Even among the experts who don’t question our right to use and kill animals, there is disagreement over what animal welfare actually means. With the government calling for a review of animal welfare standards…
A dramatic decrease in the availability of sow stall pork and caged eggs has been driven by consumer concern.
AAP
Australia’s two largest grocery retailers, Coles and Woolworths, have vowed to dramatically decrease the availability of pork and egg products sourced from intensive farming systems. The decision was made…
Vaccination has a lot more uses than you may know.
Stephen Mitchell
Approximately 140 vaccines are registered for use in livestock and companion animals in Australia. Many more animals are vaccinated each year than humans. Vaccines are used in farm animals: to protect…
Non-human primates, like these macaques, are the animals with the closest resemblance to humans.
Moyan Brenn
Monika Merkes, La Trobe University e Rob Buttrose, The University of Melbourne
The documentary Maximum Tolerated Dose (showing in Melbourne tonight and Sydney on February 12) offers a “look inside modern animal experimentation with the animals who lived through it and the people…
Overweight pets have become collateral casualties in the ongoing war against human obesity.
MrTGT/Flickr
A study published this morning in Nature offers further insight into how dogs became domesticated. The comparative analysis of human, canine and wolf genomes suggests that humans and dogs have evolved…
The decisions we make about animal welfare are important; even more so if we’re welfare researchers.
Jannes Pockele
Many people take the Christmas and New Year period as a time to ponder how they can be a better person. We make resolutions about eating better, doing exercise, being kinder or slowing down. We all know…
What are our ethical responsibilities for racing greyhounds?
Jo Anne McArthur
Background Briefing’s program The Quick and the Dead exposed one of the key animal welfare issues facing the greyhound racing industry: the high rates of euthanasia of healthy dogs. During an interview…
A rat used for cancer research in the United States.
Janet Stephens
Monika Merkes, La Trobe University e Rob Buttrose, The University of Melbourne
More than six million animals are used in experiments in Australia each year. Many endure pain and distress, and most are killed after their use. The research community claims that our regulatory framework…
Ban Live Exports: Melbourne Rally, Saturday, 6 October 2012.
Gonzalo Villaneuva
More than a year has passed since Animals Australia and the RSPCA, in conjunction with ABC’s Four Corners revealed that Australian cattle were being routinely slaughtered in Indonesian abattoirs while…
Protests against live exports of Australian animals.
AAP/Tim Watters
Although many Australians may feel like they heard the expression “live export” or “live animal exports” for the first time recently, the selling of sheep and cows to be slaughtered overseas has a long…
Healthy animals, perhaps, but is it ethical to confine large wild mammals to a tank for the purposes of profit and education?
Greg Lilly
Animals are a mainstay of global tourism development. They’re consumed in fishing and hunting, and used as part of “experiences” - horses in trail rides, marine mammals in theme parks, whale sharks for…
That’s me: Scientists agree animals are conscious, but public attitudes still lag behind.
flickmor/Flickr
Neil Levy, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Are animals conscious? Notoriously, the famous 17th century philosopher René Descartes thought they were not. He believed that possession of a soul was necessary for rational thought and for consciousness…
How do you pick a fake among free-range egg producers?
OKNOVOKGHT/Flickr
Consumers are increasingly concerned about how farm animals are kept, raised, transported, and slaughtered. Most people show their concern by buying “ethical” farm products, such as free-range eggs and…
Piecemeal solutions to welfare won’t do - we need a long-term view.
Ian Sanderson
The government has been plagued by animal welfare problems over the last two years. The biggest issue so far has been the mistreatment of our livestock overseas. Most recently, two shipments of sheep to…
Most drugs fail in clinical trials because of the reliance on animal testing to predict drug behaviour in people.
Tatiana Bulyonkova
Much of the research involving the development of new drugs still uses animals. Apart from moral questions about inflicting pain and death on animals for the purpose of medical research, there are an increasing…
Pastoral nostalgia: people fretted about opening-ceremony animals but not the huge out-of-sight slaughter that’s feeding athletes and spectators.
AAP/Dean Lewins
The role of animals in the Olympics — both during the opening ceremony and throughout the wider competition — is rightly generating controversy. When it was first announced that non-human animals would…
An important ‘apex predator’ that should neither be hunted as an enemy nor treated as a pet. With respect and wisdom, we can coexist.
AAP/Tony Phillips
It’s the dry season in the Northern Territory, and for many people that means camping under a clear winter’s sky in the Top End. Yet rediscovering nature can be a fraught exercise in wilderness areas like…
Australians have started worrying about how happy their meat cows are - but are they worrying enough to stop eating them?
Jon Bragg
I sponsor two pigs. Emma and Eliza were runaway pigs. They escaped from a farm in Tasmania and live now happily in a farm sanctuary north of Melbourne. Needless to say that I don’t eat pigs, or any other…
Consumers have an image of animal agriculture which is getting further and further from the truth.
State Records NSW
It has once again been left to an advocacy group, Animals Australia, to highlight the cruel practices involved in cattle slaughter in Indonesia. Under new rules put in place by the Federal Department of…
There are legal limits to how closely chickens can be packed, but is more space all chickens need?
Alan Levine
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…
Professor, Management and Organizational Studies, Huron University College and Coordinator of Animal Ethics and Sustainability Leadership, Western University