The biggest welfare scandal in modern farming?

Picture – CIWF

Video link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2lvTwrBfBE#t=99

Earlier this year Compassion visited 45 pig farms across the EU. We went south to Italy and Spain; south-east to Cyprus; west to Ireland; and east to Poland and the Czech Republic. On every single farm we found the laws put in place to protect pig welfare were being flouted – the suffering was hard to witness.

And it doesn’t stop there

We believe aspects of the Pigs Directive are being blatantly ignored all across the EU, inflicting illegal cruelty on millions of intelligent and sensitive animals. There are over 140 million pigs in the EU at any one time. Sometimes the scale of the challenge we are facing seems overwhelming.

But we have good news. An amazing 260,000 of you have already signed our petition demanding that the law is enforced. That’s one person each standing up for 530 pigs. This is the fastest growing petition in Compassion’s history; please help us keep up the momentum.

Can you help us gather even more signatures?

We have created a brand new short video to summarise the findings of our investigation. It contains footage that has never been released before. Please help us to protect the pigs by watching it and sharing it as widely as possible and encouraging your friends to sign the petition.

Video link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2lvTwrBfBE#t=99

Your 530 pigs would thank you if they could.

Into the centre of power

Our challenge to the pig industry is gaining momentum. Alongside the petition we have been directly lobbying key decision makers at the heart of European power. Compassion supporters enabled us to hold an event in the EU Parliament building itself, where Compassion patron Joanna Lumley and MEP Dan Jørgensen presented the findings of our investigations to MEPs, journalists, officials from the EU institutions, industry and other NGOs.

MEPs from a number of countries attended the event and many spoke in favour of better law enforcement to protect pig welfare. An open letter was distributed that will be circulated to all MEPs. The letter calls on the Commission and Agriculture Ministers in all 28 Member States to ensure the Pigs Directive is fully enforced. The event received widespread international media coverage.

And onto the streets

Compassion supporters know the importance of pig welfare. But much of the general public remains oblivious to the suffering of these sensitive animals. So we want to get the message across in the way that can’t be ignored. ‘Hope’ our giant inflatable pig – taller than a double-decker bus – could help us get the message out. We want her to tour across Europe, attracting crowds and media wherever she appears. Having had her debut in Paris we’re working on plans for her to visit the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, the UK and Italy over the next couple of months.

We also have plans for Hope to help launch the new Compassion office in Poland. We are immensely proud to be operating in this key Member State and know that our dedicated Polish team will take on the challenge of improving animal welfare in Eastern Europe.

It has been a packed few weeks for Project Pig. But we know that the scale of the challenge we are taking on has to be matched by the scale of our response. You are making that happen.

Thank you.

Take action

• Sign the petition
• Take action on illegal sow stalls
• Call on the Irish Agriculture Minister to improve conditions for Ireland’s pigs

Link to CIWF site: 

http://action.ciwf.org.uk/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=119&ea.campaign.id=20836&utm_campaign=pigs&utm_source=stewardshipemail&utm_medium=email&ea.url.id=176512&ea.campaigner.email=EZHmm%2FpN2AOWon0byxX%2Ff2JQPMb61MHn%2FU1dYLj9Pwra3xEzZ4tJzA==&ea_broadcast_target_id=0

Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional, GLOBAL PETITIONS - Anything Animal, Anywhere !, VIDEOS | Leave a comment »