View the photographs from our investigations here

Tune in to TV One’s Close Up tonight at 7pm to see footage from our investigations and an interview with Hans Kriek, Campaign Director for SAFE. Watch the item here

New Zealand Open Rescue has recently conducted another series of investigations into typical New Zealand pig farms. Our cameras have revealed, yet again, shocking animal cruelty. However, the cruelty exposed is in fact standard industry practice and is legally sanctioned. None of the farms we investigated were in breach of animal welfare legislation, yet inside every farm we were witness to extreme suffering.

We documented animal after animal imprisoned in appalling conditions including mother pigs confined to farrowing crates where interaction with their piglets was severely restricted. In these systems, motherly behaviour is completely denied to sows as they are reduced to mere units of production.

NZ Open Rescue team member John Darroch describes some of the conditions he witnessed during the investigations:

“It was heartbreaking to see sows who had just given birth. They were completely unable to carry out any of their natural behaviors and could do no more than stare as we walked around. These mother pigs would never be able to build a nest for their young or nurse them as they wanted.

“In one room we found a mother that had just given birth, unable to move at all and sitting in her own shit and afterbirth. Beside her lay one dead piglet which another one was attempting to get warmth from.

“Its hard to comprehend that these pigs will spend their entire lives in intensive confinement. The only thing that will free these pigs from their misery is the slaughterhouse” says John.

It is clear that we have one law for our companion animals and another for farmed animals. While the Animal Welfare Act stipulates that animals must be able to express natural behaviours, the Code of Welfare for Pigs legalises extreme confinement and unimaginable deprivation. The existence of factory farms in our country reduces our animal welfare legislation to a regulatory facade.

It’s not too late to have your say against pig cruelty!
SAFE's e-card to protect factory farmed pigs
Green Party e-card to ban sow stalls
 


Comments

jaz
04/09/2010 14:58

you guys are the backbone of these campaigns against factory farming ,if we did not have you filming the conditions then there would be not much of a campaign.
I support you 100% !

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