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Melbourne, Australia - On February 9th, RSPCA national president
Hugh Wirth issued a statement condemning the battery cage method,
calling it "legalised cruelty." He called upon consumers to
boycott eggs produced by caged battery hens. "We're asking
consumers through a consumer revolt to force changes in the law,"
Dr. Wirth said. The RSPCA's challenge is important not only for
its vigorous action but because it formerly played a virtual "do
nothing" role while members of the Australian group Animal
Liberation repeatedly went to jail for rescuing hens to show the
courts and the public the terrible suffering and mistreatment of
the birds--a cruelty that Tasmanian Magistrate Philip Wright
ruled in 1993, was "constant and continual and without relief."
See Karen Davis, Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs, pp. 80-82, for
a look at the Australian campaign to ban battery cages.
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