lovingly and held them to us, saying "goodbye" and "sorry" as we moved them into the trays that would be stacked on top of each other on the back of a truck. We sobbed the whole time. It was a sunny day and the birds squinted at the huge ball of fire in the sky that they'd never seen before. They wouldn't see it for long. The truck drove off to the slaughterhouse, with our beautiful clever birds on board, Number 5 wondering where she was off to on this cramped bumpy ride and wondering what kind people would be there when she arrived. Even the sickest birds were on there, weak from hunger, joints aching, some with newly blocked crops. I cried as much as I've ever cried before as white baby bird feathers flew past my face and the truck rattled down the road.

I'd already stopped eating chicken years before this happened. But I decided then and there that I couldn't eat eggs either. Even though our birds weren't layer hens, I knew I wanted absolutely nothing to do with the exploitation of an amazing species I now loved. And that certainly meant no more eggs. (I've since discovered so much horror behind eggs!)

So these new research findings are nothing new to me. Chickens are truly incredible birds full of personality and love. And they are anything but "bird brains"!

If you must decorate an egg this Easter, use papier mache and paint away! Or buy a dairy-free chocolate egg and tie a ribbon around it in tribute to the millions of intelligent chickens that suffer and die for meat and eggs in Australia each year.

You could even symbolically adopt your own baby bird as a reminder that we need to do all we can to help these chickens. I already have. She sits on my desk and I named her Number 5.

Have you had an experience like this before?

Unleashed recently had it's second birthday. To celebrate we've got some treats on the way for you :)

As Karen mentioned on the forum, we'll be giving Unleashed a makeover. Your ideas for the new look for Unleashed were great, and having seen a sneak peek of the new Unleashed I can tell it's hot!

But before we give the site a change of skin, we need your advice on one more thing. This year, we're not only going to give Unleashed a makeover, we're going to give you 3 wallpapers so that you can give your computer a makeover too!

So we need you to help to make the big decision. By now you've probably entered (and hopefully won) our monthly sticker give away. So you've probably worked out which of these 12 stickers is your fave. So tell us: Which of these stickers would you like to have as a wallpaper for your computer and why?

Then stay tuned... because the brand new look for Unleashed won't be long now ;)

During World Week for Animals in Laboratories, there are loads of things you can do to help end cruel animal testing for products like cosmetics and skincare. And wouldn't it be great to put an end to burning and poisoning animals just for the sake of a new deoderant or toilet cleaner?

But sadly, cruelty to animals in labs doesn't stop there. Did you know that millions of cats, dogs, mice, rats and monkeys suffer and die for the sake of medical research too? Check this out:

Like the video says, using animals in medical research is unpredictable, unreliable and unnecessary. And this quote really resonates with me -
"Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research" - George Bernard Shaw

I love organisations like Humane Research Australia and Dr Hadwen Trust in the UK, who work tirelessly to raise awareness and show that this cruelty is unnecessary. They promote and develop alternatives and show huge achievements in medical science in the name of humane research (that is, research that doesn't involve animals at all!)

Will you join me this week in honouring all animals confined in cruel labs and raise as much awareness for them as we can? Share this vid on Facebook to let people know about humane research.

After all, we have a voice. Animals suffering in labs don't.

I always get a kick out of discovering new songs about animal rights and so just wanted to share a beautiful song I discovered today with you: "Human Eyeballs on Toast", by Peter Broderick. I thought the lyrics were very thoughtful:

American singer/songwriter/composer, Peter Broderick says he has been "back and forth vegetarian" his whole life, and picked up Eating Animals by Jonathon Safran Foer to try and work out once and for all where he stood. He says the book gave him "some really clear answers" and inspired/outraged by what he'd read he wrote this song from the point of view of animals in factory farms.

This is from Broderick: "I find the animal agriculture industry (especially in the USA) to be deeply, deeply disturbing and incredibly sad, and this song is a product of that sadness."

If you want to know more about how animals in Australian factory farms are treated, you could start by clicking here.

Let me know what you think of the song.

It's almost that time again - Chocolate time! Oh, I mean Easter time, yup Easter! But really, chocolate is aaall I can think about this time of year. And since ditching dairy, I've discovered so many delicious and delightful chocolates that I am certainly spoilt for choice!

I know you're dying to hear about them, so without further ado:

Bonvita (Karen's fave by a country mile!) have released little half eggs made from rice milk this year, so creamy and so YUM! You can grab these at Vegan Online.

Constant Craving have also gone all out by encasing their incredible chocolate truffles inside a chocolate egg. And with truffle flavours jaffa, coconut and almond there is certainly one to suit everyone! Order these from The Cruelty Free Shop.

Now my fave - The ever amazing Sweet William has come up with new Easter products this year. Along with the tried and true chocolate bunnies, they also come in a sugar free variety (still just as sweet, I can vouch for that!) and ... this is so exciting ... a rice crackle Easter bunny! You can order these online too, or just pick them up at your local supermarket.

Also in the supermarket aisle you'll find the Lindt Gold Bunny (in dark chocolate only!), Lindor pouches of dark chocolate eggs and Whittaker's dark chocolate blocks which are great for melting down and making your own little choc bunnies or eggs with.

For those with someone they really wanna treat this Easter (don't forget - that 'someone' can absolutely be YOU!), you can grab a gorgeous plush bunny with his own assortment of dairy-free fun, including Plamil and Rawganic chocolates and those delicious Constant Craving truffles from the Unleashed shop. (Of course all proceeds go towards helping save the Easter bunny's relatives and furry friends.)

Now remember, that there's no reason to limit this amazing choccy goodness to just one time of year. All these chocolatiers (I love that word!) sell their mouth-watering treats all year round. Hip Hooray!

And knowing that no newborn baby calves were harmed in order for me to satisfy my sugar craving just sweetens the deal!

Which choccies are you gonna try this Easter? Have you discovered one I didn't mention? Tell me, so I can stuff my face with it! I mean, so I can sample it and give you a review ..ahem.

Today is World Health Day.

So I thought I'd share a little something with you:

Funny, right?! And it's enough to make someone want to Pledge to be Veg, isn't it! Which would be a great way to help yourself this World Health Day -- not to mention improving the health of animals and the planet we live on!

"Just saying is all." ;)

One of the most lasting memories I have of zoos, is going with my highschool. I remember standing in front of the tassie devil enclosure. Most of the enclosure was grassy, including a raised mound in the middle. But around this mound ran a heavily worn dirt track (roughly the same width as a tassie devil) and on this dirt track ran a lone devil. Around and around he went, like a broken record... around and around and ... you get the idea.

At the time, I just thought that all tasmanian devils must be crazy (I'm sure a childhood of Taz cartoons made this explanation seem obvious.). But several years later, when I found out that a life of confinement and lack of stimulation can lead many animals in zoos and circuses to go mad, I realised that a more likely explanation was that not all tassie devils are crazy - just the one I saw in that zoo.

If you've been following the story of the celebrity polar bear, Knut, who died a couple of weeks ago in Berlin Zoo, then you'd know that he also lived a very troubled life. Born in captivity, and rejected by his mother shortly after birth in 2006, he was raised by a human zookeeper. I'm sure this zookeeper did his best to raise Knut well, but let's face it, he was not 2.5m tall with a coat of white fur, and by 2008 there were reports that Knut was knuts, calling him a "publicity addicted psycho".

Fame can do some strange things to people - so can jail. So what can being raised by a human in an unnatural, confined environment, with constant crowds looking on do to a polar bear? Well here's a description from one of his keepers at the zoo: "He actually cries out or whimpers if he sees that there is not a spectator outside his enclosure ready to ooh and ahh at him. When the zoo had to shut because of black ice everywhere, he howled until staff members stood before him and calmed him down." This from an animal that would normally live a more-or-less solitary life in the wild!

A couple of years ago Berlin Zoo ran into financial problems and even considered selling their polar bear celebrity. But ultimately Knut lived out the rest of his short life at Berlin Zoo - confined to an enclosure, never able to roam the vast expanses that his bear buddies in the wild do.

Sadly, I'd say I've learnt more about what life's like for a polar bear from David Attenborough's docos than Knut ever learnt being raised by a man in an enclosure in Berlin. Given the choice, I wouldn't go back to a zoo after seeing the dizzying madness of that tassie devil running in circles. Fortunately, Attenborough and others have made more docos about animals in the wild than any of us are ever likely to manage to watch.

What do you think of wild animals being kept on display in captivity? Leave a comment.

There's a new legend in town! New Zealander, Carl Scott is at this very moment, sitting alone in a tiny cage next to a highway, and he plans to stay there for a whole month!

Why? To shine the spotlight on the cruel treatment of chickens kept in battery cages for their eggs (yes, sadly the situation in NZ is not much different to Australia). Now that's commitment!

The space he's living in for the next month is less than two metres across, 130cm high (he can't even stand up!) and even includes his toilet. Yet Carl would be the first to tell you that despite these cramped conditions he's still got it way better than the average chook (let's call her Betty).

To start with, Betty doesn't have her own cage; she has to share it with up to 5 other birds, with less than the space of an A4 piece of paper for each to live in . She can't even flap her wings!

Betty's cage is one of thousands of cages, stacked in rows - up to four cages high. Living in the bottom row, she is showered with waste from hens locked in cages above hers.

Betty has lost many of the feathers that would keep her warm from constantly rubbing against the wire of the cage. If Betty isn't living in chronic pain from an untreated broken bone, then stats suggest that at least one of her cagemates is. [1]

For virtually her entire life, she has been locked in this tiny cage in a windowless shed. The short time before she was put in this cage was no more pleasant. During that time the tip of her beak was sliced off with a hot iron, without any pain relief.

Even if Betty survives life in this miserable cage, her only 'reward' for producing eggs will be death. When she no longer lays enough eggs to be 'profitable', she will be trucked off to slaughter with her cage-mates (before her second birthday), without ever knowing the simple joys of dustbathing, perching or building her own nest.

There is absolutely no doubt that chickens in battery cages endure a life of hell. None of us would want to trade places with them. Which makes Carl's demonstration all the more heroic. Carl, you're a legend!

If you don't think any person or animal should be forced to live this way, have your say for chickens in New Zealand here and chickens in Australia here.

Do you think you could spend a month in a cage for the cause?

Ref [1] Parkinson G (1993), "Osteoporosis and bone fractures in the laying hen", Progress report of work at the Victorian Institute of Animal Science, Attwood

We all fell in love with Sea Turtles when Marlin hitched a ride with them along the East Australian current to find his beloved son, Nemo. But did you know that all sea turtles in oceans worldwide are endangered?

We want to get behind these friendly guys, so we're calling on our less bashful supporters to help us help them.

Sea Turtle hatchlings use the moon over the horizon to navigate into the ocean after emerging from the nest at night. But the bright lights of residential or tourist areas along the coastline can confuse the baby turtles so that they end up on the road instead of in the water.

Now we don't want their first attempt at swimming to be a 'bummer' so we're going to show them ours!

They may have trouble spotting one moon on the beach, but they can't miss a hundred of them! The more moons to guide the babies to water, the better!

Of course, we won't know exactly when the hatchlings will emerge, so we must keep vigilant and be ready to drop our dacks and run to the waters edge at a moment's notice.

Time will be of the essence to pull this off. As will the glow of our bright white derrieres!

Let us know if you feel like being liberated enough to help liberate these little guys on to their lifelong ocean journey!!

We'll let you know of the date shortly!

(Now what is the date today?)

If you simply can't wait and you're desperate to help sea turtles now, you can take part in this campaign today. No joke!