Please add your voice to stop this animal suffering

If you want to stop animals suffering, please take a look at the campaign Compassion in World Farming has running to end the trade in live farm animals leaving the EU.

CIWF's Investigation Unit visited the Israeli‑controlled Kerem Shalom border, where the Gaza Strip, Israel and Egypt converge.  The evidence they brought back was horrific.  They found a trade in cattle from the EU being sent alive into war-torn Gaza for slaughter.  Animals had travelled thousands of miles by land and sea from Romania Hungary via Israel to the slaughterhouses in Gaza.   Conditions there are very basic indeed, and the pain and suffering the animals have to go through is just awful - you can read about the evidence (and there are a couple of videos) on CIWF's website.

CIWF says on their website (and I quote), that "recent correspondence with Compassion, the head of the European Commission said that although EU law states that ‘full regard should be paid to animal welfare’, that doesn’t apply to animals being traded."  Words fail me that the EU can think that's okay.  Animal lovers everywhere need to get behind the CIWF campaign and end the trade in live farm animals leaving the EU.  Please add your voice today.

This movement is growing globally.   The Palestinian Animal League Solidarity (PALS) is also calling for the suffering to stop.  CIWF say that Virginia McKenna, OBE, Founder Trustee of the Born Free Foundation, and author Jilly Cooper OBE, have sent messages of support.

An amazing 88,197 people have called on the European Commission to end the trade in live farm animals leaving the EU. 

If you haven't yet added your voice, please email the Commission here.  You can also make a donation, if you want.  And ARAN (Ireland's national animal protection group) and Compassion have a peaceful demonstration outside the Department of Agriculture in Dublin on 27th May.

Please spread the word;  join the campaign;  make a donation, if you wish;  but let's all work together to put a stop to the live trade in animals.  Every voice added will make a difference.  These animals need us to take action.

Will you sign this petition to help stop farm animals suffering?

Compassion in World Farming (CIWF for short) has a petition on its website which I have just signed.  The more of us who can sign it, the better, so please take a moment to read on.

More about CIWF

If you haven't heard of CIWF, it's an international specialist charity for farm animal welfare. The charity's vision is a world where farm animals are treated with compassion and respect and where cruel factory farming has ended. It believes that farm animals should not, and need not, suffer.  Hence it's involvement in this petition.

What's happening now to farm animals being exported

When meat is imported into the EU, the law says that the animal must have been slaughtered in line with EU legislation.

BUT.... when animals are exported from the EU  - and about 3 million are every year - these rules do not apply.  As a result, these poor animals face terrible journeys and brutal treatment.  

CIWF with Animals Australia have uncovered the most horrendous suffering.

First, there's the long exhausting journey by land and sea.

Second, there's the slaughter itself. 

Findings show that animals are (and I quote from CIWF)... "dragged by their limbs, bound up with ropes, pinned down by groups of men, beaten with metal rods, suspended upside down for periods of extended time, and eventually slaughtered in unacceptable ways that leave them conscious for many minutes after having their throats cut."

It is one thing to find this very upsetting, but another to take conscious action to stop it and to do something about it.

How we can all help this suffering stop

Sign CIWF's online petition - it's free and quick to do, and I like to think that signing the petition gives farm animals a voice.  

The petition online to stop this animal suffering demands that:

·         The European Commission must work towards ending the live export trade and if necessary replacing it with a trade in meat.

·         While a trade in exporting live animals continues, the European Commission must implement a scheme that will guarantee exported animals are treated in ways that prevent the worst of the suffering.

·         The European Commission must provide practical support to countries that import live animals from the EU in order that they can improve transport, handling and slaughter methods. This will not only improve the welfare of EU animals but also of any other animals slaughtered in those countries.

Please take action today - just visit CIWF here and sign their petition. 

I don't think you don't have to be an EU resident to sign it.  Nor do you need to watch the video on their website to sign it.  

The more of us who sign, the more pressure we can put to bear on the EU to take positive action and end this cruelty.  Animals need our help and it only takes a moment to sign.

Get baking with compassion to help farm animals

Last week it was knitting - and this week it's baking - which neatly coincides with the Great British Bake-Off Final on the TV. 

Did you know that this October, Compassion in World Farming has its sixth free range Bake with Compassion month?

The idea is to raise funds to help CIWF with its campaigns to improve welfare for farm animals and its mission to end factory farming.  But it's also a chance for animal lovers to review their shopping baskets and what we put into them every week or however often we shop and see how animal friendly our shopping habits really are.   And a chance to bake for friends and family to encourage them to do the same, and think about how they can improve their shopping habits to help farm animals.  So the idea this October is that you bake cakes and other goodies, and do a fundraiser at work, school or amongst friends and then donate your money to CIWF.  There's a free fundraising pack with easy recipes inside to help you. 

Around 700 million farm animals are confined in cages every year.  About two in every three farm animals are factory farmed - about 50 billion a year.  CIWF believes that we all have a right to buy clear and accurately labelled food so that we know where it comes from and that we can make informed decisions about what we buy. 

So Bake with Compassion hopes that people will think more about where their food is coming from and buy ingredients which are higher welfare.  Together we can make a real difference to the welfare of farm animals and shop with their welfare in mind.  Here are some ways you can buy food and help animals in the way you do it - poultry, meat, eggs, dairy and fish.   And here are more ways to get involved

Join CIWF's campaign to End the Cage Age...
Around 700 million farm animals suffer in cages in the EU each year. It is time for European farming to evolve. The CIWF needs your help to End the Cage Age. Click here to go to CIWF for more information and to give this campaign your support.