Campaigns
Every year in Britain, more than 7 billion animals
face the barbarity of slaughter - many fully conscious. Most
spend their short, brutal lives in confinement, pain and misery.
Viva! launches regular, hard-hitting campaigns and has forced
the vegetarian and vegan debate back on to the agenda - on
TV, radio and in the press.
Find out more about our campaigns and support
Viva! - Campaigning for Animals, Fighting for Change.
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Badgers are harmless, loved, unique and secretive. Yet they face illegal trapping, baiting with dogs and 50,000 die on the roads each year in Britain. Now they face their biggest threat yet - the dairy industry!
British badgers are still being accused by farmers of being the main culprits in spreading bovine TB. The real culprits are farming practices so intense that dairy cows face numerous infections and rarely survive beyond five years old. TB tests are often inaccurate, allowing disease carriers to reinfect their herd or to be transported around the UK, infecting new herds.
They are ignoring the 10 year study by top scientists which established that badger 'culling' will not control TB in cattle. This means many animals will be cruelly killed to no purpose - other than mollifying farmers who refuse to change their ways.
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The central theme of our HOT campaign is that the most effective action individuals can take to reduce global warming and other environmental catastrophes is to change their diet – move away from meat, dairy and other animal products and move towards a plant-based diet.
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Bird flu is an infectious disease of birds caused by type A strains of the influenza virus. It was first discovered in Italy more than 100 years ago and there are now at least 144 different strains recognised worldwide.
Bird flu is just the latest in a long line of diseases caused by animal farming, including BSE, swine fever and foot and mouth disease. In addition to these high profile diseases, over 5 million people in the UK suffer from food poisoning every year, and many are killed, with over 95 per cent of cases caused by meat, dairy products and eggs. Of course animal products have also been conclusively linked to Britain’s three major killers – heart disease, stroke and many forms of cancer. It’s time we stopped this insanity and put an end to the animal, human and environmental damage caused by our meat addiction.
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Our undercover investigators have been inside two of Britain's biggest chick hatcheries.
Male chick killing, female multilations and intensive, cramped conditions - all part of the egg industry.
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Most of the chickens killed for meat never see the light of day. Their six week life is spent inside a foul-smelling windowless shed with 30-40,000 other chickens, each with only a space the size of an A4 sheet of paper. They never feel sunlight or breathe fresh air – until they’re crammed into a lorry and hauled off to the slaughterhouse. Over 850 million chickens suffer this fate every year in the UK.
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Being veggie or vegan has never been more important - or easy to do! Eating meat-free this festive season is the kindest and most compassionate thing you can do for the animals, your health and the environment. Let our Christmas pages inspire you to try something different this year!
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Dairy cows are portrayed as having an idyllic life but the reality is that the animals (like all mammals) only produce milk for their young in response to giving birth. The animals are kept in a cycle of near constant pregnancy and lactation (meaning huge physically and metabolic stress, often leading to disease). Each cow also suffers the separation from their young, calling for each other desperately - something which has been studied, and even the dairy industry themselves admit it causes emotional stress. The fundamentals and nature of producing and extracting milk from cows (especially the modern dairy industry) conflicts the animals physical and emotional welfare.
Read about and watch our undercover footage of farms that supply Cadbury.
Many people switch from cows' milk to goat because they think it's more humane. The irony is that all the problems that exist to produce cows' milk exist in goat farming, too. Mothers and kids are separated after a few days so her milk can be taken. Females are used to replenish the herd, but males can't produce milk - they are either killed at birth or kept for meat for the growing ethnic market. Almost all kid goats suffer at least one painful mutilation - and often without anaesthetic.
Read about and watch our undercover footage of British goat farms.
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Viva!’s dirty meat campaign, Dishing the Dirt, peels back the wrapping and takes a long, cool, nauseating look at meat: where it comes from, how it gets to the plate and what comes with it. It examines the entire system which turns animals into food, including: modern farming and the drugs on which it relies; the diseases of farmed animals and the squalid conditions which cause them; the illnesses caused to humans by infected meat and the failure of governments to protect people from them; slaughter and meat processing; butcher’s shops and restaurants.
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Britain’s favourite wild bird has joined the ranks of the factory farmed animal machines. They have been forced out of the ponds and riversides and crammed in their thousands into dirty, stinking sheds – their every natural instinct frustrated.
Animals that have evolved to eat, swim, dive, clean and play in water are denied it entirely except for drinking. Without water, ducks can’t preen, their feathers deteriorate and they can lose body heat. They may also develop eye problems and even blindness. Able to live for 10 years, they are killed after seven weeks.
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Intensive, industrialised, factory - they’re all terms that describe modern farming methods. Intensive because as many animals as possible are crammed together in the smallest possible space. Industrialised because feeding, watering and dung clearing are often performed automatically. Factory because the philosophy of mass production is what lies behind it all.
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When it was founded in 1994, Viva! started campaining on the environment, warning that livestock farming is destroying the Earth. Pick any of the most threatening environmental problems, we said, and you will find farmed animals at the heart of it.
It was not that we were clairvoyant but that there was a mountain of science available even then to show that the animals used to produce meat, dairy and leather were responsible for a devastating loss of forests, the unrelenting spread of existing deserts and the degradation of fertile land into lifeless dust.
The facts were clear - farmed animals are also largely responsible for the overuse of fresh water, for the pollution of surface, ground and sea water, for the devastating loss of species and for the bulk of acid rain. Livestock are also major players in the most pressing of all catastrophes – climate change. The concerns which started our campaign have grown much more acute as meat, fish and dairy consumption across the world has increased.
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Viva! campaigns against the sale of 'exotic meats' and also the factory farming of animals such as ostrich, emu and crocodile. Our campaign has led to all the major supermarkets withdrawing kangaroo, ostrich and crocodile meats from sale - a major blow to this new animal abuse industry.
Sadly, meat from these wild animals is still on sale in small chains of pubs and in some restaurants and shops. Please let Viva! know of any outlet selling 'exotic' meat, so we can contact them.
Read our reports, educate yourself and help us expose the cruelty and suffering behind these 'exotic meats'.
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Some people who give up eating meat and poultry continue to eat fish in the belief that it is a healthy food and that fishing is less cruel and environmentally destructive than farming. Nothing could be further from the truth.
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It’s no wonder foie-gras has been dubbed ‘torture in a tin’. Ducks and geese are being driven from the ponds and into intensive farms in their millions, where they are routinely abused in the name of ‘fine dining’.
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Our leaflet, "Dedicated Sufferer of Fashion", highlights the reasons to boycott leather, fur, wool and silk.
Please join us in promoting this campaign wherever possible, educate your friends and families about the true cost of the animal textile industry and help us to save animals and prevent the cruelty they suffer at the hands of the fashion industry.
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Going vegetarian is the most effective single thing you can do to make this world a kinder, fairer and better place and it improves your own health. There has never been a better time to make the change: the choice of food available to vegetarians has never been more varied or more appetizing – and the scale of destruction caused by the global meat business has never been greater. Join the millions of people who have already chosen to celebrate life, and turn vegetarian today. Find out everything you need to know right here, from why going veggie is so important to where you can find the best vegetarian food.
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Every year, 30,000 'meat' horses leave Poland for the slaughterhouses of Italy. There is no rest, no water and no food for many on the road to misery - a five day journey across six countries. Viva!'s campaign has helped to save some 70,000 horses a year. With your help we can save the rest.
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Viva! has joined a coalition of animal groups to support Brian May’s Save Me initiative. Hundreds of people have taken to the streets to ask the public to contact their MPs and encourage them to vote against a repeal of the Hunting Act. The campaign is far from over. Keep the pressure on to protect our precious wildlife.
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Australia exports approximately 3 million kangaroo skins, worth more than £12 million, to Europe and the USA every year. The vast majority of these skins are used to make football boots, some are used for golf gloves, baseball mitts and other sports goods. Products are often labelled “K leather” or “RKT” (rubberised kangaroo technology) to disguise the fact that they are made from the skins of butchered kangaroos.
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Although many see it as the ultimate in free-range farming, the seemingly idyllic scene of a ewe and her lambs grazing is misleading. These animals spend their entire lives under human control. Behind the pastoral image lies an industry that relies on the mutilation of baby animals – and where life for many sheep and lambs is short and filled with pain, disease and fear.
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The UK used to ban the export of live animals to Europe - a move that was called for in the early 90’s when travelling conditions were exposed to the public in a number of high profile investigations. The ban was lifted in 2006. The public do not want live exports of animals to Europe and it is an unpopular trade - but you can help us do something about it!
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In restaurants and shops across the UK a growing number of live animals are waiting to die. In tanks or the cooler section, live lobsters and crabs are on sale to whoever wants to buy them. We know because we’ve filmed it.
Often, once sold lobsters and crabs are boiled alive or hacked apart with knives whilst fully conscious. It is a horrific way to die and could be excruciatingly painful. We wouldn’t standby if other animals were sold live and killed this way, so why is it deemed acceptable to subject crustaceans to this horror?
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Almost all pigs raised for meat in Britain are factory farmed indoors in overcrowded, ill-lit, filthy conditions that cause extreme discomfort and stress to these intelligent animals.
Every time they give birth, most breeding pigs spend a month or more in a metal farrowing crate so small they can barely move.
Contrary to the image painted by the British pig industry and the Government, most pigs never see any bedding and spend their lives on dirty, wet concrete. Unsurprisingly, diseases are rife and so is the use of drugs and antibiotics.
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In Britain today, millions of farmed animals face having their throats cut while fully conscious – and it’s perfectly legal. The law states that animals must be stunned before they are killed in the abattoir but animals which are killed by Jewish and Moslem religious slaughter are exempt from that rule. Scientific evidence shows that these animals face severe pain and distress. The Government’s own advisory body, the Farm Animal Welfare Council, called for the banning of religious slaughter. Viva! has opposed religious slaughter for many years.
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In the UK, there are over 350 licenced slaughterhouses. Secrecy surrounds the killing business and individuals and animal welfare organisations are rarely permitted to visit slaughterhouses. Even the government's own advisory body, the Farm Animal Welfare Council, has been refused access to some of the larger plants.
Viva! has been able to obtain video footage of stunning and killing and we have also reviewed the latest scientific research on slaughter. As a result, we have built up an extremely disturbing picture of the reality of Britain's killing factories.
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Viva! campaigned to end the sale of squirrel "meat" by Budgens.
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Each year, around 16 million turkeys are slaughtered in the UK – with around 10 million killed for the Christmas market alone. The vast majority of them spend their short lives in vast industrial sheds and never go outside. Don’t buy turkey meat. Go veggie with Viva!.
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They die a prolonged death in agony, anyone can wield the knife and wild populations are being devastated. But Tesco claim there’s nothing wrong in selling live turtles to eat. Viva! campaigned to end the sale of turtles by Tesco.
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Food scares, health concerns, pesticide problems, environmental worries and animal welfare issues have brought farming methods into the spotlight. Most farmers are dependent on chemicals and animal by-products – and even those specialising in organic farming use animal manures and slaughterhouse by-products. This presents a difficult dilemma for vegans who refuse animal-derived food yet are still linked to the meat industry by their seemingly innocent groceries. However, despite popular beliefs, animals aren’t necessary to agriculture.
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Each year in the Forest of Dean wild boar are being hunted and shot. They are blamed for everything from environmental degradation to aggression to other animals and humans. However, this is merely a smoke-screen for a disastrous and terminally misguided environmental policy.
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Campaigns 
