Lifeline Australia: Fact sheet

Animal Experimentation

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Animal experimentation can involve drugging, burning, shocking, addicting, shooting, freezing, infecting and surgically mutilating live animals, sometimes without pain relief.

Websites: lifelinecampaign.org, mawa-trust.org.au, humaneresearch.org.au

The use of animals for scientific purposes has been debated for centuries, pitting the pursuit of knowledge and human health against compassion for animals.

Society has allowed it because people have been convinced that it is a “necessary evil”, and the only way to find cures for human diseases and to make drugs, cosmetics and other products safe.

Videos to watch: Good Science versus Bad Science ( YouTube), theghostsinourmachine.com, dominionmovement.com/watch Thanks to Animals Australia and Humane Research Australia for the information.

Secrecy and security have ensured that people are unaware of what happens behind the laboratory doors and they are falsely led to believe that the laws intended to prohibit cruelty to animals include the protection for animals used in research. They do not.

Over the past few years, researchers have repeatedly shown that many animal studies lack scientific rigor; they are often prone to biases, for instance, and are sloppily reported in scientific journals. However, even if animal experiments did work, The Save Movement and Animal Justice Project oppose them on moral grounds.

AUSTRALIA

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Lifeline is a campaign that raises awareness of the two biggest causes of animal exploitation globally – ‘food’ production and experimentation. It brings together activists from different groups to create strong and effective outreach events.

JOIN THE SAVE MOVEMENT AND ANIMAL JUSTICE PROJECT TO RAISE AWARENESS ON ANIMAL EXPLOITATION AND URGE PEOPLE TO BE A LIFELINE FOR ANIMALS: LIFELINECAMPAIGN.ORG

Lifeline is a The Save Movement and Animal Justice Project collaborative campaign that provides a means for campaigners to reach thousands of people at both universities and on high streets across Australia.

Showing video footage, holding placards, talking to the public, and handing out resources, campaigners can effectively communicate their message on speciesism to the public and, more specifically if they wish, animal experiments to students. The public are asked where they draw the line with regards to the exploitation of animals.

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Campaigners can then ask people to be a lifeline, literally, for animals and inform them how they can make all important changes in their daily lives to help protect and save animals.

Speciesism partnered with

Speciesism is a prejudice similar to racism or sexism.

Animal agriculture is one of the main consequences of speciesism. Over 680 million farmed animals are killed for meat each year in Australia. Yet eating

animals is needless and stoppable. Everyone can be a lifeline for animals.

ANIMAl AGRICULTURE Milk Mammals, including humans, only produce milk once they have given birth. Females are forcibly impregnated each year to maintain their milk production. Farmed animals such as cows, sheep and goats have their babies taken from them within hours of them being born so that humans can take the mothers’ milk that is meant for baby animals.

Just like all mothers, farmed animals grieve over the loss of their children. The separation of mothers and babies is cruel and a painful experience. Mother cows have been known to cry out for their babies over days and days.

Female calves will become dairy cows – forced into pregnancy and being milked each day until their milk production reduces and they are sent to slaughter.

An unnatural build-up of 20 litres of milk in the udders of cows leads to lameness of the hind legs and a painful infection of the udders called mastitis.

The infection causes pus to enter into the milk and one litre of milk can contain as many as 400,000,000 somatic (pus) cells before it is deemed unfit for human consumption.

Male dairy calves are seen as a ‘waste’ because they cannot produce milk. They are killed shortly after birth or are transported across Europe to be raised and killed for veal.

Eggs Currently, around 6.2 billion eggs are produced each year in the Australia, and 16.9 million every single day. It is estimated that there are 20 million egg-laying birds in Australia. Most of these are incarcerated in so-called cages housing 4 to 6 hens with an area about the size of an A4 piece of paper each.

There are different methods used to house the hens; cages, percheries (barns), free range and organic. The birds have so little space in many farms, they can never spread their wings easily, let alone fly. The term ‘free range’ simply means that barns must have ‘pot holes’ leading to an outside range… though many birds never reach the outside.

In the wild, hens lay a clutch of eggs once or twice a year, yet modern farming industry forces hens to lay 300-500 eggs per year. To increase laying, all hens are fed a protein-rich diet and are exposed to light for almost 24 hours a day. This pressure placed on the bodies of hens means they develop reproductive diseases.

Chickens are intelligent, inquisitive, and have a natural instinct to explore. On farms they are prevented from exhibiting natural behaviours such as nesting, foraging and dust-bathing. Their confinement can lead to physical and psychological problems such as; osteoporosis, muscle-wasting, tumours, depression, frustration and grief.

New born chicks are sorted into males and females.

The females go on to become egg-layers. Hens will peck at each other as a result of being unable to move around on farms so these birds have a large portion of their beaks cut off when they have just hatched. Male chicks are unable to lay eggs so are killed at just a day

All egg-laying hens are sent to slaughter at around 72 weeks of age. They are still babies and chirp.

old – around 12 million a year in Australia. Usually by being ground up alive.

Slaughter Farmed animals are housed in cramped, barren conditions and it is rare for any of them to experience fresh air or grass prior to being loaded onto slaughterhouse trucks. They are still babies when sent to slaughter.

Because animals are selectively bred to grow quickly so that the least amount of money has to be spent on rearing them before slaughter, there are high instances of limb deformities and problems with their organs such as heart failure. Infections are common because of living conditions and lack of veterinary care. Prior to being sent to slaughter, animals are subjected to painful procedures such as dehorning, branding, ear tagging, tail-docking, castration and teeth-pulling. All without anaesthetic.

Slaughter is invariably terrifying and painful. Many animals at the slaughterhouse either do not lose consciousness or they regain consciousness before having their throats cut.

Sheep and birds are generally subjected to electrocution via the head.

Large-scale abattoirs stun birds using either electrical waterbath or controlled atmosphere systems.

In waterbath systems – live shackling is used where birds are grabbed from transport containers and forced into leg shackles upside down on rails. Their legs may already be broken due to rough handling during farm shed ‘depopulation’. Terrified birds struggle and flap frantically. Involuntary inversion causes birds stress and it has long been recognised that the practice of hanging birds upside down in shackles before stunning causes immense pain and suffering. Yet it is still done to billions of birds each year.

Once shackled, birds move along the rail at fast speeds and go on to be dipped into electrified water fully conscious. If birds move their necks (“swan neck”), then they will carry on the line to have their necks cut fully conscious. Fast line speeds mean it is impossible for workers to check who is conscious, and who isn’t.

Pigs are mainly gassed in CO2 chambers in the Australia.

Footage of Australian pig gas chambers shows the extent of the fear and panic as the chambers are lowered down into the CO2 gas - a gas that burns their eyes, noses and throats. This horrific method of slaughter is deemed “humane”.

Cows receive a bolt gun to the head which is designed to kill them instantly, however many are not killed and, indeed, regain consciousness before their throats are cut whilst hung upside down by their legs.

Each animal feels pain and fear. Some will fight for their lives while others become resigned to their terrible fate.

Once caught either by hook or by net – most fish suffer an extended death through suffocation. In their death throes fish writhe, gasping and flapping their gills as they desperately try to get oxygen.

Finning, long line fishing, purse seine nets and drift gill netting are all other methods of commercial fishing that cause suffering to the targeted fish. These methods of fishing do not discriminate – marine mammals such as dolphins, porpoises and seals, turtles and ‘nontarget’ fish are also caught and suffer as a result. (thanks to Animals Australia for the information)

Lobsters and crustaceans Crustaceans are highly developed.

Lobsters carry their young for nine months and, when left in peace, can live for more than 100 years. They recognise each other, remember past acquaintances, and have elaborate courtship rituals. They take long seasonal journeys, often traveling for hundreds of miles. Elder lobsters help guide young lobsters across the ocean floor by holding their claws in a line that can stretch for many yards.

Fish Fishing affects more individual animals than any other human-based animal industry. In Australia there are more than 3 million recreational anglers and 24% of households fish regularly. The commercial ‘wild capture’ fisheries seek some 800 different marine and freshwater ‘seafood’ species – under 300 marketing names for domestic and overseas consumption.

241,000 tonnes of fish, crustacea (prawns, cabs etc) and molluscs (scallops, oysters etc) were commercially ‘harvested’ in the 2005/6 year in Australia (State and Commonwealth). This does not account for the fish taken by recreational fishers.

Trawling is one of the most common methods of commercial fishing in the world – and a system of fishing that eventually kills all in its path. Hundreds of different life forms are killed as trawl nets grind over the sandy bottom of the ocean. When fish in the nets are dragged up from the ocean depths the change in pressure (called barotrauma) causes their eyes to balloon and their swim bladders to burst. Many fish (and other aquatic animals) drown under the weight of all the other fish and creatures including starfish, crabs and shellfish. The unwanted catch is simply thrown back to the sea where many will subsequently die.

Scientists have determined that lobsters, like all animals, can feel pain. Lobsters feel even more pain than we would in similar situations because lobsters do not have an autonomic nervous system that puts them into a state of shock when they are harmed.

A lobster feels itself being cut.

Anyone who has ever boiled a lobster alive knows that when dropped into scalding water, a lobster whips its body wildly and scrape the sides of the pot in a desperate attempt to escape.