Date: Monday, December 14, 2009, 6:44 PM
Anonymous for
Animal Rights will held two protest presentations in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv
on Monday, highlighting the "horrors" of the industrial meat and egg
industries.
Protesters in Tel Aviv.
Photo: Doveret Anonymous
SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region | World The presentations are among the
events marking International Animal Rights Day, which was December 10.
Anonymous has recently achieved a major legal victory in its battle to
outlaw "battery cages" for egg laying hens. The Supreme Court issued an
interim injunction prohibiting the use of NIS 300 million out of an NIS 700
million Agriculture Ministry reform plan, which would have made extensive
use of battery cages.
Battery cages have already been outlawed in 30
countries and will be entirely banned in the EU by 2012, according to the
NGO. The wire cages provide less than its own body-width of room to each
hen. The cages have slanted floors to enable the eggs to roll down, but this
means that the hens live their entire lives without the benefit of a flat
floor.
Because these cages don't allow enough room to move, their
bones are weaker and prone to breaking and they often rub the feathers right
off their chests, leaving sores in their place.
What's more, without
room to move, the hens often turn on one another in frustration. To prevent
them from killing each other, their beaks are often routinely removed when
they are young, The Jerusalem Post was recently told.
The
Agriculture Ministry planned to consolidate local coops into several large
rows of battery cages. That's on hold for now, but the court injunction is
only temporary, so the organization is plowing ahead full steam to raise
awareness and continue the fight.
The exhibit at Jerusalem's Paris
Square at 5 p.m. Monday will detail the problems with battery cages and
discuss Anonymous's preferred alternative.
Anonymous is advocating
for a different type of chicken coop, called an aviary. By nature, chickens
are actually woodland creatures that prefer to roost on a tree limb. An
aviary simulates that natural habitat by allowing the hens to fly around and
roost. At the same time, it utilizes modern methods of egg collecting to
maximize efficiency.
It also takes up the same amount of land as the
battery cages since it is a vertical structure, Anonymous activist Hila
Keren said.
"What's more, if you look at the appendix to the
Agriculture Ministry's reform plan where they lay out the costs of each type
of cage, they themselves say the aviary coops cost the same as the battery
cages," she added.
She theorized that the ministry had not really
considered the aviary-type coops because they were a relatively new
invention.
Also on Monday, at 11:30 a.m., Anonymous will hold a
protest in Tel Aviv, on the corner of Ben Zion Boulevard and King George
Street. There, naked activists wrapped in plastic wrap will protest the
cruelty of the industrial meat industry.
They will slam such
practices as dismembering without benefit of anesthetic and bone breakages
as cows are shoved into transports. They will also protest the egg-laying
hens' battery cages.
Anonymous also claims that since male chickens
cannot lay eggs and this particular type of chicken is not good for meat,
about 15,000 male chicks are killed each day.
The industrial food
industry has come under more serious scrutiny in recent years because of its
apparent contributions to global warming. A UN report from 2006 attributed
18% of gases thought to lead to global warming to livestock, because of the
methane they excrete.
Anonymous has had some significant victories
in years past. It successfully petitioned all the way to the Supreme Court
in 2003 against the production of foie gras, which is accomplished by force
feeding ducks and geese, even though Israel was a major producer at the
time. It also achieved better conditions for veal calves in 2005
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