The spirit of Christmas urges relief for battery hens

Some fortunate battery hens in New Zealand received immediate relief from cruelty and severe confinement thanks to the efforts of members of New Zealand Open Rescue Collective.

The group's members, coined Santa's little helpers, rescued 15 emaciated caged birds from an Auckland egg factory and is urging consumers to boycott caged eggs for the coming year.

"Our wish for Christmas is that New Zealanders stop buying factory farmed eggs and that they no longer support caged cruelty" says Open Rescue spokesperson Deirdre Sims.

A Colmar Brunton poll shows almost eight out of ten New Zealanders oppose keeping hens in cages. In 2006 Parliament's Regulations Review Committee deemed battery hen cages to be in breach of the Animal Welfare Act 1999.

The New Zealand Open Rescue Collective openly rescues battery hens and other factory farmed animals across the country out of sheer frustration that the legal system fails animals. The group has just released a Christmas DVD appealing to New Zealanders boycott battery eggs for 2008.

The message within the DVD states: "Christmas is a time of giving and for some New Zealanders; it's a time of giving hope and freedom to animals. For all the battery hens that we have rescued this year, it will be a Merry Christmas."

Members of the Open Rescue team will be outside New World Victoria Park in Auckland at midday today to hand out complementary copies of the new DVD to consumers which features a Christmas rescue while exposing the reality of caged egg production in New Zealand.

Notes

(1) The Christmas rescue DVD can be viewed online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wgRCKIrfKk

(2) Unseen, raw video footage of the Christmas rescue is available on mini DV.

(3) High resolution digital photographs are available.

(4) The New Zealand Open Rescue Collective formed in 2006 after New Zealand activists became immensely frustrated with the Government's lack of real action for animals on factory farms.

20 years of campaigning against factory farming using legal means such as protesting and lobbying saw little to no changes for animals.

The Collective's aims are to openly rescue animals from places of abuse, to expose hidden suffering and to consistently provide irrefutable evidence why factory farming should be banned.

(5) New World Victoria Park, 2 College Hill Road, Freemans Bay, Auckland

ENDS

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