Tackling the root causes of animal cruelty
In February 2025, the global animal welfare organisation Humane Society International became Humane World for Animals, uniting multiple organisations that made up the Humane Society International family and placing the emphasis firmly on tackling the root cause of animal cruelty and suffering.
‘Our new name reflects that animals are at the heart of all our campaigning efforts. We are united in our efforts to end cruelty and improve the protection of wildlife,’ said Erica Martin, Executive Director of Humane World for Animals Australia.
Three issues high on Humane World for Animals Australia’s agenda are: natural disasters, shark nets, and the legal slaughter of Australia’s native animals.
Disaster
‘This month’s floods in Queensland, and the bushfires in Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia, are a tragic reminder that it is not just humans who are affected by the unpredictability of natural disasters, but native wildlife, farm animals, and family pets. Animals can suffer death, injury, habitat loss, pollution, and predation because of disasters,’ Martin said.
‘Humane World for Animals Australia—who has the capability and expertise to rescue affected animals from disaster zones and provide assistance to those affected—will need to deploy more often as the frequency and severity of natural disasters increases with global warming,’ Martin said.
Shark nets
Shark nets were first implemented off Sydney’s beaches in 1937 and the outdated concept which does not make swimmers safer sees hundreds of innocent marine animals killed each year.
In the 2023/24 season, only 15 target sharks—great white, tiger, and bull—were caught in the 51 nets deployed off Newcastle, Sydney and Wollongong beaches. However, the nets caught 240 non-targeted marine animals—rays, turtles, dolphins, penguins, and harmless sharks—during the same period. Even whales are frequently entangled in shark nets.
‘The nets are 150m long, six metres high, and are not even close to being the physical barriers many people assume they are,’ said Lauren Sandeman, a marine biologist with Humane World for Animals Australia.
‘Instead, they are designed to cull sharks that swim into them, either on their way into the beach, or on their way back out to sea—almost half the sharks caught are on the beach side of the net.’
The nets’ ineffectiveness as a public safety measure is well-known, highlighted by the 35 shark bite incidents that have occurred at beaches where the nets are in place.
The NSW Government has invested millions of dollars over the past decade to develop effective shark mitigation technologies. Drone surveillance, listening stations that detect tagged sharks and SMART drumlines, are now in place throughout NSW including at every beach where shark nets are deployed and proving to be many times more effective at detecting shark activity than nets ever could—and without the need to mercilessly kill marine life.
‘We wouldn’t allow nearly 100-year-old safety standards in our cars, at work, or in our homes. It is ludicrous to allow our beach safety to be the exception,’ Sandeman said.
‘It’s time to let modern measures do the job.’
Co-existing with wildlife
Australia currently leads the world on mammal extinctions. And we are high on the list for extinctions of other animals. Yet, despite native animals being automatically protected by law, Humane World for Animals found that combined Australian governments grant licences for the killing of hundreds of thousands of native animals every year.
The organisation’s Licence to Kill report—a report following a two-year investigation—showed that in 2023, the number of animals allowed to be killed under licence reached more than 1.2 million.
Licensing at this scale is also the norm. Between 2021–2023, more than 4.5 million native animals were allowed to be killed.
The animals include wombats, possums, kangaroos, wallabies, a variety of birds including lorikeets, ducks, cockatoos, corellas, and even black swans.
‘‘Unfortunately, we’ve typically found that the solution is simply to kill native wildlife,’ said Meg Lamb, Animal Protection Campaigner for Humane World for Animals Australia and co-author of the report.
‘But we’re all part of the same ecosystem, and what’s good for wildlife is good for us too. If we could look at it less as a fight and more as learning to live together, then we’d find ways to coexist that don’t pit us against nature.’
Thinking locally and acting globally
The new name points towards the global need for action. Humane World for Animals is positioned to tackle the root causes of animal cruelty and suffering.
For Australia, that will mean rescuing wildlife impacted by disaster, stopping the slaughter of marine animals because of the placebo of shark nets, and finding ways to co-exist with wildlife and not default to killing when they become inconvenient.
To stop animal cruelty locally, we need to act globally. We need a Humane World for Animals.