We begin a New Year with a word from Tricia Croasdell, the Country Director at World Animal Protection UK, and looking forward to an equally successful 2023.
As we look ahead to 2023, and perhaps more hesitantly than years before as uncertainty appears to continue to be the only certainty, I cannot help but reflect on the brilliant year that has just passed.
With your ongoing support in 2022, we have shut down the UK’s largest and longest running exotic pet fair where animals have been sold illegally, with prosecutions being considered as a result of our evidence. Our factory farm play set is now triple award winning recognised for breaking down the perception versus the realities of factory farming in the UK. With an amazing response, over 70,000 of you told the tour operator TUI that captive dolphin entertainment should be a thing of the past. And to wrap up the year, we launched our superbugs report which revealed the shocking rise of anti-microbial resistance in supermarket pork products and being found in our riverways downstream from intensive farms.
Looking forward to 2023
This year we will continue to support our rehoming work with five partnered sanctuaries in Thailand, but with an increasing focus on moving the UK Government to put through their promised legislation to better protect animals at home and abroad.
As a child I grew up around farms. My grandfather and uncle were both farmers, nothing like the huge scale industrial corporations we see doing such damage to wild animals’ habitats and the natural world today. Rather, one based on working outdoors with the land and focussed on good animal husbandry. This is something we desperately need to prioritise with the dramatic increase in intensive farming. So many farmed animals here in the UK suffer in cruel, cramped and unsanitary conditions. This year we, alongside other charities, will be pressing for a ban on routine antibiotics for healthy herds – an approach used to “paper over” dirty and overcrowded situations the animals are raised in.
We believe wild animals belong in their natural habits and we will continue to pressure TUI, along with other tour operators, to stop profiting from animal exploitation. The publication of our The Real Responsible Traveller Report will help customers navigate the tricky holiday booking market to ensure their money does not go to companies continuing to profit from animal entertainment.
How to get involved
As an organisation, World Animal Protection works for a world where animals live free from cruelty and suffering. But our voice is stronger when you join us. This year we need your help, more than ever. And support can come in many forms. You can start by signing our petitions, writing to your MPs, pressuring corporations like TUI to stop profit from animal captivity and talking to your friends and family about the work of World Animal Protection to ask them to support us, too. With only £5 a month, you can make a huge impact, and if possible, consider leaving us a gift in your will.
Together we can be the difference.
Yours sincerely,
Tricia Croasdell
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