The Australian egg industry has seen a large shift in the proportion of chicken eggs coming from non-cage systems, especially free range. There is little doubt that some of this has been driven by consumer…
Guardian animals, a environmentally friendly and adorable way to protect our livestock.
Karen Rodgers
True innovation is rare in agriculture. Most farmers are willing to improve the way they work, but these improvements are typically small adjustments to established practice, rather than fundamental changes…
Australians' strong concerns about animal welfare put us at odds with Asian live export markets; but sharing our food production technologies gives us a potential advantage.
AAP
AUSTRALIA IN THE ASIAN CENTURY – A series examining Australia’s role in the rapidly transforming Asian region. Delivered in partnership with the Australian government.
Today, Professor Clive Phillips…
Melbourne Zoo is using baby elephant Mali as the logo for it's birthday celebrations. But should they be proud of her captivity?
Nick Larsen
Have you ever felt the vibrations as an elephant stamps her foot in rage? In 2000, I was on the New South Wales Central Coast when Arna the circus elephant did just that. Arna was not happy and her distress…
Grain agriculture devastates ecosystems, but who is the grain grown for?
Peter Castleton
More and more, the animals we kill for food are dining at the human table. Increasingly, we feed them on grain, soybeans and fish meal.
Recently, Professor Mike Archer published an article on The Conversation…
Why do we care so much about the origin of brutalised cows?
librarianidol/Flickr
New footage recently aired on ABC has again brought to our attention the plight of cattle in Indonesian abattoirs. Scenes of cattle being poked, stabbed, and slaughtered without appropriate equipment has…
We take animals' liberty every day, but is calling them slaves accurate?
Rev Xanatos Satanicos Bombasticos ClintJCL/Flickr
Is the confinement of animals for human purposes akin to slavery? Are some animals slaves?
Slavery is an evocative concept. Treating someone as a slave is one of the worst things you can do to them. Using…
Revelations of cruelty in Australian abattoirs cause outrage, but probably not boycotts.
ABC/AAP
Last year, revelations of cruelty to cows in Indonesian abattoirs led to outrage in Australia. The assumption was that these sorts of things could never happen here. Last week, a NSW abattoir was closed…
Where does it come from?
Flickr/Allerina & Glen MacLarty
We have entered a new, digital, era in animal protection, yet one in which a legislative backlash against video exposes is stirring in parts of the US. Last week brought another revelation of animal cruelty…
Pet cats are single-minded hunters, but are they wiping out native species?
bolg/Flickr
In “The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson”, Mark Twain equated keeping a cat to domestic bliss:
When there was room on the ledge outside of the pots and boxes for a cat, the cat was there – in sunny weather…
Being vegetarian saves cows' lives, but threatens the future of other sentient creatures.
nunro
The ethics of eating red meat have been grilled recently by critics who question its consequences for environmental health and animal welfare. But if you want to minimise animal suffering and promote more…
When discussing animal welfare, it's hard to look at it from the animal's perspective.
phik
Which is the greater deprivation for an animal: to live a good-quality life abbreviated at less than its natural term by painless slaughter for meat, or to never live at all? How much of an animal’s life…
By claiming too much, Steggles has raised the question: how much space does a chicken need?
aprilskiver
For the animal industry and the animal protection movement, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) pending case against poultry producer Steggles is set to be their very own version…
In his 2011 ASSA Cunningham Lecture this month, food policy expert Professor Tim Lang suggested that we “experiment” with alternative diets to reduce our meat and dairy consumption. Lang suggested that…
Where do eggs - and chicken meat - come from? Not where they used to.
Jane Rawson
When my mother was a young girl, she – like most families in the country – kept a few chickens in the back yard. Once a day she went out and gave them household scraps, and they rushed over to greet her…
Everyone gets a slice of Melbourne Cup profits, except the winner.
AAP
In the lead up to the 2011 Melbourne Cup I have heard numerous interviews with Australian racing legend Bart Cummings. Apparently Cummings has “won the Melbourne Cup race a record 12 times”. I had no idea…
Chimps, like humans, can relive painful memories and grieve for loved ones.
tgraham
Twenty years ago, Jared Diamond’s book “The Third Chimpanzee” highlighted a startling fact. If we adhere to the scientific rules for classifying species (taxonomy), humans should be classified as a third…
Beef processing contributed to Cargill's $US2.7 billion in earnings this year.
AAP
Welcome to “The most powerful companies you’ve never heard of” – an ongoing series from The Conversation that sheds light on big companies with low profiles. Today, The University of Queensland’s Clive…
Are puppy farm protesters part of a growing wave of interest in animal rights?
forced rhubarb
I may be wrong, but recent indicators suggest animal suffering is going out of fashion.
I have been tracking the ebb and flow of the animal protection movement as a first-hand observer since the late…
Four year-old Ayen Chol died after being attacked by a neighbour's pit bull cross (AFP PHOTO/William WEST)
The recent death of four year-old, Ayen Chol from a pit bull attack has again prompted calls to ban the breed.
But instead of focusing on a particular breed, or responding to single events as they occur…
On Thursday August 18, two bills were introduced in the Australian House of Representatives.
One was the “Live Animal Export Restriction and Prohibition Bill 2011”, introduced by Independent Member for…
Kangaroo populations are robust and abundant.
Wombalano/Flickr
The Scottish eat their deer and the South Africans their springbok. Australia’s national icon is gentle on the environment, doesn’t emit methane, is good to eat and could be a great source of income for…
Welfare standards adopted as part of the ban being lifted fall short of public expectations.
AAP
When it comes to the live animal export industry, the government’s knee-jerk reactions leave it open to criticism that it dances to whichever group, industry or the animal activists, plays the loudest…
Australians don't know enough about Indonesia to judge its farming practices.
AFP/Sonny Tumbelaka
We need to learn more about the countries we are exporting livestock to, or swapping refugees with. Two recent publicly-funded television documentaries have revealed just how little most Australians know…
So-called "humane" industry slaughter practices need to be investigated more carefully.
AAP
One of the more welcome results from the furore around Australia’s involvement in live animal exports is that some Australians appear to have started rethinking their food choices.
Last month, The Age…
20% of people who saw the footage of animal abuse thought it was too graphic.
AFP/Ho/ABC/Four Corners
The decision by Animals Australia/RSPCA to allow their footage of slaughter of cattle and sheep overseas raises interesting questions about how animal welfare should be managed in this country.
Was it…
Can trade regulation enhance – or block – improvements to animal welfare?
AAP
The suspension of live cattle exports to Indonesia will also have significant implications on Australian cattle farmers, Australian and Indonesian domestic markets, and on the trade relationship between…
Can trade regulation enhance - or block - improvements to animal welfare?
AAP
The suspension of live cattle exports to Indonesia will also have significant implications on Australian cattle farmers, Australian and Indonesian domestic markets, and on the trade relationship between…
Livestock may also face mistreatment without leaving Australian shores.
AAP
Throughout the heated debate around live animal exports over the past week, there has been an implicit assumption that the mistreatment of Australian cattle only ever begins after the animals have left…
It may be "humane", but is it ethical?
Virginia Zuluaga/Flickr
Does a painless death harm an animal? Is it wrong to painlessly kill an animal?
These questions go to heart of the ethics of meat eating and humane slaughter, yet they have been largely absent in most…
Before blaming Indonesia, we must reform the way we fund livestock industry research.
AFP Photo/SUTANTA
Now that the Federal Government has finally succumbed to public pressure and suspended live cattle exports to Indonesia, it is worth considering why we were so caught off guard by the shocking revelations…
Indonesian abattoirs should agree to stun cows before they're slaughtered.
AAP
The Federal Government’s move to ban live cattle exports to a handful of Indonesian abattoirs will not, in the long term, end the inhumane slaughtering practices revealed in Monday’s Four Corners report…
The trip to Indonesia is just the start of a horrifying journey for cattle.
AAP
Last night, the ABC’s Four Corners brought the horror of the Indonesian slaughterhouse into Australian living rooms.
The government’s response to images of cattle being hacked to death, having their tails…
On the opening day of the Warrnambool jumps carnival in western Victoria this year, five-year-old horse Casa Boy died when he fell at his first hurdle.
Just one month later, Shine the Armour also died…
The legal system says that no one lives in Australia's vegetation.
John Hadley
The destruction or modification of habitat is the leading cause of biodiversity loss in Australia and around the world. Letting animals have rights over their habitat could be the answer.
Despite 40 years…
Revered tradition or barbaric bloodsport? The waters are muddy.
peteSwede/flickr
There are few issues as divisive in eastern Australia as duck hunting. And 2011 has been one of the most vitriolic seasons yet.
The season opened in Victoria with news that a protester had been shot in…
