By John M. Simpson.
Last week, we reported on an Australian animal rights group that published an interactive map providing the names, locations and other identifying details of farmers and other animal enterprises across Australia. This week, an organization in the U.K. followed suit and published a similar map targeting dairy famers in England and Wales.
As reported in the U.K. press, a vegan advocacy group called “Project Calf” published the interactive map on its website. According to Project Calf, the information contained in the map was drawn from the Food Standards Agency list of registered dairy farms as of June 4, 2018.
Project Calf describes itself as “a lawful and peaceful animal rights campaign that is pushing for universal equality.” Project Calf appears to be a “single issue campaign that solely focuses on the dairy industry” but it also claims to be involved in “an ongoing struggle to fight for the rights of all; human and non-humans alike.” On its Facebook page, Project Calf is clear in its antipathy for the dairy industry: “Direct action exposing the atrocities of the dairy industry. Document, protest, expose.” The map was specifically described by Project Calf as facilitating the location of dairy farms by activists. As Project Calf further noted on Facebook: “All the dairy farms on one map. Makes finding them easy.”
The Project Calf website and Facebook page encourage readers to find a farm from the map and then to “raise awareness” by methods such as physical protest at or near the site or by collecting information about the targeted farm. Project Calf provides a handy email address to which persons are encouraged to send their footage and photos “for hit reports and so we can update our maps. You can also share them on your social media channels and blogs using hashtag #projectcalf.”
As with the events in Australia, Project Calf’s actions generated controversy, but this seemed to be the group’s intent. In response to an online news report entitled “Farmers fear reprisal after vegans publish map showing their addresses,” Project Calf posted on Facebook the comment: “Think we may have upset them.”