It’s truly been a game-changing year for
farmed animals. Throughout 2018, Mercy For Animals was hard at work inspiring
people to switch to a vegan lifestyle, pulling back the curtain on factory
farms to expose cruelty, moving major corporations to adopt stronger animal
welfare policies, and helping advocates around the globe make changes for
animals.
Here are some of our accomplishments from this
past year.
We
released eight investigations.
From our groundbreaking investigation into Brazil’s chicken factory farms
to exposing mother pigs trapped in crates in six
factory farms in Mexico to our first-ever
investigation into the commercial fishing industry, our brave undercover investigators shined a light
on animal suffering and inspired people to end their support of cruel
industries.
We held
animal abusers accountable.
After a 2017 MFA undercover exposé revealed
workers punting and throwing chickens and ripping the legs off conscious birds,
we secured 38 charges against Elite Farm Services, Sofina
Foods, and a chairman of Elite Farm Services.
We made
history!
Thanks to all our supporters, MFA and a
coalition of animal protection groups inspired voters to pass Prop 12, the strongest farmed animal protection law in
the world. More than 200 MFA volunteers helped make this pass by an
overwhelming margin. Additionally, after several MFA investigations, California
governor Jerry Brown signed Senate bill 1017 into law, requiring the phaseout of cruel fishing driftnets.
We
secured meaningful
animal welfare policies.
Carrefour Brazil, the country’s leading supermarket chain,
committed to banning cruel cages for egg-laying hens after talks with MFA. And
after a 48-hour campaign led by MFA and other animal protection groups, Marriott
committed to banning battery cages globally and Royal Caribbean extended its chicken welfare policy to
include Canada. In total, 29 companies committed to eliminating
cruel cages for hens and 22 companies committed to reducing the suffering of chickens
raised for meat.
We took
on McDonald’s.
In 2018 we helped start a massive coalition
campaign calling on McDonald’s to prohibit the worst abuses for chickens
in its supply chain. We launched ads at over 3,000 McDonald’s locations around
the country—including in New York’s Times Square—informing
customers of the animal cruelty in McDonald’s chicken nuggets.
We took
our social media to the next level.
This year, MFA’s social media team added more
than 904,000 new followers across global platforms, received more than 1.7 billion impressions on
social media content, and got 16 million views on our blog platforms.
We gave
hundreds of thousands of people one-on-one support!
Our vegetarian support team had more than 774,900
one-on-one interactions to answer questions and provide support, with tips on
going vegan, recipe ideas, nutritional information, and more.
We helped
implement food policy changes globally.
Once our 2018 food policy commitments are
implemented, more than 1.5 million meat-based meals will be replaced with vegan
meals each year. MFA partnered with the city of Pedreira, Brazil, to reduce meat, dairy, and eggs served in public schools by
20 percent and collaborated with the state of Veracruz to replace nearly 1 million meat-based
meals with vegan ones each year through a program to serve only
vegan meals every Monday in all public schools.
We
empowered our volunteers.
With help from our global outreach team, animal
activists took more than 5,772 online actions and we hosted more
than 1,000 outreach events! Volunteers around the globe participated in protests, vigils, and other campaign
actions to put pressure on major corporations like Walmart.
—
Thanks to supporters like you, we’ve been able
to move mountains for farmed animals and we have big plans for 2019.
Please continue supporting our work by making
a donation today.