SAFE Animal Squad
2017: A year in review
September 9th, 2019Thanks to your support, during the last 12 months SAFE has continued to create continued progress for animals.
Not long into 2017 we had a major win for hens when Countdown went cage-free, and the year ended with pressure on the dairy industry with a story that went viral. SAFE also welcomed our new CEO, Jasmijn de Boo, and the new Head of Research and Education Professor Andrew Knight.
Watch our 2017 celebration video, and below are just some of the amazing things that we have achieved for animals:
All Major Supermarkets announce intentions to go Cage-Egg Free
As part of our cage-free campaign, Countdown became the first New Zealand supermarket, and first major NZ retailer, to join the global revolution to free hens from cages, announcing in March that they will phase out cage eggs from their stores nationwide.
THEN in August, after talks with SAFE, Foodstuffs, the company who owns New World, PAK’nSAVE and Four Square supermarkets, also committed to phasing out cage eggs throughout New Zealand!.
New thought-provoking factory-farming textbook released
The latest textbook in SAFE’s ground-breaking ‘Animals and Us’ series, Animals in Factory Farms, launched in March.
The textbook opens the doors on factory farms, encouraging young people to engage critically with the way farm animals are treated in modern agriculture through four comprehensive curriculum-linked lessons, in the areas of social studies, science, biology and English.
The Animals & Us textbook series allow students to examine and question the treatment of animals and the series has been made available to New Zealand secondary schools since 2007. Animals in Factory Farms is the fifth textbook in the series. New Dairy Campaigns highlights cruelty
Over the last two years, there has been widespread public outrage at the brutal treatment of bobby calves exposed during SAFE and Farmwatch investigations, with the issue attracting attention globally.
SAFE is determined that the focus should not drop from this serious issue, launching a new dairy cruelty awareness campaign. SAFE also released a video of a cow chasing after a trailer which went viral, viewed millions of times and was picked up by multiple media outlets worldwide.
In October SAFE launched an exciting new educational website – SafeAnimalSquad.org.nz – and game for Kiwi kids, with the goal of teaching compassion and kindness for animals. Hundreds of Kiwi kids are already members of SAFE’s Animal Squad Youth Group and it is hoped that the new website will extend the message of kindness and compassion to reach thousands more, with the need for humane education in New Zealand huge and urgent.
Eat Kind – SAFE’s plant-based programme
This is the second year of SAFE’s ‘Eat Kind’ programme which aims to empower Kiwis to try plant-based eating. It’s also the inaugural year for SAFE’s EAT KIND Awards which recognises culinary excellence in New Zealand. The annual awards are a fun way to mark World Vegan Day and celebrate the diversity of vegan options available in New Zealand.
Rodeo campaign continues to highlight cruelty
Early in to the new year new footage showing the cruelty of rodeo resulted in several sponsors dropping their support of rodeo.
To coincide with the season’s start, we unveiled striking billboards and a hard-hitting video, with confronting images depicting dogs being roped around their necks, aiming to challenge the double-standards over animal treatment by showing what wouldn’t be allowed by law (dog roping), compared with animal cruelty that is still allowed (calf roping).
Ground-breaking, virtual reality, pig farm footage released
Together with Farmwatch SAFE released a brand-new investigation into pig farming in New Zealand, using both hidden camera footage and a ground-breaking, New Zealand-first, look at a pig farm with virtual reality technology.
Caged Being – Social Experiment
At 10pm on 2 June 40 people said goodbye to their creature comforts and entered a 56 square meter cage inside a disused shop in Auckland to raise awareness of the biggest animal welfare issue of our time – factory farming. The unique ‘Caged Being’ event aimed to bring factory farming into the spotlight and to let Kiwis know how we can all make a difference to make New Zealand a better place for animals. The experiment represented the conditions that more than 100 million animals experience every day in New Zealand farms.
SAFE launched the ‘Vote for Lucy’ election campaign in August. We erected a thought-provoking election hoarding in Auckland, with the help of a ‘giant pig’.
The Vote for Lucy website gave a summary of all political parties’ positions on issues impacting animals in New Zealand. The website included a video featuring Emmett Skilton, star of the television show The Almighty Johnsons, showing people how they can encourage politicians to do more for animals.
With your help, we can achieve even more for animals in 2018. One of the most effective ways you can support SAFE is by becoming a regular giver. Every dollar goes towards our work creating change through campaigning, providing education, undertaking research and campaigning for the benefit of all animals.
Thank you for your support!