Good news for chickens, vegans and animal advocates 🐥
Plus last-minute animal advocacy donation opportunities.
Hi friend,
Ready for the last good news newsletter of this year?
While I will be taking the next two weeks off, I sure hope the stream of positive news for our animal friends will continue during this time… and I look forward to sharing them with you when I get back! 🤗
If you would like an overview of the most important wins for animals — specifically farmed animals — in 2024,
from Open Philanthropy has you covered:
As Lewis Bollard put it in this article:
“Against the giant wrongs of factory farming, these wins may appear small. But for the animals affected, they’re a big deal. And they were all achieved by a small group of advocates operating with less funding than Harvard spent renovating a single residential house.”
Which brings me to the next point:
Finishing 2024 strong
If you want to help the animal advocacy movement finish 2024 strong, it’s not too late to make a donation! Here are a few animal advocacy organizations I like:
The Animal Welfare Fund (I have donated to them in the past, and they state that they still have room for more funding in 2024), and
Animal Charity Evaluators (I donated to them this year).
What do I like about them? Well, they really strive to be effective. And effectiveness matters a lot when it comes to our donations. In fact, picking the right cause and/or organization could make your donation 1000x more effective. 😮
For instance, an essay by Dr. Toby Ord compares the years of healthy life you can save by donating 1,000 USD to five different interventions for the prevention or treatment of HIV and AIDS.
💡The best of these five strategies (educating high-risk groups) is estimated to be 1,400 times better than the worst of them. 💡
In other words, you could potentially do more good with 10 USD than with 10,000 USD… as long as you really focus on effectiveness.
Good news for animals (and the people who care about them)
Big win for chickens!!!
Remember when I wrote about the UK court case that could help a billion chickens?
Well, the verdict on that case is now in. And while The Humane League UK technically lost the appeal, animal activists have still hailed this as a historic win. 🎊
What’s going on? Have we lost our collective marbles? Is the lack of animal protein *gasp* finally getting to us?
No, it’s just that life is pretty complex, and so is law. As Molly Archer-Zeff, one of the people behind this lawsuit, wrote:
“The judges have ruled in favour on our main argument - that the law says that animals should not be kept in the UK if it means they will suffer because of how they have been bred. This is a huge moment for animals in the UK.”
Here’s how appeal judge Lord Justice Males put it:
“If a given breed can reasonably be expected to suffer a detrimental effect on its health or welfare because of its genetic make-up, the prohibition on keeping that breed of animal applies regardless of any commercial advantages which it may have.”
He added that the regulation “unequivocally prioritises animal health and welfare over commercial benefit”.
In other words, this is huge! In the wake of this ruling, Molly Archer-Zeff announced:
“While this ruling has failed to force the Government to act, it has confirmed our view that farmers are acting criminally by using fast-growing breeds. We will now explore bringing private prosecutions against mega-farms that use Frankenchickens.”
So, stay tuned! This fight for the future of 1 billion chickens isn’t over, it’s entering a new phase! 🐥
You can read more about this here and here.
New Finnish dietary guidelines promote shift to more plant-based foods
Finland has become the latest country to advocate for more plant-based foods in its dietary guidelines!
Finland joins other countries that have revised their national recommendations towards more plant-based food, including:
Taiwan,
Canada,
Germany,
Austria, and
Norway.
At this point, we are definitely seeing a trend! 🌱
New EU welfare proposal to come by 2026
On December 7, 2023, the European Commission proposed significant updates to the EU's animal welfare legislation, including an overhaul of transport conditions. Proposed changes would, for instance, reduce the animals’ journey time and increase their minimum space requirements.
Olivér Várhelyi, the European Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare, now promised that revised animal welfare proposals would be unveiled by 2026.
Reineke Hameleers, the CEO of Eurogroup for Animals, welcomed this news:
“It is welcoming to see for the first time a promise on a concrete timeline after such a long delay to better protect millions of sentient beings. Commissioner Varlelyi clearly stated his intention to have the first legislatives proposals out in 2026, after finishing the consultations in 2025. This is excellent news for the animal protection movement.”
I’m really looking forward to these overdue updates, and hope that any changes on the European level will also impact global standards through the “Brussels effect”! 🥳
Anti-whaling activist Paul Watson got released from jail
Denmark has refused to extradite whaling activist Paul Watson to Japan. After being released from prison in Greenland, where Watson spent 150 days, he stated:
“My time in jail has at least served the purpose of focusing attention on Japan’s illegal whaling operations and the added benefit of focusing attention of the killing of dolphins on the Danish Faroe islands. So in that sense it was a successful campaign.”
The campaign to release him gathered a lot of support, including from the French President Macron, and from Brigitte Bardot and Pierce Brosnan.
Watson will now be able to spend Christmas with his sons! 🎄
🤗 How you can help animals
It feels great to read through positive news. What’s even better is to contribute to them!
Remember, the whole animal advocacy movement is still in its early phase, and we can use all hands on deck. That means that your contribution is uniquely valuable and important at this time!
💡 If you want to become a more effective vegan advocate, the Center for Effective Vegan Advocacy has you covered (with free courses and communication hacks). 💡Here’s how you can be a part of the solution:
You can donate to an organization that effectively helps animals, such as the Animal Charity Evaluators or the Animal Welfare Fund. You can find out more about effective animal welfare donations here.
You can volunteer for animals. If you don’t have a lot of time, the Humane League’s Fast Action Network might be a good choice, as it allows you to contribute when you can (for instance, while waiting in a queue). If you have more time, you can find a lot of volunteering opportunities here.
If you are not yet a vegan, you can become a vegan ally (see this YouTube video for an explanation) and support the cause by reducing your consumption of animal products. If you want support in becoming more vegan, there are many vegan challenges, such as this one.
If you would like community, you can join Hive Newsletter’s Slack channel and connect with 3000+ animal advocates. I recently joined and it’s amazing! My only regret is that I didn’t join earlier. :)
Warmly,
Louise