News

With this year’s duck shooting season starting on Saturday, an animal rights group says 200,000 birds will be maimed and left to die in agony over the course of the season. But hunters have defended the sport, insisting the group’s “numbers simply don’t add up” and do not reflect reality....

As the racing industry continues to toast a mega-million dollar financial shot in the arm, New Zealand animal welfare groups are outraged, shocked and angry over the taxpayer-funded bailout. As strange as it sounds given New Zealand is facing so many post-Covid-19 issues, the racing support package – announced by...

A case over the treatment of pigs in New Zealand will be in court in less than two weeks. Pat Baskett takes a look at the potential impacts of the outcome. Phoebe was a pig I wrote about some years ago. Her life was a misery. She lived in a...

Two animal welfare organisations have gone to court to improve the protection of pigs. File image. Photo: 123RF One of them is SAFE, or Save Animals from Exploitation, which is renowned for its high profile campaigns against the like of abuse of bobby calves and keeping chickens in cages. Read...

Photos allegedly taken by a Fiordland resident and supplied by Safe show cows in mud-filled paddocks with no shelter. Photos of cows in muddy conditions show the “outrageous failure” by officials to act on winter grazing practices, an animal rights group says. Read more

The issue of winter grazing is back in the spotlight after an animal rights group released photos of cows in mud on Thursday. SAFE accused the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) of “an outrageous failure” to enforce rules aimed at protecting stock. Read more

More than half of New Zealand’s pig farmers could be left in financial ruin if a first-of-its-kind court challenge is successful. The High Court is reviewing whether the use of cages in pig farming is actually illegal under the Animal Welfare Act. It’s the first case of its kind in...

SAFE – Animal Rights Charity Safe photographed chickens in colony cages at Northern Eggs near Whangārei in December. Animal rights group Safe says New Zealand should follow Colorado, United States, which is the latest to ban caged hens. It was the fifth US state to do so. Colony cages were...

A Northland contract milker caught on hidden camera beating cows with a steel pipe has had five charges against him dropped after a judge ruled the footage was obtained unlawfully. While it was agreed the footage – first exposed in a Newsroom story in 2018 – showed the mistreatment of...

Cat MacLennan argues there’s scanty evidence for a decision to rule footage of a sharemilker beating cows with a metal pole inadmissible on the grounds it would encourage more undercover filming The judge in the cow cruelty case of Ministry for Primary Industries v Luke ruled that hidden camera film...

Five charges against a Northland farmer were dropped after hidden camera footage was thrown out of court. (File photo) Dairy farmers and animal rights activists are united in their criticism of the sentence handed down to aWhāngāreifarmer after footage of him hitting cows with a metal bar was thrown out...

The Agriculture Minister has rejected suggestions by an animal rights group for a separate Crown entity to ensure animal welfare laws are adhered to. Damien O’Connor said there was a National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee and a separate ethics committee which provided plenty of independent oversight between them. Read more

Animal rights group Safe is calling for 2020 Share Farmer of the Year winner Nick Bertram to be stripped of his award over a series of “profanity-laden tweets” from 2017. New Zealand’s top dairy farmer advocated “cruel and illegal methods” to handle his cows, which he called “b……”, animal rights...

[00:00:01] The New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards Trust [NZDIA] is investigating historical tweets posted by a recent winner.  [00:00:09] Trust chair, Natasha Tere, says it has been made aware of the comments from 2020 Share Farmer of the Year, Nick Bertram and is now investigating the situation.  Read more