MEDIA RELEASE

02 October 2013

Over 58,000 New Zealanders Agree - Animals Don’t Do Drugs

New Zealand’s animals went on strike last week in a world-first protest against a law making it legal to use animals for testing synthetic party drugs.

The animal strike called for all animal related blogs, Youtube channels and social media pages to block access to the usual animal photos or funny videos, instead posting a strike message, as animals and owners around the nation stood against testing party drugs on animals.

Paw Justice staged the strike as part of a stand putting pressure on the New Zealand government to reconsider the law. Paw Justice are asking Parliament to use the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill to end all animal testing of recreational products.

The strike, which began on Thursday the 26th of September, has received overwhelming support with 58,056 signatures on a petition collected from across the nation. The petition has been sent today to Green Party animal welfare spokesperson Mojo Mathers to submit to Parliament with the aim of making positive change to the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill which is currently being considered by the Primary Production Select Committee.

“Using animals for testing of psychoactive substances and cosmetics is cruel and out-dated. New Zealand is well behind other parts of the world such as Europe where such practises were banned over four years ago. Kiwis and their pets have made their collective voice heard; over 58,000 New Zealanders have said this is not OK,” said Craig Dunn, Co-Founder of Paw Justice.

Paw Justice teamed up with creative agency DDB to develop the animal strike. The initiative rolled out across a number of platforms including a website, street posters, print, TV commercials, PR, outdoor and social media, with #animalstrike trending on twitter, over 1,000 re-tweets and thousands of shares on Facebook.

Shane Bradnick, Creative Director for DDB, says, “We all love to be entertained by animals but when they are being abused we turn a blind eye. So rather than showing people what they didn’t want to see, we made people take notice by taking away what they love.”

ENDS

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