About Us

Animal Liberation ACT (AL) was founded in the late 1970s by Jenny MacDougall, a fourth generation dairy farmer who had become appalled with the treatment of animals following the fate of her own stock after they left the family farm. It was dedicated to promoting the philosophical principles explored in Peter’s Singer’s book, Animal Liberation, published in 1979.

Our Successes

Farm animals

In the early 1980s AL campaigns focused on the treatment of farm animals in transportation and at sale yards and abattoirs. Improvements were achieved through the development of national codes of practice and the rescued of abandoned lambs born at local saleyards and abattoirs. Between the mid-1980s and 1990s most of AL’s farm animal actions were ad hoc. We helped prevent the establishment of both an intensive turkey farm and an intensive rabbit farm in neighbouring Yarrowlumla Shire(NSW). We also investigated treatment of cattle and pigs.

AL’s most significant and successful farm animal campaign has been on battery hens. This campaign began in earnest in August 1995. It resulted in two very significant legal and political wins in the course of the campaign. In February 1997, four hen rescuers were arrested during an action at Parkwood Eggs, an ACT battery egg factoryfarm. The ‘Parkwood Four’ were found not guilty of trespass because the Magistrate considered their actions to be reasonable and necessary due to the inherent cruelty of the battery cage system and the particular conditions uncovered. Unfortunately this result was later overturned by the Federal Court. 

Our second win was the passage of legislation to ban the production and sale of battery eggs in the ACT. The legislation, proposed by the ACT Greens (with amendments by the ALP), unfortunately has not been implemented. Due to national competition policy the ban on the sale of eggs in the ACT required the agreement of all other Australian states and territories. This agreement was not granted therefore the legislation hasnot been put into practice.

Nevertheless the ACT did become the first place in Australian to introduce labelling for eggs cartons. This labelling prevents consumers being confused by deceptive labelling as battery caged eggs must be labelled as ‘battery caged eggs’ or ‘caged eggs’. 

Just 3 of the 250,000 battery hens currently suffering out at Pace Farms in MacGregor, ACT

Animals in research and education

A major campaign by AL against monkey experiments at the Australian National University (ANU) in the late 1980s/early1990s led to:

• the closingdown of the ANU primate breeding colony;
• significant improvements to primate housing at the ANU; and
• substantial modification to “monkey brain probe” experiments (which are still continuing).

AL has been represented on most ACT Animal Experimentation Ethics Committees. We have also facilitated improvements inthe treatment of animals used in ACT schools. For example, in the late 1980s we were able to draw public attention to the proposed classroom killing of a number of experimental rats that students at Lyneham High School hadraised from babies. As a result the rats were either kept or re-homedinstead of being killed.

Animals in entertainment

In 1992, ACT became the first jurisdiction in Australia to ban circuses which use exotic animals. This success resulted from the hard work of the Animal Welfare Working Group (AWWG) which developedACT’s animal welfare policy, our campaigning against circuses and support from a sympathetic ALP politician, David Lamont. 

The AWWG recommended the ban on circuses and the proposal for the ban was included in the original draft ACT Animal WelfarePolicy. However, a subsequent ACT Government deleted it from the draft Policy and the ACT animal welfare legislation was drafted without it. Intensive campaigning by AL persuaded the ACT Legislative Assembly to includethe circus ban, and the ban was passed with ACT’s first Animal Welfare Act in1992.

The same Act also banned rodeos. 

The ban on circuses with exotic animals has survived a number of threats. An ACT election in 1995 gave a working majority to the Liberals, who had opposed the original circus ban, in alliance with an Independent who was vocal about his desire to repeal the ban. Quick and concerted action by AL and the RSPCA ensured that the ban survived. 

In 2000 the circus and rodeo ban survived a Competition Policy Review of the ACT’s Animal Welfare Act. Circuses with exotic animals visit Quenbeyan, a NSW town just over the border. AL protests at against theses circuses however the visits are increasinglyrare. AL monitors rodeos that take place in surrounding NSW towns.

Other actions by AL in the 1980s and 1990s relating to the use of animals in entertainment focused on the two ACT zoos both of which have now closed down. More recently, our concerns have turned to the increasing number of exotic wild animals being kept at the National Zoo and Aquarium.

Rodeos are banned in the ACT but not in Queanbeyan (NSW)

Companion Animals

In the early 1990s AL began campaigning for the compulsory desexing of companion dogs and cats. After ten years of publiceducation and working with government, it began compulsory in the ACT to desex your dog or cat through the passage of the Domestic Animals Act of 2000.

While the Domestic Animals Act also has a numberof the standard bizarre and horrific provisions common to such legislation throughout Australia, in general it is a much more enlightened and humane piece of legislation than any similar legislation passed in other Australian jurisdictions, especially in regard to cats.

A number of excellent amendments to the Animal Welfare Act were also passed as part of the domestic animals package, including a ban on tail docking of dogs by anyone other than a veterinarian and for anything other than therapeutic purposes.

In the mid 1990s ALACT began a number of projects the purpose of which was to reduce the number of dogs and cats being surrendered to the ACT Dog Pound and the RSPCA refuge. We began compiling a register of people willing to provide foster homes for dogs and cats. We came to an arrangement with the ACT Dog Pound in which we tried to set up a lost and found register so that lost dogs who were being fostered by members ofthe public could be located by their humans through the Pound (without having to be impounded). And we assisted the Pound personnel in contacting owners they had been unable to contact (the Pound staff were only able to phone the “owners” during working hours). 

None of these projects was very successful, and it now seems this was only because they were just a few years premature. The more recent widespread availability of email networks and the ACT Dog Pound’s own wonderful efforts to go on line with lost and found lists, impounded dogs lists (including photos), and “dogs wanted” lists, as well as a swag of other important information for companion animal keepers, has turned the whole horrific situation for lost and unwanted dogs in the ACT right around. The number of dogs being killed at the Pound has been massively reduced. A dedicated group of ALACT members work closely with the Pound to foster and re-home many dogs who would, under the old system, almost certainly have been killed. 

Throughout the last ten years, ALACT has also participated, through AWAC, in development of Codes of Practice for companiondogs, cats, ferrets, rabbits, guinea pigs, rats and mice and is currentlydeveloping codes for companion reptiles and amphibians. The standard of care required by these Codes should help to prevent a great deal of unnecessary suffering among companion animals.

Wild native animals

From 1988 to 1994 we campaigned to against recreational duck shooting in NSW (it is prohibited in the ACT). AL sent teams to rescue water birds during the duck season opening weekend untilin 1994 when the barbaric practice was banned in NSW. AL took small teams of people each year to wetlands where large numbers of birds were known to bekilled.

In 1998, joining forces with rescuers from Albury-Wodonga and northern Victoria, we saved birds and hindered shooters on Lake Hume.  In 1989, we did the same but also covered the urban wetlands of Horseshoe Lagoon in Albury, where we successfully prevented the slaughter of hundreds of birds.  In 1990, we returned to the Hume but in 1991, we did a very successful rescue at Lake Urana in Southern NSW.  In 1992, we joined the NSW team at Barren Box.  In 1993 and 1994, we returned to the Hume. 

While our contribution to the banning of duckshooting in NSW was probably a very small one, we did rescue a substantial number of wounded waterbirds. Many of these had to be euthanased but atleast they were spared the alternative of dying slowly of their wounds. We also saved many birds just by being there – shooters spent more time abusing us and talking to each other about us than shooting birds.

ALACT assisted the ACT Wildlife Foundation in its successful campaign for the sterilisation and translocation of kangaroos from Government House in 1992, where their population was considered to havegrown too large. We were, however, less successful in our attempts to prevent the slaughter of kangaroos at the Royal Canberra Golf Course, next door to Government House, two years later. Intensive lobbying, a survey of ACT kangaroo populations which showed that kangaroo numbers were down elsewhere inthe ACT, numerous NSW property owners offering to take the kangaroos, a fiercemedia campaign and a month of 4 am vigils at the Golf Course in December 1994were all ignored by the ACT Government. However, because of our vigils, eventually the Golf Club got tired of waiting and allowed the kangaroos to be killed while we were not there and without the RSPCA being present as was required by their license. This resulted in the cancellation of their license some fifty kangaroos short of the number they had originally been given permission to kill (120).

Through AWAC, ALACT has participated in development of a Code of Practice and a government Policy on the care oforphaned and injured native wildlife in the ACT.  While this Code and the Policy both reflect the ACT Government’s on-going discrimination against grey kangaroos (anyone wanting to rescue an injured or orphaned kangaroo has to sneak it across the border to a NSW carer), in other respects it is a comprehensive code which will prevent a great deal of unnecessary suffering among orphaned and injured native animals.

One significant achievement for wild animals inthe ACT is that the steel jaw trap was banned under the ACT under the AnimalWelfare Act in 1992. 

In the early 1990s, we undertook colourful winter protests outside the few ACT shops that still sold fur. By 1995, no fur was being sold in the ACT. With the reintroduction of fur to ACT shops in the last several years, we have had to revive these protests, the most recent being held in June 2001.

Introduced wild animals

AL campaigned against the 1996 release of RCD in Australia, and actively blockaded the proposed ACT release site on the proposed day of release. Unfortunately, the infected rabbits were simply released at an alternative site. 

AL has campaigned against the use of 1080 poisonin the ACT and in southern NSW for a number of animals including foxes, feraldogs and dingoes. In 2003 we campaigned against the shooting of brumbies in Namadgi National Park, we advocated their humane capture and removal.

The extremely cruel steel jaw trap is banned in the ACT under the Animal Welfare Act 1992.

The cruel steel jaw trap is only banned in ACT and NSW