Vegan for the animals.

True animal lovers are vegan.

Did you know, animals have rich and fulfilling emotional and social lives?

They love and appreciate their lives in the same way you and I do.

Animals have rich and fulfilling emotional and social lives! They value their lives in the same way we do. They play, scuffle in the dirt, run from danger and sacrifice themselves to protect their young. The emotional bonds between animals have been scientifically verified and we know we can form bonds with them ourselves. We could bond with farmed animals just like cats and dogs if we wanted.

The Animal Welfare Act states that animals are sentient beings and should be treated as such. There are still questionable practices in the animal industries here in Aotearoa. Animal farming is run for profit and not in the interests of the animal, who would rather not be farmed at all. All farming practices reduce animal lives down to numbers: how little food can be given to maximise the end product. Is this animal reaching its target weight in the required time? Is this unit producing enough milk? We believe that farming animals is inherently wrong and unethical.

All legislative animal protection and official places to report ill treatment is via the Ministry for Primary Industries, the SPCA or the police. With nearly 9.7 million cows and 24.4 million sheep in NZ but less than 30 animal welfare officers employed by the MPI and only 70 employed by the SPCA, it is a formidable job to even address the 14,000 complaints that come in every year, let alone carry out on the spot inspections.

How many farmers adhere to the Act remains unknown. There are also some loopholes which need to be closed, such as imported animal products that do not have to adhere to the same welfare codes. One has to question the fact that it is farmers who have had the most influence in the drawing up of the Act and the Codes in the first place.

The basic purposes and principles of the Act are sound, but millions of farmed and other animals are denied protection by huge exemptions which undermine the entire Act and place economics and practicality above animal welfare in many instances.

The Codes have been disastrous for animals, as they set extremely low standards. Specific provisions in the Act – such as sections 73 and 183A(2) – provide for economic and practical matters to be taken into account. It is due to these kinds of loopholes in the welfare laws, that New Zealand ranks a C in the World Animal Protection ranking system.

Is eating meat ethical?

We don’t need animal products to survive and be healthy, strong and fit, so is it moral to take what we don’t need when they suffer so greatly?

Is it right to breed them into a captive existence for the sake of our taste buds? 

Just because we are able to overpower the vulnerable animals in our care does that give us the right to do so?

When an animal’s body is seen as a unit of production all aspects of their life are rated as worthy or unworthy relative to their financial merit. Food animals are not protected by law in the same way that companion animals are, and this has led to a myriad of commonplace farming practices which are grossly inhumane and horrifically cruel.

New Zealand farming industry list of shame

These are just a few common practices you’ll find in New Zealand farms.
Cruelty to hens:
  • Extreme confinement (chickens have more space in an oven than they do when alive) for hens in colony cages and broiler chickens, which causes significant and prolonged physical and psychological trauma. Scientific evidence shows that intensively confined farm animals are frustrated, distressed, and suffering, which can result in acts of cannibalism.
  • De-beaking and de-clawing without anaesthetic
  • Extreme laying cycles that leave bones crippled and broken from lack of calcium (in the wild chickens lay around 12 eggs a year; humans have bred and forced them to lay over 300).
  • Birds lose feathers due to ammonia burns from urine and being attacked by other birds due to a stressed environment.
  • Broiler chickens (used for meat) are engineered to be clinically obese genetic freaks, their legs often crippled under their enormous weight as they grow too big, too fast for their bones to cope.
  • They frequently suffer premature heart attacks due to their grotesque proportions
 
Cruelty to sheep & cows:
  • NZ Welfare Regulations 2018 were updated in October 2019 to state that dehorning and disbudding must not be practised without local anasthetic, though in reality this is another cost that may or may not be paid.
  • Beef and Lamb produce a fact sheet on painful husbandry practices in cattle, so it is well acknowledged by the industry that there are common practices that are painful.
  • Castration of beef cattle and sheep is recommended before 6 weeks of age, but up to 6 months is allowed without pain relief, if using rubber rings.
  • Tails should not be removed or shortened, unless required due to injury, in which case pain relief must be administered.
  • Cows are forcibly inseminated to create unnatural lifelong pregnancy and milk production which often causes udder problems, early death and calcium deficiency.
  • Emotional cruelty – dairy calves are removed from their mothers usually around 1 day old, and bobby calves sent to slaughter while they are still just a few days old at most, as they are of no use to the dairy industry. Both mother and baby suffer.

     

Cruelty to pigs:
  • Extreme confinement for most of their life causes pigs to experience significant and prolonged physical and psychological trauma and scientific evidence shows that intensively confined farm animals are frustrated, distressed, and suffering, which can result in acts of cannibalism.
  • Pigs often reside in absolute filth, with dead siblings nearby as permitted by New Zealand law.
  • They frequently suffer abscesses and tumours due to confinement.

Lenient, if any, sentencing for cases of animal abuse in New Zealand.

Overall, there has been a pattern of very lenient sentences imposed by the courts for animal abuse and neglect for the entire time the Animal Welfare Act has been in force. The maximum sentence has never been imposed in any case, and it was years before any jail sentence at all was imposed, despite severe animal cruelty and neglect cases regularly coming before the courts.

The MPI continues to rely on information and education to change behaviour, despite admitting that these are not effective strategies. The MPI does not acknowledge its own failure to monitor and detect ill-treatment, and the strong incentives to conceal rather than report criminal offending. The credibility of MPI’s calculations is undermined by the fact that it said there were more than 30 million production animals in New Zealand, when there are in fact over 160 million.

Key Recommendations from the World Animal Protection organisation:

  • New Zealand has legislation that prohibits causing animal suffering either by a deliberate act of cruelty or by a failure to act.
    However, the basic purposes and principles of the Animal Welfare Act 1999 are undermined by the Codes of Welfare, the 2018 Regulations and specific provisions of the Act. All permit conduct that is contrary to the basic protections of the Act. New Zealand should repeal provisions which do not comply with the Act’s basic purposes and principles.

  • Codes and Regulations legalise cruelty and permit the continuation of practices contrary to the basic thrust of the Act, such as hen cages, farrowing crates (to be phased out by 2025), greyhound racing and rodeos.
    The lack of attention to the law in the way in which NAWAC – the key agency responsible for preparing detailed rules for the treatment of animals – carries out its work has been criticised by Parliament’s Regulations Review Committee.
    New Zealand should pass a new Act protecting animals, which provides basic protections to all animals and does not allow for exceptions.
Horse racing

Horse Racing

Behind the romanticized façade of Thoroughbred horse racing is a world of injuries, drug abuse, gruesome breakdowns, and slaughter. While spectators show off their fancy outfits and sip mint juleps, horses are running for their lives.

Down industry

While most down and other feathers are removed from ducks and geese during slaughter, birds in breeding flocks and those raised for meat may be plucked repeatedly while they are still alive.

Shuttlecocks

Badminton shuttlecocks are made from plucked feathers of live ducks and geese, causing much pain to animals

Angora Rabbits

A PETA Asia undercover investigator visited almost a dozen rabbit farms in China, the source of 90 percent of the world’s angora, and found rabbits screaming in pain and terror as workers ripped the fur out of their skin.

Eggs

The more than 300 million chickens used each year for their eggs endure a nightmare that lasts for two years.

Leather

Leather

Most leather comes from developing countries such as India and China, where animal welfare laws are either non-existent or not enforced.

animal testing

Animal Testing

Each year, hundreds of thousands of animals in New Zealand, and an estimated 115.3 million worldwide, are used in the name of science.

Rodeo

Rodeo

Rodeos cause unnecessary distress and can result in significant injuries to the animals involved.

Dairy

Dairy

For too long, mother cows and their babies have suffered at the hands of an industry which views them as little more than production units or waste products.

Honey Bee

Honey

Unfortunately, like factory farmers, many beekeepers take inhumane steps to ensure personal safety and reach production quotas. It’s not unusual for larger honey producers to cut off the queen bee’s wings so that she can’t leave the colony.

How can you help end animal suffering?

Consider a vegan diet!

The human-animal relationship is inherently flawed. We love them, we make beautiful artistic images of them and then we exploit and abuse their bodies in a massive system of production that sees tens of millions of animals slaughtered in New Zealand each year simply to satisfy taste. We unnecessarily exploit animals for food, clothing, entertainment and experimentation.

If you really want to help animals, the answer is simple – be vegan!

Vegans don’t eat them, wear them or fund their abuse