RSPCA Judge, Jury and Executioner

The fact that the RSPCA continues to run lines in the media that are contrary to the science and facts while claiming the industry has nothing to fear from the loss of the live export trade, has many farmers wondering what happened to the RSPCA of old.

The live shipping market provides a valuable pressure release value for what is a highly valued product from a very fussy international market.?

So fussy, that the claim made in the letter that the sheep were regularly seen starving on the vessels defies all logic, not to mention the evidence as there is no market at the end of the journey for anything but a healthy well fed animal.?

So what are the facts behind this claim. According to the reports the only issues raised were related to four trips in which feed pellets were observed to have broken down into fines (fodder and dust) on some decks, which led to crew members regularly cleaning the feed troughs.

The independent observers recorded no adverse impact to animal health as a result.

On one voyage in 2022, an observer noted some animals “had difficulty” accessing feed and water troughs aboard the MV Al Messilah because of horn sizes, which went against livestock export standards.

Two sheep lost body condition because of this and were moved into hospital pens to better access feed and water.

These sheep regained condition and no other animals needed intervention.

These are yet another example of the RSPCA using data from old voyages rather than quoting the good news story of the new regulations where the numbers of sheep which have died on board are well below the threshold set by the regulator the Federal Department of Agriculture.

But two can play at the game of twisting facts and selectively building a negative story to blacken the image of an organisation or industry.?

For instance, we could compare the numbers of sheep that have died on live export ships over the past four years, 4807 with the numbers of companion animals destroyed under the watch of the RSPCA over the same period 120,031.?

I could make the claim that animals are 25 times safer on a live export boat than in the hands of the RSPCA.? But it’s an unfair judgement which I would never make, but you get my point.?

The RSPCA is a leading face of the $33 billion dollar pet industry and has a vested interest in actively encouraging people to become owners of the 33 million pets that are kept by 6.9 million households across Australia.

Unfortunately, far too many of these pets suffer from poor animal welfare, neglect and abandonment but this is not an issue the RSPCA actively lobbies government on, preferring to lobby them for more money to run its shelters, than restrict animal ownership.

One could argue the RSPCA should be actively campaigning to end the pet industry as far too many of these animals end up abandoned or ill treated.?

Lets face it if they really cared about animals they would impose the same standards they are setting for live trade which is no risk to an animals welfare is acceptable.

Far easier to demonise the live sheep trade to keep the donations coming in rather than focus on the many issues around companion animals and hobby farm livestock.

We don’t see the RSPCA actively advocating to limit pets to those who have the skills, space, time and money to look after them like a farmer or live sheep exporter looks after their livestock.

For an organisation that is effectively an extension of government, so much so that they received $1.33m in government funding in 2022 and $1.61m in 2023, the question has to be asked why they are allowed to be a political actor?

Which raises the interesting question of conflict of interest when they are busy wearing the three hats of policy maker, policy enforcer, and political lobbyist all while they seek to raise funds from donors.

Ultimately the RSPCA seems to want to be a judge, jury and executioner of the livestock sector but prefer the image of saviour and supporter of thjudge, jury and executionere huge and growing pet industry.?

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