| 10
March, 2008
Battery Hen
Farmer's Claims a 'Crack-up'
11am Tuesday
11th March
Outside Parliament House, Hobart
** Media Opportunity **
Shane Dalgleish, Spokesperson
for Against Animal Cruelty Tasmania (AACT) has described the claims made
by Mr Pitt (Mercury 9th) in defence of shocking footage of animal cruelty
taken at Mr Pitt’s battery hen farm, 28 February 2008, as untrue
and delusional.
Pitts Poultry has been named
by the government as the source of the most recent Salmonella outbreak
in Tasmania which resulted in many people requiring hospitalisation. This
is the seventh outbreak of Salmonella that has been linked to Mr Pitt’s
battery hen farm in the last couple of years.
Mr Pitt is currently facing
court on multiple animal cruelty charges initiated by the RSPCA arising
from an inspection in June 2007 and is now potentially faces prosecution
again as a result of video footage taken this February.
Shane Dalgleish said:
Mr Pitt’s pathetic attempt to respond to the most recent evidence
of animal cruelty at his farm would be laughable if it wasn’t so
serious. Aside from the horrendous footage taken for the second time in
a matter of 10 months, Mr Pitt would have us believe that he ‘loves
his animals’ but he just neglects to feed them for four days.
The reality is that we have
evidence of animal cruelty at Mr Pitt’s farm which has now been
provided to Minister Llewellyn and Mr Alex Schaap of DPIW, both have which
have clearly and repeatedly stated that the images contained within the
footage would not be acceptable under the Animal Welfare Act 1993.
For Mr Pitt to say that the
footage has been edited and contains images not from his farm is ludicrous.
We have no other reason for our actions other than to stop animals suffering
and Mr Pitt knows that. However, we would like to extend the opportunity
to Mr Pitt to publicly identify the images contained within the footage
that are from his farm and we will be screening the footage outside Parliament
House tomorrow (Tuesday 10th March) at 11am. With Mr Pitt’s cooperation
we may be able to get to ‘the bottom of the problem’ as does
Mr Pitt.
For further Information:
Shane Dalgleish – 0404 442 240
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