battery hens | broiler hens | whales | kfc cruelty | puppy factories | rspca | fur | animal experimentation | sheep | writers group | go vegan

BATTERY HENS

Battery hens suffer for their entire lives crammed in tiny wire cages unable to walk, flap their wings or scratch in the soil. Battery hens are some of the most abused animals on the planet. ALV was founded in 1978 specifically to help these intelligent birds. Since this time ALV has worked tirelessly to draw public attention to these animals. The campaign involves everything from educating the public, to rescuing hens from their cage prisons and filming their appalling conditions. Our openrescue teams have conducted numerous investigations at battery hen factory farms around Australia and the world, documenting cruel and illegal conditions and rescuing sick and injured birds.

ALV does not endorse or promote any commercial egg production for the following reasons:

• Half the chicks hatched are male and are killed at one day old by the egg industry because they’ll never lay eggs. They are macerated in industrial blenders, suffocated in plastic bags or drowned in buckets.

• All laying hens used in commercial egg production are slaughtered prematurely when their economic productivity decreases.
  

• The parents of all egg laying hens (both battery and free range) are locked in breeding sheds. The hens in these sheds are mated continually making their backsides completely raw and swollen. The floor is often covered with a thick layer of excrement causing the air to be toxic with ammonia.
  

To get involved in the campaign please contact banbatterycages@alv.org.au
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BROILER CHICKENS

Broiler chickens are birds raised for their flesh. Globally over 46 billion chickens are killed for meat each year making them, along with fish, the most abused animal on the planet.
They are crowded into warehouse sized sheds holding between 40,000 - 64,000 birds and 'grown' to adult size in only eight short weeks through the use of growth promotants and cruel 'skip-a day' feeding regimes on parent birds. This abnormal growth rate causes widespread crippling and lameness due to the extreme weight forced onto young unformed bones. Their bedding is never changed and they must sit or lay on the accumulated droppings of 40,000 other animals. The stench inside these sheds is overwhelming.
ALV has conducted a fourteen month investigation into Parkhurst Farms, a huge ‘broiler’ chicken factory farm near Melbourne, exposing horrific cruelty. This included dead birds that were left rotting in the sheds being eaten by other birds. The investigation, which included the rescue of over 200 sick birds, has received national coverage in Australia and New Zealand.
ALV’s 80 page photographic cruelty complaint is keeping the plight of these birds raised for their flesh in the headlines and is also used for reference in objections to planning permit applications against building even more of these unhealthy and filthy animal concentration camps.
To get involved in the campaign please contact broilercruelty@alv.org.au or visit www.openrescue.org to find out more about our chicken industry investigations.

WHALES

ALV is a vigorous opponent of the annual slaughter of whales in Australian waters by the Japanese whaling fleet. We have organised huge protests of hundreds of people outside the Japanese consulate, and have also staged more direct action with activists occupying the Consulate and refusing to leave. The actions have made headlines around the world and helped put pressure on the Japanese Government to ban the senseless slaughter of approximately one thousand whales each year. ALV also supports campaigns to support the crew of the Sea Shepherd anti whaling vessel, who heroically putting their lives on the line to defend the whales and attempt to shut down the Japanese whaling fleet.Last week members of Animal Liberation Victoria occupied the Japanese Consulate for two hours before being removed by police. The ALV protesters poured fake blood over themselves and refused to leave the Consulate during its busiest period (footage and photos available). The occupation made news all over Asia and ALV have vowed to keep up the protests until Japan stops the killing.

KFC CRUELTY

ALV are part of the global campaign against KFC, aimed at stopping the company's routine cruelty to animals. ALV have conducted numerous undercover investigations into KFC supplier farms and documented immense cruelty to animals, including birds with broken and crippled legs, birds dying of starvation and dehydration, birds crammed in with and eating decomposing corpses, and birds suffering from a range of debilitating diseases. At the slaughterhouse many of these birds are fully conscious when their throats are cut and when they are dropped into scalding water to remove their feathers. ALV also conduct weekly demonstrations outside Melbourne’s busiest KFC and have handed out over 100,000 leaflets, posters and postcards detailing KFC’s cruelty to animals to customers and passers by, many of whom have been horrified to learn about the suffering involved in the ‘colonel’s secret recipe’. To get involved in the campaign please contact kfccruelty@alv.org.au or visit www.openrescue.org

PUPPY BREEDING FACTORIES

ALV’s puppy factory farm campaign has been hugely successful in educating the public about the cruel cost of ‘that doggy in the pet store window’ and after a long campaign was victorious in shutting down Australia’s largest puppy factory. At this breeding assembly the dogs were kept confined in horrific conditions and used for pumping out puppies for pet shops and for shipping to Asia. There were more than 1,000 dogs on this factory farm at one stage who were not provided with any protection from the often wet and freezing cement floors in winter. The animals were filthy, their fur matted and their eyes and ears were often infected. Our rescue team conducted repeated investigations and rescues at this cruel business and after a massive daytime raid and protests outside the council offices (for allowing the business operation to continue despite numerous violations to their permit), ALV finally succeeded in pressuring the council to shut the farm down. ALV is now maintaining the pressure on other puppy factory farms. To get involved please contact banpuppyfactories@alv.org.au or visit our prisoners for profit page for more information.

KEEPING THE RSPCA HONEST

ABC’s Four Corners recently ran an investigative report on the RSPCA turning a blind eye to cruelty for the benefit of commercial interests. ALV is keeping the pressure on the RSPCA over their continued failure to help all creatures great and small. The RSPCA is authorised under Section 24 of the Victorian Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act to prosecute for cruelty to animals. The RSPCA has consistently ignored clearly documented cases of animal abuse on factory farms. Despite being presented with clear video and photographic evidence of horrific animal suffering at numerous factory farms (including PACE farms, Australia’s largest battery egg producer) by the ALV animal rescue team, the RSPCA has never launched a cruelty prosecution. What the RSPCA has done, to their disgrace, is enter into a business arrangement with PACE FARMS that makes them hundreds of thousands of dollars. ALV has attended all of the RSPCA’s major public events handing out our “RSPCA checklist leaflet” to educate the public about what’s wrong with the RSPCA. To get involved in the campaign please contact rspcacampaign@alv.org.au.

ANTI FUR

ALV are supporting a global campaign to end the fur trade. Over 200 million animals are killed by the clothing and fur industries every year. ALV's campaign involves protests, lobbying and public education through advertising, editorials and media. ALV sent an innovative and gruesome five minute CD to designers, fashion editors and fur retailers around Australia encouraging them not to support the fur trade. The response was fantastic with several national magazines committing to never promoting fur ever again. ALV's newest fur campaign is "get that bunny off your back" which raises awareness about the use of rabbits for fur trimmed garnments and accessories. The campaign received enormous television and newspaper coverage. To get involved in the campaign please contact antifur@alv.org.au or visit our fur information page.

ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION

Animal experiments involve subjecting cats, dogs, horses, chickens, monkeys, cows, sheep, mice, pigs, rats, and many other species of animals to burning, mutilation, isolation, starving and many other horrors. Animal experiments are carried out across Australia in specialised research centres, universities and other organisations in the areas of: Medical Research, Agricultural Research, Psychological Research, Population Control Research, Product Testing, Military Weapons Research. ALV opposes animal experiments on both scientific and ethical / cruelty grounds. The campaign objectives are to: educate the public about the problems of animal based research and about proper scientific and ethical research, expose to the public the horrific reality of animal experimentation, and to bring about an end to animal experimentation. To this end we carry out actions including radio and television interviews, public and school talks, government submissions and letters to the editor, and information stalls and targeted action against organisations responsible for animal experiments. To get involved in our animal experimentation campaign please contact antiviv@alv.org.au or check out our things you should know about vivisection page.

SHEEP

ALV are active participants in the national campaign to ban live export, taking part in the massive co-ordinated actions at Portland Harbour to stop the ‘death ships’. Our activists also donned a sheep costume and followed Prime Minister John Howard around during the recent federal election to keep the issue of Australia’s cruelty to sheep in the public eye. We have also organised a massive candlelight vigil and march through the city to draw attention to the cruelty of the live export trade. ALV are also part of the global campaign against mulesing. Our photos of the barbaric act of mulesing have been used around the world to draw attention to the suffering of Australian sheep. Australian farmers use a painful process called mulesing, which involves farmers slicing huge chunks of flesh from lambs backsides without any painkillers. This routine and large scale flaying of young animals is unheard of anywhere else in the world. The global campaign has been successful in getting numerous international retailers to join the boycott. To find out more or to become more involved please contact stopsheepcruelty@alv.org.au

WRITERS GROUP

ALV’s Writers Group promotes animal rights by writing letters and e-mails to newspapers, magazines, businesses etc. Letters to the editor and opinion pages are read by thousands of people and are a great forum to raise awareness of animal issues and advise the public of actions they can take. It is also a form of activism people can do from home and in their spare time. Writing can also be as simple as filling out a feedback form at your local supermarket, requesting vegan/vegetarian products. Anyone can do it! When you join you will receive a fortnightly e-mail containing advice and tips on how to write letters, highlighting animal issues currently in the news, providing information and associated web links on selected topics, sharing and welcoming writers’ ideas and advising current ALV campaigns that need letter writing action. To get actively involved with the ALV writers group, please contact writers@alv.org.au.

VEGAN

Each day, we make simple choices that have profound consequences. For example, when we sit down to eat, it may seem a simple matter of personal preference, but the consequences are actually far reaching: Do we want to add to the level of misery in the world or do we want to add to the level of compassion? We can help animals with every bite we take. And to help the increasing numbers of people exploring vegan eating. In mid 2008 ALV will be pleased to offer free copies of our Go Vegan booklet, an easy-to-use, practical introduction to animal-free food choices. Learning the why’s and how’s of making the transition to a cruelty-free diet and putting simple suggestions into practice are powerful ways to help animals, your health, and the environment. To request a free Go Vegan Guide for yourself or someone interested in cruelty-free eating, please e-mail vegan@alv.org.au. ALV is involved in numerous other veg outreach activities including our very popular annual Super Living Expo and stalls at festivals and concernts. To get involved in the Vegan campaign please contact vegan@alv.org.au.