Animals' Angels – We Are There With the Animals
A Meat and Dairy Industries Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

Rev. Christa Blanke, CCA Catholic Concern for Animals
April 2017

Animals’ Angels is internationally regarded as a well-qualified specialist organisation with a high ethical profile, known to official bodies, political groups and the haulage industry, as well as to other animal protection organisations. By specialising in one area of animal protection, we avoid spreading our energies too thinly. After 20 years of activity we have gained extensive knowledge of the field and expertise. Our teams conduct on-the-spot investigations at slaughterhouses, ports, holding areas, border control points, sale-yards and animal markets, and we are constantly on the road, following the transport lorries. We report only what we ourselves have witnessed.

We are there with the animals

Animals' Angels is recognised as the animal protection organisation that specialises in farm-animal transport. We work in Europe, Australia, India, Morocco, Tanzania and Qatar. We call for the enforcement of existing animal protection laws, especially regarding transport of animals and their treatment in sale-yards and markets. We assert the right of animals to life, liberty and happiness and regard the struggle for animal rights as on a par with the struggle for human rights.

The bedrock of Animals’ Angels’ work is our solidarity with suffering animals. At the centre of our beliefs stands our motto: We are there with the animals. That is the source of our dedication and our strength.

Animals’ Angels is internationally regarded as a well-qualified specialist organisation with a high ethical profile, known to official bodies, political groups and the haulage industry, as well as to other animal protection organisations. By specialising in one area of animal protection, we avoid spreading our energies too thinly. After 20 years of activity we have gained extensive knowledge of the field and expertise. Our teams conduct on-the-spot investigations at slaughterhouses, ports, holding areas, border control points, sale-yards and animal markets, and we are constantly on the road, following the transport lorries. We report only what we ourselves have witnessed.

The documented results of our missions – reports, photographs and video footage - are handed over to relevant authorities and used to lodge judicial complaints, make reports to the police or instigate further legal measures. Our information is accepted as reliable and serious.

Animals’ Angels is in constant touch with veterinary authorities, the police and influential political decision-makers in Europe and beyond. As a result, we can negotiate in the name of animals at the highest level.

The work of Animals’ Angels is international. The ‘livestock’ industry exports high-output breeds and industrial rearing systems all over the world. We export our animal protection principles and the fruits of our experience and expertise. We are there with the animals when they are in a bad situation, even if it means travelling to the other end of the world. In order to achieve the best possible results for the animals we work together with several partners, chosen according to strict ethical criteria, in other countries.

Animals’ Angels’ Achievements

In the last 20 years Animals’ Angels has achieved much for animals being transported:

• transport conditions have improved greatly since the 1990s, although transport times are still far too long and conditions unacceptable;
• the police in some EU member states are much better trained to check animal transport lorries and many officials are highly motivated to demand strict adherence to the law;
• many veterinary officials are now aware of the suffering animals may endure when being transported and more veterinarians than ever before are actively intervening to stop suffering;
• Animals’ Angels’ archive, filled to bursting point with material collected in 20 years of missions on the ground, is used in enquiries by scientists, politicians and the media.

Thanks to the ‘8 hours’ campaign, more than one million EU citizens, as well as the European Parliament, have expressed a loud and clear NO to long-distance animal transport.

Animal Memorial

Since we started our work in 1996 Animals’ Angels inspectors have met literally hundreds of thousands of animals all over the world, deported from their homes, separated from the companions they love, frightened to death, transported for days on end and finally murdered. Some time ago we created a new website www.animalmemorial.org. The portraits of nearly 1,000 animals are now online. This website shows that they are not forgotten. We gave them names and trust that their real names are known in heaven. We publish their photographs to show the world that they were persons in their own right. We keep their images in our hearts and continue the fight for the animals' freedom from deportation and death. This website is updated regularly – in memory of the fallen.

Following this line we started a small public awareness campaign in Germany using affordable advertisements in underground railway stations and bus stations with images of ‘our’ animals from Animal Memorial and we published a video about them. They are all dead by now, killed by human cruelty and greed, but they are not forgotten.

Animals' Angels is not a Christian organisation, but I am a Lutheran Minister. So the much loved Christian hymn from Scotland's Iona speaks for me and what I experienced again and again in 20 years of travel behind the trucks, praying for the animals on board:

Will you come and follow me
if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know
and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown,
will you let my name be known,
will you let my life be grown
in you and you in me?

Will you leave yourself behind
if I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind
and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare
should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer
in you and you in me?

Will you let the blinded see
if I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoners free
and never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean
and do such as this unseen,
and admit to what I mean
in you and you in me?

Church of Scotland Minister John Bell presumably did not have the animals in mind when he created this hymn, but I have. I have met them all, the blind horse, the imprisoned mother pig, the hens with the ugly skin diseases, and I have tried so hard to show them the love of God, even if I could not heal them. I have met the cruel and the kind humans, I was a victim of hostile stares and scared to death, but always secure in my guardian angel’s protection and the answers to my prayers. Now I am near retirement and must leave long distance travelling to others. But as we all know: God's human resources are unlimited and prayer is always an option…

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If you want to find out more about Animals’ Angels or support them vist their website and also visit Animal Memorial website.

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