Big Birds, Big Cruelty Events

In August 2011 ALACT held a campaign launch party at A Poultry Place animal sanctuary. This was a great event which celebrated the fantastic work of local activists who helped develop the campaign. It also gave an opportunity for other people to learn more about the campaign.

2011 Big Birds, Big Cruelty campaign launch party

Leading up to Christmas 2011 we held various stalls within the community; for example, two key stalls were held at the Living Green Festival and the Cruelty Free Festival.

The feedback from both activists and the general public was that people were unaware about turkeys and assumed that turkey factories did not exist in Australia. The public frequently mentioned that they were aware of the exploitation of broiler chickens and battery hens for example but not turkeys. This feedback demonstrates how little this exploitation is known about and how important the awareness raising phase of the campaign remains.

Jessica Ferry and Lara Drew running one of many BBBC education stalls

Online campaigning, a central tool for social change, has been a pivotal process of the BBBC campaign. The website, the documentary and the Facebook campaign group were all widely distributed informing the general public of the issue and the activists of the campaign. Many people have become more aware of turkey exploitation as a result of the online campaigning.

A few educational presentations took place about the campaign and exploitation of turkeys. For example, one session took place at the Living Green Festival in Canberra. Various other presentations occurred at formal ALACT meetings. A presentation took place at the University of Canberra to students. Future presentations in both community and educational settings will occur in order to raise more awareness about factory farmed turkeys in Australia.

Lara Drew at the University of Canberra giving a presentation to students about turkeys.

Another key component of the campaign was to facilitate other activists and provide resources and materials for them to use to enable them to campaign about turkeys in their local community. As a result, many interested organisations and individual activists in Australia have distributed campaign materials leading up to Christmas 2011. Thank you to Animal Liberation Victoria, Edgars Mission, A Poultry Place and at least 10 individual activists in Brisbane and Melbourne who worked hard at distributing these campaign materials in their local community.

Furthermore,  in the lead up to Christmas  2011 Animals Australia did a feature on turkeys which publicised the BBBC campaign whilst raising awareness about turkeys. Click here for Animals Australia's feature on turkeys. Other fantastic groups continuing to campaign on turkeys are Animal Liberation NSW and Animal Liberation South Australia.

Thank you to Voiceless – the Animal Protection Institute who provided the funding for the campaign. The BBBC campaign is not only a local campaign but a national one – it will continue to take this angle. Thank you to everyone who helped raise awareness about turkeys this year!

Lara Drew and Bernie Brennan at the 2010 Voiceless Award Night.

Overall, the most successful aspect of this campaign is that the issue is now being widely discussed and materials are being utilised and distributed across Australia. Having these materials available for activists has encouraged and empowered others to campaign about the issue in their local community. This project has played a key role in enabling others to participate. Given that animal rights organisations have limited resources, these materials have greatly benefited activists in Australia. It is hoped this issue will become even more ‘public’ in similar ways to the broiler chicken and battery hen exploitation.

Animal Liberation ACT will be campaigning about turkeys in 2013. Please keep an eye out for up and coming events. Come along, say hello, meet like-minded activists and join in! In the meantime, talk to your friends and family about the issue, check out the campaign website, send the online materials around and encourage others to buy cruelty free products instead. Education through awareness raising which seeks to engage others has long been a vehicle for social change. This ‘change’ and ‘learning’ will only be created if we provide a beginning point with some facilitation. Education of this kind if needed to inform social change.

– Lara Drew Big Birds Big Cruelty, Campaign Director