We all know Australia exports sheep and cattle for slaughter, but did you know we also export goats? :-(
A new Animals Australia investigation has revealed MORE cruelty in the live export industry, this time in Malaysia, and this time to goats! This is the first footage of exported goats ever released and they are literally screaming out for help.
Animals Australia's investigators witnessed goats being roughly handled, shoved into bags and stuffed into the boots of cars. When these unlucky animals arrive at their final destinations, stressed out and frightened, they have their throats cut while fully conscious.
It is absolutely clear that live export rules aren't working. EVERYWHERE we look in this trade, we find cruelty.
What happened to these goats really makes me sick. Worse still, we've also recently uncovered footage of a poor bull, we've named Jacob, who was one of many animals brutally killed in Egypt .
Want to put your foot down against live export cruelty? Then take action today:
If you're 18+, head here to tell your MP to ban live export.
If you're under 18, click here to tell the PM whats what!
It is a little known fact that goats have been known to show unconditional love, just like a dog. So show some love for goats and together we can make a difference for them!
Another Australian rodeo ... another horrible example of animal cruelty. This time the footage is from the Warwick Rodeo in southern Queensland this weekend just been. WARNING: If you love animals you'll find the vid hard to watch.
What you can see is a bull named Buckle Up falling and breaking either his leg or hip. He attempts to stand and walk, dragging his leg and collapsing on it a number of times.
The next 30 minutes(!!) were spent trying to get Buckle Up out of the rodeo ring. Rodeo clowns taunted him; a ute was used; and other bulls were let loose in the ring to shepherd him out - all of this despite his clear distress and awful injury causing him to collapse repeatedly.
After half an hour of prolonged pain, Buckle Up was finally herded onto a truck. In their clumsy and careless efforts to move him, the organisers of the rodeo may have broken more than one section of the Queensland Animal Care and Protection Act. Really though, would rodeos be the first thing to spring into your mind when thinking about "animal care and protection"?
Queensland isn't the only state where rodeos still take place. In fact, every state and territory still allows them (except the ACT...which stands for Anti-Cruelty Territory, right?). If you believe that Australia in 2012 is no place for this kind of cruel treatment of animals, all in the name of entertainment, then join with 1000s of others to make the pledge in saying "NO" to rodeos.
So we're heading into the warmer months again soon, and that means plenty more time spent outdoors. It means the beach and music festivals. It means visits to the pool, nighttimes sessions at outdoor cinemas and picnics with your buds (serving up delicious cruelty-free options, of course).With all these different ways to have fun and muck around, you'd think that watching animals being tormented at rodeos would be the last thing people would be interested in.
Rodeos were started in the US, but have made their way to Australia, and now occur in all states and territories. (Except the ACT which must stand for Awesome Capital Territory because they've banned rodeos.) If you're wondering why rodeos are such bad news, just take a look at the footage collected here of rodeos IN AUSTRALIA within the last two years.
If you couldn't bring yourself to watch the footage (and I wouldn't blame you, it's not easy to watch) then what it shows is frightened and stressed animals being dragged by their necks; animals slamming into fences; broken bones, and deliberate provocation. The calf roping it shows is particularly nasty and is so cruel that it has been banned in SA and Victoria.
Despite the footage, rodeos still take place. But the tide has turned thanks to pressure from Australians who don't want to see animals mistreated like this. Major businesses like Kmart and Telstra have dropped their support for rodeos, and thousands of Aussies have pledged to never support these events. You can help bring on the end to this cruel 'sport' by taking the pledge too.
Help spread the word by sharing the video. The more people who know the truth about what goes on at rodeos, the more people will join in the movement to get rid of them entirely. Click here to share on Facebook.
Click here for twitter.
Sometimes you see or hear about something happening, and it changes your life forever. For many people, it might well be the footage and photos released last week of a piggery near Canberra. An investigation by Animal Liberation ACT and Animal Liberation NSW revealed some of the most appalling cruelty and neglect ever filmed on an Australian factory farm.
You can see footage and photos from the investigation here (WARNING: the content of the website is very distressing).
Just 20 mins drive from our nation's capital, workers were shown kicking piglets across the floor. In a room next to their mothers (within ear shot), young pigs screamed as they were beaten over the head with a sledgehammer and then slaughtered without any effective stunning. Footage shows some pigs apparently conscious and struggling for minutes after their throats had been cut. Buckets were filled with dead piglets, and various types of injuries and infections were left untreated. The footage is like some kind of sick horror movie.
Amidst the brutality and neglect, the scene I found perhaps most heartbreaking was a mother pig standing in a tiny crate, just being continuously pounded by a flood of water from a burst pipe. That these intelligent and sensitive animals could be treated so horribly is just devastating.
Even though a lot of what was filmed showed illegal cruelty, the legal practices filmed will also shock you. Piglets have their tails and teeth cut off without painkillers. Pregnant sows are confined to tiny crates where they're not given enough room to even turn around. This is legal and standard practice in piggeries across Australia. As is the dank and dark conditions evident in the footage. For many factory farmed pigs the first time they will feel the sun on their backs is also their last as they are transported to slaughterhouses to be killed.
Unfortunately, the abuse at Wally's Piggery isn't the first time (even recently) that farmed animals in Australia have been subject to such mistreatment. Earlier this year, a review in NSW found animal welfare breaches at *every* single slaughterhouse in the state. And late last year, an abattoir in Victoria was permanently closed because of extreme cruelty.
Hopefully, anyone involved with Wally's Piggery will face the full force of the law for what they've done. This won't help pigs who continue to experience fear, distress and cruelty in Australian piggeries which aren't breaking any laws, though. If you want to make a real difference to them, then don't eat them. By going veg you'll single-handedly save 100 animals every year, and you won't be contributing to an industry that puts profits before the welfare of animals.
If you've already gone veg, what was it that helped make your decision?
If you've ever seen Earthlings, then you'd already know that what happens in slaughterhouses is pretty horrific. Really, if most people could see what happens to the animals that end up as meat on their plates, they'd seriously reconsider whether they want to eat meat.
Here's another reason why people would rethink their dinner plans: The NSW Food Authority has just finished a review of all the domestic slaughterhouses in NSW. Guess how many of those places needed to be told to clean up their act?
a) none of them
b) some of them
c) most of them
d) ALL of them!
If you guessed "All of them" ... you were right! Animals were observed being mistreated in every domestic abattoir across the state. The review found that slaughtering staff didn't always know what they were doing (what the...??!) and that some animals were not being stunned properly before being killed. That means they may have still been conscious when their throats were cut :(
The review started after nightmarish footage was taken at Hawkesbury Valley Meat Processors by Animals Australia member society, Animal Liberation. But hey, this is hardly the first shocking footage to come out of a slaughterhouse recently ... remember the pigs being stabbed in the eyes at a Victorian slaughterhouse late last year? If you've already seen it then I'd say you probably do remember it.
The reality is that what goes on in slaughterhouses on a daily basis is ugly -- even when no laws are being broken. And it's so well hidden from public eyes that we can never really be sure how an individual animal on the supermarket shelf was treated. The only way to be certain that animals aren't suffering for our food is also the simplest way: take meat off the menu. The animals will thank you for it ;)
So did you see the live export story on ABC last night? If not, let me fill you in...
They aired shocking footage from a new Animals Australia investigation in Indonesia. (btw, you can check out the story here) I don't know how many times pollies need to see animals being packed on ships, sent to countries with no laws to protect them, and brutally killed before they'll get it. It's pretty obvious to the rest of us: live exports = animal cruelty
Last year, the government introduced a new system and promised we wouldn't see these horrible images on TV again. Minister for Agriculture, Joe Ludwig has been saying today that "What this actually demonstrates is that the system does work." But I'd like to get a second opinion: Does this look like a system that's working to you?
P.S. If you want to pester your pollie about banning this bloody business, drop in here.
Do you want to know what the first moments of freedom look like? Check out this amazing video of 8 lucky turkeys, who were rescued from a factory farm, seeing their new home at Edgar's Mission Farm Sanctuary for the first time.
Isn't that just gorgeous! And to think these birds started their lives in factory farms. I hate to say it, but these sorts of happy endings don't happen for most birds. Just check out how most turkeys in Australia have to live.. (these photos from Animal Liberation ACT were from a recent investigation at a turkey factory farm):
Like chickens, turkeys in factory farms are crammed into sheds by the thousands and have to live in their own waste for all of their short and miserable lives. Can you believe that the birds served up on Christmas tables across the country this weekend were likely to be less than 17 weeks old when they were killed?! (to put that in perspective, turkeys would naturally live for about 10 years)
I read this amazing story a little while ago about, Lydia, a turkey at Farm Sanctuary in the US, who was nicknamed the 'hugging turkey'. If she saw you sit down, she'd race over and before your bum had even hit the ground she'd be in your lap with her neck stretched over your shoulder for a cuddle.
Surely there's something a little wrong about eating someone who just wants a hug?!
Paul McCartney said "If slaughterhouses had glass walls everyone would be a vegetarian." Check out this recent footage from a Victorian slaugtherhouse and let me know if you agree:
I cringed every time one of those pigs was stabbed in the eye with the stunner... and when that desperate pig was beaten to death with a sledgehammer -- shocking! So shocking in fact that when Animals Australia gave this footage to the authorities, the slaughterhouse was shut down within 24hrs.
But what really haunted me was seeing the fear in the pigs' eyes, huddled together in the corner of their pen; and seeing them squeal in terror as their companions were killed in front of them. Because while that stabbing with the stunner may be illegal (and was part of the reason the slaugtherhouse was shut down), there are no laws that can protect animals from the fear those pigs suffered in their final moments.
The investigator who took this footage, 'Kate', also described something she couldn't capture on video: another pig who escaped and ran into the scalding tank (a pit of boiling hot water, used to remove hair from the dead pigs). What a terrible way to go :(
This is just one slaughterhouse -- one that also killed free-range animals and was regularly inspected by authorities. It certainly makes you wonder what might be going on behind closed doors in other slaughterhouses!
So what do you think? Is Paul McCartney right when he says "If slaugtherhouses had glass walls everyone would be vegetarian"?
Mark this date in your diary, because you won't want to miss this! Everyone is talking about the story that will air on Monday night (30th May) on Four Corners! The program will feature never-before seen footage from Animals Australia's recent investigation into the treatment of Aussie cattle exported live to Indonesia.
Every year, millions of animals born into Australian care are exported live, to be killed in countries where there are no laws to protect their welfare.
Over the past seven years, Animals Australia has carried out investigations into the treatment of animals exported live to the Middle East. Footage from past investigations has repeatedly shown the live export industry is happy to export animals to countries regardless of how badly they will be treated. When exposed on national TV, evidence provided by Animals Australia led to a ban on live sheep exports to Egypt, and created massive public opposition to the cruel trade.
This coming Monday night, ABC1's Four Corners will air exclusive footage of exported Australian cattle filmed by Animals Australia investigators in Indonesia.
So tune in and tell all your friends and family to watch this groundbreaking story! Four Corners airs at 8:30PM, Monday 30th May on ABC1.
Animals Australia's latest investigation into live animal exports to the Middle East is going to be front and centre on The 7.30 Report tonight (ABC1 at …7.30pm duh!)
Tune in to see undeniable proof that this trade is cruel, with first hand accounts from our lead investigator, Lyn White.
This is an important opportunity to influence public and government opinion. Footage aired from Animals Australia's 5th investigation led to such big public outrage that the trade of sheep to Egypt was banned! So we need as many people as possible to be watching tonight! Please make sure you encourage everyone you know to tune in.
For starters, please update your Facebook/Twitter status to let everyone know they should check it out. Then make sure to tell all your family and friends about it.
After the program tonight, we need people to make their voice heard. So please speak up for the animal by clicking here to email the Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture to ask that they do the right thing and ban the live animal export trade for good! (And while you're at it, you could always post a link to that action on Facebook and Twitter too!)
Did you catch Animals Australia's piggery investigation on 60 Minutes on Sunday? If not don't worry, you can still see the segment on the 60 Minutes website.
I'm so thrilled! Just think, more than 1 million Aussies saw the truth about Australia's pig industry. Many will have never thought about where pork, bacon and ham come from before. And now they know that animal cruelty laws fail to protect animals raised for food, and that these profit driven animal industries aren't looking out for the wellbeing of their animals – they're looking out for their wallets.
After the show, our office was flooded with phone calls and emails from shocked viewers who had no idea of the routine cruelty of the pork industry. Many of these callers have sworn never to eat pigs again after seeing behind the closed doors of factory farms!
And now's your chance to see the behind the scenes footage of Animals Australia's investigators inside the piggery:
Disclaimer:
We’re supposed to let you know that the ideas expressed here are the views of the individual authors, and may not necessarily reflect the views of Animals Australia or Animals Australia Unleashed. So now you know.
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