A Web site showing the location of hundreds of farms and abattoirs across Australia could lead to illegal behavior, attacks and even “terrorism,” Australian Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources David Littleproud and a farmers’ lobby group said.
A group called Aussie Farms has published a satellite map showing the locations of hundreds of farms and abattoirs, and is encouraging people to upload photographs and videos of animal exploitation.
Littleproud has dismissed the group’s activities as an “anonymous farm-shaming Web site” with no real outcomes for animal welfare.
“Putting the locations of farms online could be creating an attack map for activists,” he said in a statement on Monday. “This will potentially result in illegal behavior by activists.
“We don’t know if the footage posted on this Web site is actually from the farm it is attributed to. Content such as graphic images or video can be uploaded and attached to any farm by anonymous users,” he added.
National Farmers’ Federation president Fiona Simson said that the map is unacceptable and poses a security risk.
“It’s about people going about their average daily business and having vigilantes burst in on them supposedly just to check that everything is OK,” she said.
Asked what evidence there was that vigilantes were bursting in on farms, Simpson cited two examples by unknown activists — one at a property in the Glass House Mountains in Queensland and at the Gippy Goat cafe in west Gippsland Victoria.
She did not suggest the Aussie Farms Web site was linked to those incidents.
She said trespassing activists would also pose a biosecurity risk.
The federation is exploring the legality of the map and wants Facebook to shut down the group, Simson said.
The federation has also called to revoke the group’s charity status. The group was founded in 2014 and is based in Ryde, New South Wales.
Its objective is to “end commercialized animal abuse and exploitation in Australian animal agriculture facilities by increasing industry transparency and educating the public about modern farming and slaughtering practices.”
Family farms adhere to strict welfare standards, Simson said, adding that activists cause stress to animals by coming in the middle of the night and shining lights on them and waking them up.
She defended the federation’s efforts to stamp out exploitation and said it would work with legitimate animal welfare groups.
“Naturally we’re receiving a lot of backlash from farmers already, because for so long they’ve been able to operate as they please, without scrutiny,” Aussie Farms said on Facebook.
Aussie Farms spokesman Chris Delforce dismissed the controversy, saying that animal activists are peaceful and that the map information is publicly available anyway.
“All we trying to do is show the public, consumers of products, exactly what they are purchasing when they buy animal products,” he said. “This is where they come from and this is what those animals go through.”
Every photograph or video uploaded to the site is moderated first by a team of 10 people, unless it is from a trusted account, he said.
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