After Tory dither and delay, parliament FINALLY passes Animal Welfare Bill to protect farmed animals
On Tuesday 14 May, the UK House of Lords passed a landmark new bill on animal welfare. Of course, it’s a major win for animal rights. However, it likely could have happened a lot sooner if not for Tory wrangling on previous bills.
Animal Welfare Bill passes through parliament
The Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Bill prohibits the export of cattle, goats, pigs, and horses for slaughter, and fattening for slaughter.
It aims to improve animal welfare in farming by ending long, arduous journeys to other countries. These journeys regularly put animals through overcrowding, exhaustion, dehydration and stress.
However, on 14 May (2024), the House of Lords passed the new bill that will bring this appalling practice to a close. It will now head for royal assent before becoming law.
Activists have been calling for the ban for decades. Emma Slawinski, director of policy, prevention and campaigns at the RSPCA animal charity, described it as “an extraordinary achievement” that activists had campaigned on for 50 years. She said that:
Back in the 90s we had more than a million animals going out from the UK. It’s an abhorrent trade. The suffering is intense and it goes on for a long time.
Some of those journeys were measured in days, not in hours, and they’re never going to happen again.
Activists launched particularly fierce and dedicated campaigning during this time. Notable among this was a coordinated wave of protests and direct action against the practice at the port of Brightlingsea in Essex in 1995. UK media dubbed the event “The Battle of Brightlingsea”.
In tandem with this, on February 1, 1995, Jill Phipps (photo above) was one of a few dozen animal rights activists who broke through a police line at Coventry Airport in central England. She was crushed to death under a lorry as she protested against the export of live calves for veal in 1995.
More than 500 candidate MEPs have pledged to do more to protect animals at EU level should they be elected to the European Parliament in three weeks.
The Vote for Animals campaign, run by Eurogroup for Animals and its members, asks candidates to take a pledge committing to do more for better protection of all animals at EU level.
The pledge addresses live animal transport, non-animal science, welfare of aquatic species, the conservation of wild animals, imports of animal-based products, and welfare of companion animals. It also addresses a future fur farming ban, the importance of sustainable food production and an ask for an EU commissioner for animal welfare.
Candidates spanning the entire political spectrum across 26 Member States have made the commitment. So far, Finland, Italy and France have the largest number of candidates supporting the pledge.
EU citizens have the opportunity to ask their candidates to sign the pledge, by sending a message through a dedicated platform, which is available in all EU languages. So far, over 9,000 citizens have sent a message to their candidates.
An estimated 400 million EU citizens are eligible to vote in the European elections set to take place between 6-9 June. The demand for improved EU legislation on animal welfare has been resoundingly voiced: 91% of Europeans believe that safeguarding the welfare of farmed animals is crucial, while 84% feel that current protection measures are not enough.
Taking the pledge for the animals is a commitment that in the next legislature, should I be elected, I will continue to push for better EU legislation to protect all animals across their lifespan. There is a critical need for action to phase out animals in cages, as per citizens’ demands, and a push for more ambitious legislation for animals during transport. The promised revision of the animal welfare legislation should be a top priority for the next Commission.
Niels Fuglsang, candidate MEP (Socialdemokraterne, Denmark) and Vice-President of the Intergroup for Animal Welfare.
The majority of EU citizens want animals to be better protected in Europe. To achieve this, we need more MEPs who want the EU to do more. Voting for candidates who have signed the Vote For Animals pledge is the best way to advance animal welfare in the EU. If I am re-elected, I pledge to continue to be the voice of animals and their defender in the European Parliament.
Caroline Roose, candidate MEP (Europe Écologie, France) and Vice-President of the Intergroup for Animal Welfare.
It is great to see so many candidates take a pledge for the animals. It is important that the next European Parliament represents citizens’ demands for better protection of all animal species, and MEPs can help to ensure that this topic stays on top of the agenda for the next term.
Ethical Farming Ireland succeeded in preventing a 45 year old transport vessel from coming into port at Greenore to collect Irish cattle for export.
The Sarah M was scheduled to dock at Greenore on Ireland’s northeast coast on April 30, to collect 2000 young bulls for export.
The ship had recently been classed with the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping, and was therefore subject to European Union sanctions which include denial of access to EU ports.
Ethical Farming Ireland alerted the Department of Transport of this breach, which resulted in the vessel being denied entry.
The organisation has long campaigned against live export from Ireland to mainland Europe and beyond, as thousands of animals are exported to countries as far afield as Libya, Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt and Turkey each year.
The organisation has expressed disappointment that their intervention was necessary in order to ensure proper regulation of the vessel.
Such incidents are not uncommon amongst live transport vessels, as revealed in new research by Animal Welfare Foundation. Nearly half of the animal transport vessels approved in the EU are flying the flag of a country marked by the Paris Memorandum of Understanding as a black flag (for example Togo, Sierra Leone or Tanzania).
This flag indicates these vessels pose a high risk to maritime traffic, as well as to the animals, crew and environment.
A five year phase out plan and $107m support package has been promised by the Australian government, meaning live exports of sheep will end on 1 May 2028.
Agriculture Minister Murray Watt made the announcement on 11 May, noting that legislation will be introduced in this term of the Australian Parliament to end the trade in law.
The decision was taken after years of campaigning from animal welfare organisations, with polls revealing that the majority of Australian citizens want to see an end to the cruel trade.
The live sheep export industry has shown time and again that they are unable to meet the community’s expectations.
Murray Watt, Australian Agriculture Minister
Live export has also been in a long-term economic decline, and now accounts for only 0.1% of Australia’s agricultural exports.
This has directly corresponded with an increase in the trade of meat products, with trade in chilled sheep meat now 58 times the value of the live sheep export trade. Sales of chilled Australian sheep meat to the Middle East alone now represent $632 million, compared to only $77 million of profits from the entire live sheep export trade.
Decades of investigations have confirmed the stressful, dirty and overcrowded conditions that sheep are subjected to during long sea journeys from Australia. Heat stress can be fatal for animals aboard transport vessels, as tragically proven during the 2017 Awassi Express disaster where around 2,400 sheep died from heat stress whilst travelling between Australia and the Middle East.
While of course we wish it was sooner, we also recognise and respect the responsibility of the Government to consider all who are impacted by this historic decision… Considering the decades of dedicated effort and advocacy, it is understandable that some doubted whether this trade would end in their lifetime. Now we know differently.
Thank you everyone for sticking with us; and a special welcome to all our new visitor friends from Australia and Singapore. Check out our visitors – https://clustrmaps.com/site/1a9kn
If some of you are new to the site and not aware, animal buddy Pauline often sends me a collection of her animal photos taken in and around South East London / Kent County.
Tonight I have a new set of photos which you can see below. Hopefully, Pauline and I will be meeting up for a coffee on Wednesday and a Veggie / Vegan Ruby (Ruby Murray – Curry) – https://youtu.be/XRVVCbXmYJo in the next few weeks; so really looking forward to it. Animal talk on the menu as always – her hedgehogs and birds in nesting boxes; and my badgers and foxes who come round for scoff every night; – below, a badger in my garden.
So here below are all of Pauline’s latest shots; which we are sure you will enjoy.
Regards Mark and Pauline.
Below – Spring Lamb
Above – Singing Whitethroat
Below – Whitethroat
Above – Male Blackbird
Below – Female Blackbird
Below – Oyster Catcher
Below – Peacock Butterfly
Below – Gray Herons At Nest – and Youngsters
Below – Gosling
Below – Canada Geese
Below – Young Grey Wagtail
Below – Grey Wagtail
Below – Goldfinch
Below – .. and Thirsty
Below – Swans Nesting – Can You See the Egg Within ?
Animal advocates are celebrating after parts of a controversial Ontario agriculture law that made it illegal to get a job on a farm under false pretences to expose conditions inside were deemed unconstitutional.
Justice Markus Koehnen struck down parts of Bill 156, the Security from Trespass and Protecting Food Safety Act, earlier this month after advocacy group Animal Justice, along with an activist and a journalist, launched a Charter challenge in 2021.
They argued the new law infringed on their freedom of expression because they could not tell the outside world what was happening inside a farm if they gained access to the property through a false pretence.
The act required consent from the owner to be on a property where animals are kept, raised or slaughtered. That consent was voided under the law if someone lied to get on the land.
“The act limits the mode of expression by preventing undercover exposes or even eyewitness descriptions of the conditions in which animals are raised or slaughtered if the person providing the description gained access to premises using false pretences,” the judge wrote in his decision.
“In light of the foregoing, I find that one of the purposes and one of the effects of the act and the regulation is to infringe on the applicants’ freedom of expression.”
The province enacted the legislation in response to demands from the agricultural industry and about 120 municipal resolutions calling on the government to do more to control trespassing, the decision said.
Ontario argued the legislation was aimed at “protecting animal safety, biosecurity, and the safety of farmers as well as preventing economic harm that can arise from threats to animal safety and biosecurity.”
Part of the case focused on lying.
“If lies can amount to protected speech in a context as odious as Holocaust denial, they should be equally protected when someone denies having a university degree or being affiliated with an animal rights group to obtain employment at or entry to an animal auction, petting zoo, rodeo, fair or circus,” the judge decided.
The judge agreed with animal rights activists
The news thrilled Camille Labchuk, executive director of Animal Justice.
“It’s a decisive victory over unconstitutional ‘ag-gag’ laws that were designed and had the effect of covering up serious animal cruelty on farms,” she said.
“In light of this ruling, we’re looking forward to getting back to doing investigative work in Ontario as soon as possible.”
The animal advocates had submitted undercover video of farms that were eventually aired on national television broadcasts and led to criminal charges and convictions in some cases. None of that would have happened without lying to get a job in the first place.
“The expression is of public interest,” Koehnen wrote.
“Publicizing the way in which animals are treated is an issue of interest to at least some members of the public. It is an issue about which the public is entitled to be informed if they want to be.”
The advocates who brought the case also argued undercover operatives would follow the rules on farms, only deviating to take pictures of video of what was happening with the animals.
The judge agreed.
“For a potential employee to deny any association with animal-rights groups in a job interview does not threaten biosecurity, the food supply chain or animal safety,” the judge wrote.
“Nor does the follow up act of such an activist communicating what they see in an agricultural facility.”
The bill also made it illegal to interact with animals inside transport trucks, a law seemingly designed to target one group in the province: Toronto Pig Save. The group is part of the large Save Movement whose members “bear witness” and hold vigils for animals en route to slaughter.
They often gave water to the pigs inside trucks stopped at intersections to “show kindness and compassion to animals in their final moments,” the decision noted.
The Ministry of the Attorney General may appeal
Two days after the bill came into force in June 2020, a truck hauling a load of live pigs ran over and killed Regan Russell, 65, who was protesting the new law outside a slaughterhouse in Burlington, Ont. The driver, Andrew Blake, pleaded guilty to the provincial offence of careless driving causing death. He was fined $2,000 and given 12-months of probation.
The Regan Russell Foundation intervened in this case, arguing the law interfered with both its constitutional right to protest and freedom of expression.
The judge disagreed and held up that portion of the act.
“The purpose of protecting freedom of expression is to do just that, allow people to express themselves,” Koehnen wrote. “It does not allow people to appropriate, even momentarily, the property of others as a means for that expression.”
Russell’s stepson, Joshua Powell, was disappointed with that part of the decision.
“It is upsetting, but we are very, very elated that the judge upheld the ability to hold vigils at these sites as a protected act,” Powell said.
“And, most important, we are really happy that undercover exposes, from journalists or activists, won’t be illegal anymore. It was one of the main reasons Regan was out there that day.”
The Ministry of the Attorney General said it is reviewing the decision and has not yet decided if it will appeal.
We want to send congratulations to Lyn and our friends at AA on getting this amazing result. Being a UK live export campaigner for 35+ years I personally know the immense amount of work that is needed to achieve results such as this.
All the time you are speaking for them, your mind never distracts from the continual suffering to the animals that this trade brings. Without doubt, Australian live exports are probably the biggest nut of all nations to get victory over in this sordid trade.
We all want an immediate ban, but in this instance the head rules over the heart. Despite our feelings; it has to be accepted that ‘meat’ in some form will continue to be exported from Australia. As we say in the UK, better on the hook than on the hoof ! – sadly the process of killing animals will not stop, but the suffering on the ships will. In the next few years there will be a lot of things that need to be addressed by both Australia and the states they currently export to; a change from meat on the hoof to that on the hook. New slaughterhouses may need to be built in Australia to process the animals; and maybe methods with all involved to store and export meat by refrigeration. It is not what I want to see and probably what you all do not want to see; but it will happen; animals will be killed as always but they will be saved immense suffering on shithole rust buckets as they currently are. A large cruelty chunk of the puzzle will be removed; and that is something I at least welcome.
Going veggie or vegan for sure is the way forward and the way to reduce this suffering. Every rust bucket livestock carrier that ends up going for scrap is a real positive as far as I am concerned; it is every time, another nail in the coffin and another page written to put this disgusting abuse of animals into the history books.
Well done and big congrats to everyone who has showed year of tenacity to get this news today,
I wanted to write to you this evening to express the most heart-felt ‘thank you’.
Today, because of our combined efforts, we now know the date that the live sheep trade will end. Australian Agriculture Minister, Murray Watt, announced this morning that the live sheep trade will, after some 60 years of operation, end on May 1st 2028.
Importantly, the Minister also announced that this end date will belegislated in this term of government.
While of course we wish it was sooner, we also recognise and respect the need to consider all who may be affected by this historic decision. Considering the decades of dedicated effort and advocacy behind today’s announcement, it is understandable that some doubted whether this trade would end in their lifetime. Now we know with certainty that it will. We can now count down towards the day that the last sheep shipment will leave our shores.
And that is why, aside from my great relief at this announcement, I am filled with overwhelming gratitude to you Diana. Truly, this day would not have come without you. You supported our investigations. You refused to get disheartened. You achieved something extraordinary: you convinced an Australian government that animals deserved better and that an industry that had long enjoyed political support, should be concluded.
We now know beyond any doubt, that so powerful is human compassion, it can make the seemingly impossible, possible. The resilience so needed to stay the course was born of compassion. The courage we needed on the most difficult days was fuelled by compassion. The commitment to write letter after letter to politicians was driven by compassion. To witness together a government decision based on compassion for animals, is, I am sure you will agree, a momentous day. A day to long savour. Please remember your part in this, as I always will.
My deep appreciation today also extends to our colleague groups for their exceptional efforts that ensured the animal protection sector spoke for Australian sheep with a strong and united voice. They have been magnificent.
And it is so very appropriate that I also mention my wonderful colleague, friend and co-investigator Shatha Hamade. My time as an investigator in the Middle East had to come to an end, as my face had become too well known. When Shatha joined Animals Australia, it was as our lawyer, not an investigator. Yet she didn’t hesitate to say ‘yes’ when I told her she was needed.
Since then, as you know, Shatha has given her heart and soul to being where Australian sheep have needed her to be. And finally, my gratitude goes to Fazal Ullah, the crewman, who in witnessing the suffering before him, chose to act, rather than accept.
We will all be forever grateful for this young man’s courage. It is so very clear that today’s historic announcement has been the result of a team effort like no other.
Thank you so very much for the critical part you have played. For the animals,
After years of campaigning, the sentience of animals is now officially recognised in the Constitution of Belgium. The Constitution takes precedence in the hierarchy of Belgian legal norms, and now includes a reference to ensure the protection and well-being of animals.
After a lively debate in a plenary session of the Chamber of Representatives, including concerns raised by the agriculture sector, a critical two-thirds majority was ultimately reached to approve the addition.
Belgium is now the 6th EU Member State to include animals in its Constitution, following Italy, Germany, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Austria. Other nations have also acted to enshrine constitutional animal sentience, including Switzerland, Egypt, Brazil and India.
The following passage has now been officially added to Article 7 of the country’s Constitution:
In the exercise of their respective powers, the Federal State, the Communities and the Regions ensure the protection and well-being of animals as sentient beings.
Animal sentience is also enshrined in law at EU level, as Article 13 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union mandates EU Member States to consider animal welfare as a significant commitment. Animals are recognised as sentient beings, acknowledging their capacity to experience pain and suffering, and emphasising the moral duty to treat them with care and respect.
As well as sending a strong message about the commitment of Belgium to protect animal welfare, the inclusion should also have a direct impact as regulations made by federal and regional parliaments, as well as local authorities, must comply with the Constitution. It could also have the impacy of strengthening enforcement of animal welfare laws.
This is a historic victory for GAIA and all those who defend animals’ interests. Only 30 years ago, such a breakthrough was simply unthinkable. Today, animal welfare is becoming a constitutional value in its own right, joining other fundamental principles. This recognition reflects a major change in society and highlights the growing importance of animal protection in our country. It is this kind of progress that GAIA has been fighting for since it was founded.
As you know we do not specialise in any particular issue like many organisations – we try to cover different animal issues from many different places. If there is one thing that I really work on, then it is live animal transport. https://worldanimalsvoice.com/?s=live+exports
Today I am going to concentrate on animals, legislation and welfare organisations in Nepal.
Below you we see I have included many links for you to access. There is too much to cover in each so I advise you just look at any / each to see the wonderful animal work being done by our animal buddies out there. Without any decent legislation (I have included that in the links); our friends must be finding it very hard. I salute them for all their endeavours ! in a situation that I appreciate must be very difficult.
If you can give anyone a donation, please do; I am sure it will be greatly accepted.
World Animals Voice 