Animal Matters

Crisis in the East China Sea, where a livestock vessel capsized carrying nearly 6,000 New Zealand cows bound to China. We’ll run through the series of events as we know them, and also hear the recording from our Virtual Protest to Ban Live Export.

The winter grazing debate has reached boiling point, and now it’s spilling over. Farmers are railing at the Government who are introducing new winter grazing rules under the proposed freshwater regulations. I’m joined by Environmental campaigner Geoff Reid and SAFE’s Marianne Macdonald to discuss.

Hundreds of thousands of calf corpses could be left uncollected on dairy farms across the country. Is it a crisis, or an uncomfortable truth that the industry is failing to address? We also chat with Melanie Joy, the founding president of the charitable organization Beyond Carnism. What is carnism, and what are it’s implications? We discuss this, and more.

Colony cages are on the agenda. An egg supplier was recently sentenced to two years in prison for fraudulently selling cage eggs as free range. Egg labelling relies on the trust of suppliers, but given how cruel colony cages are, should they be allowed to continue?

We also speak to Jake Conroy, one of the SHAC 7 who was imprisoned after campaigning against an infamous animal testing laboratory. His story is an important part of the history of our movement, so he shares with us his experience and what he learned from it.

Last night in Wellington, SAFE hosted the Political Panel for Animals 2020. The Panelists included Green MP Gareth Hughes, New Zealand First MP Mark Patterson, National MP David Bennett and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor, from the Labour Party. The panel was hosted by journalist Charlotte Graham-McLay.

This was a great opportunity to question our politicians on some of the most important issues facing animals today. Gareth Hughes gave us a sneak peek at his party’s upcoming Animal Welfare announcement, saying that the Greens in Government would phase out factory farming.

While not every politician agreed with such a measure, they all knew that the writing is on the wall for colony cages.

A bad couple of weeks for the dairy industry. We cover some of the latest current affairs, including the light sentencing of animal abuser Mike Luke, as well as a Dairy Industry Award winner who was stripped of his title due to profane and disrespectful tweets. We also chat with Shawn Bishop from The Animal Sanctuary about the work that she does rescuing animals.

On today’s show, we remember Regan Russell. Regan was an animal rights activist with Toronto Pig Save, who was tragically killed recently when she was hit by a truck transport pigs. We’re joined by some of those who were closest to her, to share her story and the work that she did.

We’re also joined by Camille Labchuk, one of Canada’s leading animal rights lawyers and Executive Director of Animal Justice. We talk about Ontario’s bill 156, which has been dubbed an ‘ag-gag’ law, and what this could mean for those advocating for animals.

In this episode, we chat with SAFE’s Eat Kind team about plant-based diets, and how easy it is to choose kindness when you cook your next meal. The son of a National MP is sentenced for willful ill-treatment under the Animal Welfare Act, but no justice is served for the animals who suffered. And drownings of animals are on the increase, and a lot of it has to do with our attitudes towards animals considered pests.

We discuss SAFE and the New Zealand Animal Law Associations historic court case, to free mother pigs from farrowing crates. And New Zealand has all but eliminated COVID-19, while the world continues to come to grips with the pandemic. Dr. Michael Greger explains to us how zoonotic diseases like the coronavirus emerge, and why we’re still not safe from future pandemics.

On today’s show, we chat with internationally renown biologist Jonathan Balcombe about fish behaviour, sentience, and the state of aquatic life in 2020. It turns out fish are pretty amazing, and there’s a lot you probably don’t know about them.

And the Government is spending large to see the country through an economic crisis. There’s going to be some big cheques being cashed in the coming months, and some of those cheques are going towards animal exploiting industries.