SAFE supporter update January 2026
January 25th, 2026In 2025, your support enabled SAFE to keep pushing where it matters most: exposing cruelty, challenging industry influence, and holding decision makers to account.
Across multiple campaigns, we continued to shine a light on practices that cause suffering, and on the systems that allow them to persist.
One of the most significant breakthroughs we achieved together was the greyhound racing ban, announced at the end of 2024 and set to come into effect midway through 2026. It was a major step forward, and a reminder that meaningful change is possible when the public demands better.
At the same time, SAFE continued building the long term solutions animals urgently need. This year, we strengthened the push for independent oversight through a Commissioner for Animals, working as part of the Commissioner for Animals Alliance to help address the gaps in enforcement and accountability that too often leave animals unprotected.
A snapshot of what you helped make happen in 2025:
Image by Matt Coffey
Mud Farming
Thanks to you…Throughout 2025, we continued exposing the reality of mud farming, where animals are forced to endure winter conditions suffering in deep mud.
Shocking new footage reinforced how entrenchedand ongoing this cruelty remains. Public concern continued to grow through strong petition support and widespread engagement, helping keep pressure on decision makers to take meaningful action.
Fix the Label: Demanding honest egg labelling
SAFE continued to challenge misleading egg labels that disguise cage systems behind terms like colony laid. This work is about more than marketing language, it is about ensuring the public can make informed choices, and ensuring industry practices cannot be concealed behind carefully chosen wording.
This year, public momentum continued to build. A major sign of that progress is that Woolworths New Zealand has fulfilled its commitment to remove cage eggs from all of its stores, demonstrating that Kiwi expectations around cruel animal products are being heard – and that businesses are responding.
Codes of Welfare under scrutiny
SAFE also took a firm stand against inadequate animal welfare codes that risk normalising cruelty instead of preventing it.
SAFE continues to demand that the Ministry for Primary Industries’ proposed Code of Welfare for Sheep and Beef Cattle be scrapped. The code legitimises inherently harmful practices including mud farming, feedlots, and painful procedures like castration and tail docking without pain relief, while continuing to allow animals to suffer without access to shelter.
We challenged proposals that fail to meet the standards animals deserve, and pushed for meaningful protections
SAFE with allies at the Commissioner for Animals report launch 2025 that reflect both public expectation and the intent of the law. This work matters because codes shape what is permitted in practice, and inadequate minimum standards leave animals vulnerable while shielding harmful systems from scrutiny.
Greyhounds: Countdown to a racing-free future
SAFE continued holding the greyhound racing industry and the Government accountable as the country moves toward the ban coming into force in August 2026.
While the end of racing is now in sight, we continued to speak out as injuries and deaths occurred, because animals deserve more than promises on paper. They deserve real protection, real enforcement, and a clear pathway to safety and long-term care.
This campaign has been years in the making, and the ban remains a powerful reminder of what sustained public pressure can achieve.
Rodeo
SAFE intensified its call for a nationwide rodeo ban, responding to animal deaths at events and challenging the normalisation of cruelty as entertainment.
We kept public attention focused on the urgent need for a ban and continued highlighting the abuse of animals at the core of this brutal form of ‘entertainment’. With your support, SAFE continued to build public pressure and demand action that reflects society’s expectations of animal welfare.
Bobby Calves
SAFE continued to expose the suffering of bobby calves in the dairy industry, using public awareness campaigns to confront the scale of this cruelty and the systems that enable it.
This work brought renewed attention to a practice that should have ended long ago.
Fish Welfare
SAFE also pushed for stronger protections for fish, including action in response to mass deaths in aquaculture.
This work reinforced a simple truth. Fish welfare matters, and industries must be held to account when animals suffer on a large scale. You helped speak up for animals who are so often overlooked, building public understanding that animal welfare must include all animals, not only the most visible ones.
Commissioner for Animals Alliance
SAFE continued pushing for one of the most important long-term solutions to New Zealand’s broken animal welfare system: independent oversight through a Commissioner for Animals.
We are proud to be leading the Commissioner for Animals Alliance, working alongside others to build a stronger system where animal welfare laws are properly enforced, and where cruelty cannot be minimised, ignored, or quietly permitted to continue.
On 10 December, The New Zealand Animal Law Association (NZALA) released a report titled ‘A Commissioner for Animals in New Zealand’. SAFE and representatives from the Commissioner for Animals Alliance joined NZALA at parliament to launch of this groundbreaking report – an important step forward in presenting a credible, evidence-based case for reform across Aotearoa.
Turning awareness into action
SAFE’s online advocacy remained a powerful driver of change this year, helping turn public concern into visible public action. Supporters shared content, signed petitions, spoke out, and helped keep animal welfare issues in the public eye. Together, we continued building momentum for long term reform, including the push for independent oversight and stronger accountability. Every signature, every share, and every message of support helps shift what is considered acceptable, and makes it harder for cruelty to remain hidden.
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What this adds up to:
- In 2025, supporters like you helped us achieve so much, together.
- We kept systemic animal suffering in the public spotlight.
- We pressured regulators and decision makers to act.
- We mobilised supporters through petitions and public advocacy.
- We maintained sustained pressure on industries that profit from cruelty.
- We strengthened the case for long-term reform through a Commissioner for Animals.
Together, we’re making a difference
None of this happens without amazing supporters like you.
Thank you for standing with us.
P.S. Everything we achieve is thanks to generous support of individuals like you.