Animal Aid

Animal Aid

Founder(s)	Jean Pink[1]
Type	Animal rights
Founded	1977 (1977)
Location	Tonbridge, England
Area served	United Kingdom
Focus	Vivisection, animal testing, factory farming, animal rights, veganism, Horse racing, Grand National
Method	Campaigning, cruelty-free fairs,
Website	animalaid.org.uk

Animal Aid, founded in 1977, is a British animal rights organisation. The group campaigns peacefully against all forms of animal abuse and promotes a cruelty-free lifestyle. It also investigates and exposes animal cruelty.

Animal Aid produces campaign reports, leaflets and factfiles, as well as educational and undercover videos. They also offer a quarterly magazine and a sales catalogue with cruelty-free products.

Aims and objectives

Animal Aid was founded in January 1977 to work, by all peaceful means, for an end to animal cruelty. The organization is a not-for-profit limited company run by a volunteer council of management. It has not applied to be a charity, so that it is able to use its funds for sometimes controversial campaigns. Its aims are:

• To increase public awareness of the abuse of animals in our society, particularly in vivisection laboratories and factory farms and to educate public opinion to demand, by all lawful means, the abolition of all experiments on animals, factory farming and all other forms of animal abuse.
• To examine existing legislation on matters associated with the above objectives or related aspects and to promote social, legal and administrative reforms in furtherance of the above objectives.
• To prevent exploitation of animals.
• To educate the public and particularly young people to a sense of moral responsibility towards animals.
• To promote, generally, a lifestyle which does not involve the abuse of animals.
• To collect, and diffuse among members and the public generally, information on all matters affecting the above objectives and with a view there to print, issue and circulate papers, periodicals, books, circulars and other literary matter and produce film and audio-visual material, and to promote, sponsor, procure or assist in any way, courses or lectures or other instructions in furtherance of such objectives.^[2]

Celebrity supporters

Animal Aid has a wide range of celebrity supporters, including Thom Yorke, Stella McCartney, Richard Wilson, Wendy Turner Webster, Massive Attack, Alexei Sayle, Tony Benn, Benjamin Zephaniah, Martin Shaw, Chrissie Hynde, Peter Tatchell and Reverend Professor Andrew Linzey.

Dr Charlotte Uhlenbroek, the primatologist, has supported the Animal Aid campaign against primate experiments, stating: "I have yet to hear a sufficiently compelling scientific argument that justifies the suffering inflicted on primates in medical research." ^[3]

Campaigns

Animal Aid campaigns against animal experiments on both moral and scientific grounds, and promotes the non-animal medical research. It obtains and publicises undercover footage showing how animals are treated in farms and on slaughterhouses. Animal Aid promotes an animal-free diet. They argue that a vegan diet is more humane, healthy, environmentally friendly and a better way to use the world's precious resources. Its other main campaigns are against culling, horse racing, pheasant farming and shooting.^[4]

Animal Aid launched the purple poppy campaign in 2007^[5] to commemorate the animal victims of war. Millions of animals have lost their lives in human wars, but are rarely mentioned in remembrance ceremonies. The purple poppy aims to rectify this. It can be worn on its own or alongside the red poppy. Tens of thousands people have bought the poppy, and it has been worn by celebrities including Morrissey on stage in November 2009.^[6][7]

Christmas Fayre

Animal Aid's Christmas Fayre is held every year in London, England to promote a cruelty-free lifestyle.

There are goods for sale including fair trade crafts and jewellery, cruelty-free cosmetics, recycled goods, environmentally friendly clothing, non-leather boots and shoes and seasonal cards and gifts. The 2009 fayre hosted more than 80 stands selling cruelty-free gifts. There is a lecture programme throughout the day, plus a celebrity auction, and vegan food. It is promoted as a family event.

There is also an annual South West Christmas Without Cruelty Fayre held in Exeter, England.

See also

• Animal ethics (disambiguation)

References

External links

• Animal Aid website
• Horse Death Watch

v t e Animal rights Topics Abolitionism Animal protectionism Animal rights Animal welfare Anti-hunting Cruelty to animals Great ape research ban Sentience Speciesism Stock-free agriculture Veganarchism Veganism Vegetarianism Focus Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act Animal model Animals in sport Animal testing Animal testing on non-human primates Bile bear Blood sport Covance Ethics of eating meat Factory farming Fur trade Green Scare Huntingdon Life Sciences International trade in primates Meat industry Nafovanny Open rescue Operation Backfire Pain and suffering in laboratory animals Recreational fishing Seal hunting Zoo Cases Brown Dog affair Britches Cambridge University primates McLibel case Pit of despair Silver Spring monkeys Activists Greg Avery David Barbarash Mel Broughton Rod Coronado Gary Francione Jordan Halliday Barry Horne Shannon Keith Ronnie Lee Lizzy Lind af Hageby Keith Mann Ingrid Newkirk Heather Nicholson Alex Pacheco Jill Phipps Craig Rosebraugh Henry Spira Darren Thurston Andrew Tyler Jerry Vlasak Paul Watson Robin Webb Peter Daniel Young Gary Yourofsky Writers Carol Adams Jeremy Bentham Steven Best Stephen R. L. Clark Gary Francione Robert Garner Anna Kingsford Gill Langley Andrew Linzey Mary Midgley Tom Regan Bernard Rollin Richard D. Ryder Henry Stephens Salt Peter Singer Richard D. Ryder Steven M. Wise Roger Yates Groups List of animal rights groups Animal Aid Animal Legal Defense Fund Animal Liberation Front Animal Liberation Press Office Animal Rights Militia BUAV Chinese Animal Protection Network Great Ape Project Hunt Saboteurs Association Justice Department NAVA PETA Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine Sea Shepherd SPEAK SHAC Parties List of animal advocacy parties Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada Animals Count British Animal Protection Party Party Against Bullfighting, Cruelty and Mistreatment of Animals Party for the Animals Tierschutzpartei Media A Cow at My Table The Cove Behind the Mask Earthlings Meet Your Meat Peaceable Kingdom The Animals Film Animal Liberation Arkangel Bite Back No Compromise Unnecessary Fuss Categories Animal law Animal Liberation Front Animal rights movement Animal rights Animal testing Blood sports Livestock Poultry