According to a Newspoll survey released this week, 99% of Australians are against animal cruelty and find certain farming, testing and breeding practices unacceptable.
Farming
86% of Australians believe keeping egg laying hens in cages for their entire lives is unacceptable, 74% think castrating animals without anaesthetic is unacceptable and 72% also say killing male chicks in egg production is unacceptable.
This portion of the survey centred on the common treatment of our farming animals in Australia. For example, in the egg production process, male chicks are of no use, and are killed by methods such as grinding them alive, while many egg laying chickens spend their whole lives in a small cage with 3-5 other birds. Chicks often have part of their beaks seared off without anaesthetic. Cows are made pregnant every year to produce milk, so they're routinely both pregnant and being milked at the same time, which puts a tremendous strain on their bodies. After lives spent producing eggs and milk both chickens and cows are typically killed.
Neutering of animals is also usually done without anaesthetic. The most common method of castrating bulls uses a knife to cut open the scrotum and take out the testes.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that hundreds of millions of animals are killed for food in Australia each year.
Former beef farmer, Harold Brown says: 'in my experience, there is no such thing as humane animal products, humane farming practices, humane transport, or humane slaughter’.
Animal Testing
80% of Australians think it’s unacceptable to test cosmetics on animals, while 43% make an effort to buy non-animal tested products.
Animal testing uses millions of animals worldwide each year, in cruel and sometime macabre tests. They’re shot and blown up by the military, have cancers and other pathologies bred into them, have their skulls sawn open, and are forced into isolation. However, testing can often produce misleading results due to significant differences between species.
For example, in 2004, the arthritis painkiller Vioxx was withdrawn from sale after causing about 320,000 heart attacks, strokes and cases of heart failure around the world, even though animal tests suggested it was safe.
The US Federal Drug Administration says 92% of drugs found safe and effective in animal tests turn out to be toxic and/or inefficient in human trials. Of the 8% of drugs that are approved for release, more than half are withdrawn or relabelled due to severe side effects.
Breeding
46% of Australians find breeding animals for pet shops unacceptable.
While thousands of animals end up in shelters and pounds each year, they continue to be sold in shops and commercially bred, often in poor conditions.
Page 1of 2
Australians buy around 1 million dogs and cats alone each year, yet about 250,000 are euthanised in the same year. This is about 685 animals a day, or more than one cat or dog every 5 minutes (in an 8 hour working day).
Ms Meg Gibson, a former puppy farm owner, said animals are 'treated like breeding machines and some are being treated worse than others. And that's why now I cringe at puppy farms.
'Ninety per cent of them are shot (once they're no longer used for breeding) and I know that for a fact’, she said.
Overall, 56% of Australians would consider becoming vegan
Overall, 56% of Australians say there are one or more things that would encourage them to become vegan, some of which include:
• Evidence that farming practices cause stress and pain for millions of animals every year (36%)
• Evidence they can be healthy on a vegan diet (35%)
• Evidence that being vegan is better for the environment (31%)
• More vegan menu items in cafes or restaurants (25%)
Is a vegan diet healthy?
Nutrition authorities say we can be healthy without animal products. According to the survey results, 54% of Australians already agree with this.
In their position paper on vegetarian diets, for example, the American Dietetic Association says that: ‘appropriately planned... vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.'
Vegan diets avoid using animal products, including milk and eggs.
How people can help
The survey report says that the most important thing people can do for animals is to become vegan. A vegan not only avoids animal products for food, but also other purposes, such as clothes.
Since animals used to produce milk and eggs still suffer and are killed when they're no longer productive, becoming vegetarian – rather than vegan - isn't an effective option.
For vegan recipes and ideas, see http://vegweb.com/
This page includes a section on alternatives to meat, milk and eggs.
The survey, run by Newspoll for the Vegetarian/Vegan Society of Queensland, and funded by Voiceless, the animal protection institute, through their annual Grants Program, canvassed a representative sample of people across the country.
Copies of the survey report can be downloaded from the survey Twitter site,
http://twitter.com/
-ENDS-
For further information, interviews and visuals please contact the following:
Parry Communications
Ph: 0414 412 694
