View source for Voiceless (animal rights group)

{{Not to be confused with|Anonymous for the Voiceless}}{{More citations needed|date=November 2019}}
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{{Infobox organization
| name                     = <small>Voiceless, the animal protection institute</small>
| logo                     = Voiceless, the animal protection institute logo.svg
| founded_date             = 2004
| founder                  = Brian Sherman AM, Ondine Sherman
| location                 = Sydney
| origins                  = 
| key_people               = 
| area_served              = Australia
| product                  = 
| mission                  = 
| focus                    = [[Animal Welfare]], [[Animal Rights]]
| method                   = Education, animal law, research, publications
| revenue                  = 
| endowment                = 
| num_volunteers           = 
| num_employees            = 
| num_members              = 
| subsid                   = 
| owner                    = 
| Non-profit_slogan        = 
| homepage                 = [http://www.voiceless.org.au/ www.voiceless.org.au]
| dissolved                = 
| footnotes                = 
}}

'''Voiceless''' is an independent, non-profit animal protection charity based in Sydney, Australia, whose work is focused on raising awareness of animals suffering in [[factory farming]] and the [[kangaroo industry]] in Australia.<ref>{{cite web|title=Voiceless Website|url=http://www.voiceless.org.au}}</ref>

Voiceless was founded by father-daughter team Brian Sherman AM and Ondine Sherman in 2004 with the goal of making [[animal protectionism|animal protection]] the next great social justice movement.<ref>{{cite news|title=Sherman's Childhood realisation led to powerful lobby for change|url=http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/shermans-childhood-realisation-led-to-powerful-lobby-for-change-20111217-1ozqk.html|newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald|date=17 November 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Sherman's childhood realisation led to powerful lobby for change|url=http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/shermans-childhood-realisation-led-to-powerful-lobby-for-change-20111217-1ozqk.html.|newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald|date=17 November 2011}}</ref> focussing on animal protection and animal law education.<ref>{{cite web|title=Voiceless Website|url=http://www.voiceless.org.au/our-approach}}</ref>
Voiceless has a Scientific Expert Advisory Council, Legal Advisory Council and Education Advisory Council.

==History==
Voiceless was founded by father-daughter team Brian Sherman AM and Ondine Sherman in 2004.
Ondine Sherman first became interested in [[animal welfare]] when served a dish of tongue cooked by her grandmother at age 8, an experience which resulted in her adopting a vegetarian lifestyle.<ref>{{cite web|title=ABC – Australian Story|website=[[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]] |date=13 May 2024 |url=http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2005/s1416981.html}}</ref>   After retiring in 2003, Brian Sherman attended an [[animal rights]] conference with Ondine in the United States.  They were both shocked by the extent of [[animal suffering]] in institutionalised farming.<ref>{{cite web|title=Voiceless Website|url=http://www.old.voiceless.org.au/Voiceless_E-Update_Issue_1.html}}</ref>
After being exposed to a number of [[animal welfare]] and [[animal rights]] issues, they decided to raise awareness of [[animal suffering]] in Australia by  established Voiceless.<ref>{{cite web|title=Emile Sherman: From 'The King's Speech' to Voiceless animal rights organization|url=http://travel.cnn.com/sydney/life/emile-sherman-kings-speech-voiceless-429594}}</ref> Brian has published a history of Voiceless in his autobiography ''The Lives of Brian.''

==Animal Protection==
Voiceless identifies itself as an animal protection institute, encompassing [[animal welfare]], and [[animal rights]], in an attempt to unify those two movements.

== Advocacy work (2004–2017) ==
From 2004 to 2017, Voiceless focussed its advocacy work on two areas – [[Intensive animal farming|factory farming]] and the commercial [[kangaroo industry]]. Ondine Sherman has explained that the reason for this focus is that these issues cause the most suffering to the largest number of Australian animals, yet often receive little attention. Advocacy work included writing law reform submissions, running campaigns, creating research publications and hosting the Voiceless Animal Law Lecture Series, the Voiceless Grants Program and the Voiceless Media Prizes.

=== Factory farming ===
[[Factory farming]] is the process of raising livestock in industrial systems in which animals are confined at high stocking density to produce the highest output at the lowest cost.<ref name="en.wikipedia">[[Factory farming]]</ref> [[Intensive animal farming|Factory farms]] remove domesticated farm animals from open pastures, forcing them to live in confined and crowded environments.<ref name="en.wikipedia" /> These close conditions require the use of antibiotics to stop the spread of disease and housing systems often prevent animals from exhibiting many of their natural behaviours.<ref name="en.wikipedia" /> Farm animals are often subjected to artificial feeding and lighting regimes, selective breeding, and intensive confinement, often in cages and at extreme stocking densities, to produce the greatest possible output of meat, milk and eggs in the shortest amount of time at the lowest cost.

According to Voiceless, thecintensification of farming processes has resulted in large multinational companies dominating the global meat and dairy trade.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Livestock's Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options|journal=Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations|year=2006|page=19}}</ref> As of 2006, 50% of global pork production and over 70% of global chicken production came from industrial systems.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Livestock's Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options|journal=Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations|year=2006|page=19}}</ref> Two companies supply approximately 70% of Australia's meat chickens, with the balance of the market supplied by about four medium-sized companies.<ref>{{cite web|title=Structure of the Industry|url=https://www.chicken.org.au/structure-of-the-industry|publisher=Australian Chicken Meat Federation Inc|accessdate=12 March 2019}}</ref>

Voiceless states that this intensification of agricultural practices has led to the widespread use of cruel and inhumane meat production practices, such as the [[debeaking]] of chickens, [[tail docking]] and teeth clipping of pigs, and [[mulesing]] of sheep, often undertaken without pain relief.<ref name="voiceless">{{cite web|title=Voiceless Website|url=http://www.voiceless.org.au/the-issues/factory-farming}}</ref>

Voiceless's work on factory farming is focused on raising awareness of the practice in order to change the laws which allow it.<ref name="voiceless" /><ref>{{cite web|title=Factory farming film among voiceless award winners|date=3 December 2010 |url=http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/factory-farming-film-among-voiceless-award-winners-20101203-18j4t.html}}</ref>

=== The commercial kangaroo industry ===
The commercial [[kangaroo industry]] is a multimillion-dollar meat and skin industry,<ref>{{cite web|last=Kelly|first=J|title=Economic Benefits of the Kangaroo Industry|url=http://www.kangarooindustry.com/industry/economic|publisher=Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia|accessdate=12 March 2019}}</ref> responsible for the killing of almost 90 million kangaroos and wallabies in the last 30 years.<ref>{{cite web|title=Australian Government Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities|url=http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/wildlife-trade/wild-harvest/pubs/kangaroo-statistics.pdf}}</ref>

Voiceless claims that kangaroos are hunted in the largest commercial slaughter of land-based wildlife on the planet, primarily because they are perceived to be overpopulated in Australia and considered a [[Pest (organism)|pest]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Voiceless Website|url=http://www.voiceless.org.au/the-issues/kangaroos}}</ref>  According to a 2011 report by THINKK, the think tank for kangaroos, the notion of kangaroos as costly pests to Australian farmers has been significantly overstated.<ref>{{cite web|title=Kangaroo Welfare Report|url=http://s3.amazonaws.com/thinkk_production/resources/24/THINK_Kangaroo_Welfare_Report_December_2011_Final.pdf|accessdate=11 May 2018}}</ref>

While shooters are required by the relevant Codes of Practice to aim to shoot a kangaroo in the brain and therefore cause instantaneous death,<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite journal|title=National Code of Practice for the Humane Shooting of Kangaroos and Wallabies for Commercial Purposes|journal=Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts|date=7 November 2008}}</ref> it is Voiceless's view that non-fatal body shots are unavoidable and cause extreme injuries.  Voiceless also claims that the death of joeys is ‘collateral damage’ to the killing of female kangaroos, with young joeys killed or left to die when the mother is shot. The kangaroo industry code allows joeys to be killed by a single blow to the head (usually with a steel pipe or against the tow bar of the shooter's truck) or through decapitation.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> On average, approximately 800,000 dependent joeys are killed as collateral damage of the kangaroo industry.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Ben-Ami|first=D|author2=Boom, K. |author3=Boronyak, L. |author4=Townend, C. |author5=Ramp, D. |author6=Croft, D. |author7=Bekoff, M.|title=The welfare ethics of the commercial killing of free ranging kangaroos: an evaluation of the benefits and costs of the industry |journal=THINKK, the Kangaroo Think Tank, University of Technology Sydney|year=2014|volume=23|issue=1|pages=1, 5}}</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Animal welfare and rights in Australia]]

==References==
{{reflist}}
{{Portal bar|Australia|Animals}}
{{Animal rights|state=collapsed}}
{{Vegetarianism}}

==External links==
* {{Official website|http://www.voiceless.org.au}}

[[Category:Animal charities based in Australia]]
[[Category:2004 establishments in Australia]]
[[Category:Political organisations based in Australia]]
[[Category:Non-profit organisations based in New South Wales]]