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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
This article was published in 2011. A follow-up article refuted its claims. The ethics of eating red meat have been grilled recently by critics who question its consequences for environmental health and…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 1990s…
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…
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…
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…