The Royal New Zealand SPCA wants mandatory reporting by the poultry industry of any incidents leading to significant stock deaths.

"We are alarmed at reported comments by Bob Diprose, Executive Director of the Poultry Industry Association, that the industry has no obligation to report incidents such as the horrific suffocation of up to 60,000 hens on a Rangiora farm last week," says SPCA Chief Executive Officer, Peter Blomkamp.

"It should be mandatory for incidents of this nature to be reported to MAF or SPCA inspectors for independent investigation. This incident only came to our attention as a result of an anonymous tip-off.

"I believe that consumers would expect nothing less than for incidents involving major suffering of birds to be independently investigated," he says.

The SPCA will be pushing for mandatory reporting of such incidents to be included in the animal welfare codes covering the poultry industry, which are currently under revision.

Ends

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>