Animal rights groups: cage birds a bird flu risk

Animal activists warn caged egg production is “a public health crisis waiting to happen”, as Victoria bans new cages from next year.

Agriculture Victoria has moved to ban construction of conventional laying hen cages from early next year, as an animal welfare alliance warns of links to cramped cages and bird flu.

A global alliance of animal welfare groups has blamed bird flu outbreaks on the caged egg industry, despite outbreaks being linked to wild birds interacting with free-range poultry.

The Open Wings Alliance video campaign uses grisly footage of caged hens from 37 countries to warn “these cramped, filthy cages are a perfect environment for diseases to spread and mutate”.

“Bird flu isn’t just happening to the egg industry, it’s happening because of it. And that cost is being passed directly to you,” the video states.

Video narrator and US comedian Nikki Glaser says: “It’s not just birds that are at risk, these cages aren’t just cruel, they’re a public health crisis waiting to happen.

“Yep, we’re talking about your health and your family’s health. Scientists have been warning us for years, cramming animals into filthy, overcrowded spaces creates the perfect conditions for disease to jump to humans.

“We survived one global pandemic, only to watch the egg industry incubate the next.”

US comedian Nikki Glaser, who narrates the Open Wings Alliance video, says “cramped, filthy cages are a perfect environment for diseases”.

Yet nearly every avian influenza outbreak to hit Australia since 2012 started when free-range poultry picked up the virus from wild birds, according to state government incident reports.

The spread of the virus has also followed wild birds’ global migratory paths.

As early as 2020 a group of government and university researchers, who analysed past outbreaks, reported “the increase in free range production raises concerns due to the increased potential contact between wild birds and domestic poultry and the subsequent introduction of pathogens such as avian influenza”.

Yet Australian Alliance for Animals policy director Jed Goodfellow, whose group has backed the Open Wings campaign, said the video was clearly saying “cage egg production is a major contributor to bird flu”.

In the meantime the Victorian Government is forging ahead with the phase out of conventional cages, which leading avian veterinarian Peter Scott said exposed the growing disconnect between government biosecurity and animal welfare policies.

Agriculture Victoria is due to hold a meeting with egg producers this week on the government’s adoption of the Australian Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines for Poultry, which will ban construction of conventional cages from early next year, with a full phase out of all such systems by 2036.

From early next year the only cages that can be installed must include furnishings, such as perches, nest boxes and scratch areas to allow birds to perform natural behaviours, be at least 55cm high and give each bird 1000 square cm of floor space.

But Victorian Farmers Federation egg group president Brian Ahmed said farmers were unlikely to invest in these furnished cages, given the cost and risk that, once built, animal welfare groups would then lobby for their removal, as happened in New Zealand.

“(Egg) farmers who can’t make the investment will be forced out of business,” Mr Ahmed said.

“Others will just keep farming with conventional cages. The question is what is the government prepared to do – pull farmers off their land?”

He said everyone forgot one of the key reasons for moving to caged egg production in the 1970s was to reduce the risk of disease.