ANIMAL RESEARCH T A K E S LIVES
- Humans and Animals BOTH Suffer
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The crowding of animals into concentration factories results in daily pile-up of their waste-matter creating massive pollution. Some factory storage facilities use forced air, augers, or pistons to push waste from factory buildings to tanks or holding ponds. Some farmers dig large pondlike lagoons to hold wastes. Residues of pesticides and insecticides used to control the insects, flies and rodents attracted to these lagoons cause human health hazards as they seep into the ground water. Animal wastes and ammonia increase acidity in the soil and cause acid rain.
In 1989 effluent from a pig-farm belonging to one of New Zealand's leading politicians, Roger Douglas, Minister of Finance, (later to become Minister of Police and Immigration), flowed into drains leading to the Manukau Harbour. The pond which covered half a hectare and was two metres deep, burst flooding a vast area with raw sewage. For this major damage to the environment Douglas was fined a mere $5000.1 Disposal of farm animal excrement is a major environmental problem. A Government Committee of experts in the U.K. blamed modern farming methods for pollution of the water supply with the disease-causing parasite Cryptosporidium, which is now reported to be contaminating New Zealand water systems.
Footnote
1. On September 14 1991 The New Zealand Herald reported that Sunshine Pig Farms Ltd, situated at Old Great South Road, Ramarama, near Drury in South Auckland had gone into receivership the previous day, but that the receiver would continue to trade. Managed by Roger Douglas Associates the property kept 5,000 pigs in stalls. The article goes on to report that earlier in the year the company was fined $5,000 in the Otahuhu District Court and ordered to pay $9,419.79 in costs for spilling 30,000 cubic metres of effluent into the Manukau Harbour and surrounding countryside. The spillage occurred when the largest of a series of oxidation ponds on the farm burst its embankment. When Sir Roger Douglas was questioned about his pig-farming enterprise he is reported as saying: "There is money in it."
On March 4 1992 the Holmes Programme exposed the horrors of the sow stall in a programme which featured pig-farmer ex-Minister of Finance Roger Douglas, in which criticism was levelled at this former politician for his factory farming activities. Holmes reported that prior to screening the programme he was contacted by the Managing Director of the Pork Marketing Board, Dave Dobson, who reminded him WHAT THE BOARD SPENDS ADVERTISING ITS PRODUCTS ON TELEVISION!