Media release – Neighbours of Fish Farming, 3 August 2023
Factories of Living Waste – New Video
NOFF today challenges the RSPCA to validate its ongoing assistance for the international salmon market in Tasmania as it launches a dreadful video revealing stunning conditions in which fish live and pass away.
The facing 13-minute exposé of the worldwide Atlantic salmon market, ‘Factories of Living Waste’ illustrates the ruthless conditions in which salmon live and the parasites, illness and defects that eliminate them. The video is being dispersed Australia-large through animal well-being organisations.
“This exposé clearly shows the RSPCA cannot justify being paid to shelter an industry that is a by-word for cruelty,” says Peter George, president of NOFF.
“We have written to the RSPCA asking why it would squander its hard-earned reputation on an industry that that would shame any humane farming operation.” [Letter attached]
Huon Aquaculture, owned by Brazilian international, JBS, pays the RSPCA a concealed amount every year for the organisation’s recommendation of its Tasmanians operations regardless of pressure to withdraw from the arrangement.
Lisa Litjens, NOFF vice president for animal well-being says:
“We’ve attempted in the past to engage with the RSPCA however they have actually continued to safeguard the indefensible. That’s why we’re going public.
“As ‘Factories of Living Waste’ reveals, the RSPCA’s promoted ‘five freedoms’ of animal well-being are just not fulfilled in the salmon cages.
“We challenge the RSPCA and the multinationals that own the Tasmanian market to allow independent, public assessment and tracking without pre-conditions of salmon leases and cages.
“Speaking candidly, it’s not a challenge they would risk accepting because the truth would be too shocking.”
The video has actually been made with the help of NOFF’s worldwide allies. The video makes use of Tasmanian and worldwide sources due to the fact that recording in Tasmanian leases would lead to drastic trespass charges, substantial fines and prospective prison terms for anybody going into a lease without authorization.
“The international evidence shows claims of ‘world’s best practice’ is a lie behind which multinationals hide when the truth is shameful,” says Ms Litjens.
“As our film shows, the conditions are so appalling that “many fish just give up on life and die.”
In Tasmania, the number fish deaths is not regularly released however market sources have actually verified to NOFF that 10s of countless fish have actually passed away gradually this year alone from illness, oxygen hunger and warming waters.”
NB: ‘Factories of Living Waste’ will be premiered at Cygnet in the Huon Valley, Tasmania, tomorrow (Saturday, August 5) at 5pm in the Cygnet Town Hall).
