25 Of Tamara’s Most Memorable Images

Tamara Kenneally is a photographer from Victoria, Australia who has spent her lifetime capturing the lives, loves and beauty of animals through her viewfinder….she also captures their suffering and abuse inflicted by mankind.

The following 25 images are  just some of  the photos that she vividly remembers taking.

They are also just a few of the images  that have affected viewers in profound ways.

1. HER DESPERATE PLEA FOR HELP

There she stood, in that bare paddock at the back of the abattoir. She had no food. She was starving. She hadn’t been milked for some time and her udder was full and painful. As soon as she saw us, she mustered up all the strength she had left and walked over to us as quickly as she could…..and then she pleaded with us for help. She desperately screamed and screamed and screamed at us for help. They all screamed at us for help. Their emaciated, broken bodies, full of milk, standing on dirt and/or mud were asking us with all they had left to please give them food and to please help them…and we couldn’t and it completely broke us to leave them there.

This abattoir specialises in slaughtering spent dairy cows to be turned into mince meat for the American fast food industry. Many of these girls are shipped to Melbourne from Tasmania and then driven three hours to the abattoir. The others are purchased by the abattoir from farmers mostly around the area.

We saw them on Friday and they had no food. They were still there on Saturday and had no food except for the little my friend was able to give them.

*From the series – “Dairy”.

2. PRUDENCE

Battery egg farms often have manure pits. They are underneath the sheds and this is where all the chicken manure goes. Chickens actually live in these pits from either being thrown down there or from falling out of the cages during depopulation. The flocks of chickens who live in these pits live on mounds of manure that go up to my chest or more….I know, I sank down into it many times. It’s like quicksand…made of manure. They live off whatever food they can find including their own eggs. Many girls get trapped in the manure and can’t get out (like this girl) and die from dehydration and starvation. There are dead trapped chickens everywhere in the manure pits. I named her “Prudence” and she came to live at my sanctuary. She loved to jump, fly and run.

*From the series – “The Price Of Eggs”.

3.  NO. 1132

Trapped in a farrowing crate in an intensive piggery, after ten minutes of fear,  she finally looked me in the eyes

*From the series – “A Pig’s Life”.

4. LOBSTER

He was taken from the deep sea, baited in a trap. He is quite big, so he is old. He was taken from his home and sent to this Chinese restaurant in Melbourne. He has sat in the window of a tiny tank overlooking the city street for quite some time. The tank is full of other lobsters and there is no room to move and nowhere to hide.

One of the restaurant’s diners has walked to the window and chosen her lobster. An employee puts a net in the tank and fishes him out and places him on the floor whilst holding him. He picks him up and gives the lobster to the diner who then holds him up by the antenna for a photo. She holds him up for 3 long minutes to get her selfie, her selfie with the huge lobster she is about to eat, her selfie with an animal who has most likely lived longer than her, her selfie with an animal who desperately wants to live and go back home.
He is then placed in this plastic crate and waits to be taken to the kitchen to be killed.

A sad and cruel end for this magnificent creature.

*From the series – “Under The Sea”.

   5. JOAN OF ARC

Joan died yesterday. Named after Joan of Arc, she was rescued from a free range farm on Friday night. She was rescued from a free range farm who has the reputation of being one of the best free range farms in Australia.

Joan spent her entire (yet short) life being attacked and beaten by other chickens in a hierarchical system gone mad. There is no order when you have 60,000 chickens in one shed. Every chicken is constantly competing to be number one chicken with 59,999 other chickens. With no places to hide, life for a free range chicken is tough. The crux of a chicken social network is their pecking order. It is complex and incredibly important. A chicken flock is not meant to be 60,000 birds strong and because of this, fighting for top spot and being confused about who is top chicken happens all day, everday.

Joan tried to fight back. She was a feisty girl, she gave me some great bites, but she had absolutely no chance. She was brutalised. Her back was one huge scab. Her wings bleeding and bare. Her legs bloody. Her comb peppered with blood marks. Her body infected. She died yesterday in the warmth, full of pain killers

*From the series – “The Price Of Eggs”.

6.  CONSTANCE

She was found in a broiler chicken intensive farm like this, writhing around on her back, unable to get up. She was about 6 weeks old and nearly ready to be slaughtered for meat. Her legs could no longer support her huge body and she could no longer stand up on them. She had lived in this disgusting shed with 60,000 other chicks for 5-7 weeks. She lived on a ground piled with chicken poo. She was just a baby who wanted a mother’s love and never got it. She had blue eyes and chirped. She was rescued but had to be euthanased in the following days.

From the series – “Born To Die (The Life Of A Broiler Chicken)”.

7.  HEADS IN A BUCKET

The sweetest little birds who had spent their short lives in a poo filled pen have their heads cut off with scissors. This is the bucket their heads get thrown in. Their headless bodies are thrown in to a bucket next to this one where their bodies flail around for about a minute after decapitation. I stood there and watched whilst little headless bodies of quail jumped out of the bucket and flapped around on the floor.

The sum of their short lives, of all their thoughts and fears, here in this bucket full of little heads that is nothing more than waste.

*From the series – “Fine Dining With Quail (Quail Farming)”.

8. TOMMY TOPSY TURVY

I found Tommy Topsy Turvy stuck, upside down on the floor of the shed in the duck factory farm. Thousands and thousands of ducklings stood behind him looking at me with fear in their eyes. From where I sat, I could see at least 20 little dead duckling bodies on the floor, they had all become stuck in the manure laden floor and had died there of dehydration and starvation.

I picked him up and took him. I also picked up 3 other ducklings who were struggling to live, stuck in the floor at the same time. Often the thing that goes through your mind in places like this is – do I leave them to die here, or take them to die later?. This isn’t callous, it’s fact. Most of the animals who are nearly dead in factory farms don’t survive after rescue, the ones that do are miracles. We often take them knowing too well that they won’t survive, but also knowing too well that their deaths will be kinder. There is no love for an animal in a farm, there is no kindness for them as they leave this world, it’s the least we (as rescuers and decent humans) can give these animals.

Little Tommy was so weak, he had no fight left in him. He was treated at the vet the next morning after rescue, but he just wasn’t strong enough to push past the cruel start in life he had been given. He never knew his mother. He never swam in water. He never saw the sky. He never walked on dirt. He did, however, die with people who cared about him and who knew he was more than just a meal on a plate and a dollar sign.
He also had a name. Most don’t. Tommy Topsy Turvy.

From the series – “Ducks Out Of Water (Duck Farming)”.

9. TRANSPORT CRATES

Whenever you pick up a carton of eggs in the supermarket, keep in mind that this is where those hens will end up. It doesn’t matter if they are free range, organic, barn laid or cage eggs – the hens that lay them ALWAYS end up here and they end up here at 18 months old or younger.

This is me standing on top of the transport crates at an abattoir packed with hens who are awaiting slaughter the next morning. The are packed so tightly that quite a lot of them die before slaughtering time. They are all emaciated beyond belief. They have all been denied of water for a very long time.

If these were dogs, Australia would be outraged….but they are not, they are chickens and this is actually what you pay for when you buy eggs.

From the series – “The Price Of Eggs”.

10. SHEEP SKIN

Piles and piles of sheep skin and wool bundled up from last nights slaughters.

*From the series – “The Abattoir”

11. ELECTROCUTED

This is just one hen in one shed of one egg farm. This is how she died. That wire is electrified. She was electrocuted to death. The wire is there to stop hens eating their own eggs which roll onto the conveyor belt from their cages. It’s also there as an extra protection to stop hens escaping their cages. It’s an extra horror added to these lovely bird’s miserable lives.

All she wanted to do was stretch her neck out to touch and eat her egg on the conveyor belt that was rightfully her own. She never had the freedom to see the sky or dustbathe or to find out what she really loved in life. She barely had the freedom to turn around in that cage and she had to die like this.

This farm houses sheds of battery cage hens AND sheds of free range egg hens. Please consider this when you are actually purchasing free range eggs, that the farm they come from probably produces cage and free range and you very well may be still supporting this sort of cruelty with your purchase.

*From the series – “The Price Of Eggs”.

12. US OR THEM?

I sat cramped in the tiny corner between the glass viewing area and the crowd. I sat there for about an hour and a half and watched as she paced up and down this section of the enclosure. Each time she got to the end of the wire fence, right next to the glass, she would put her head against it, turn around and pace her way around again. It was non stop. She didn’t miss a beat the whole time I was there.

Sumatran Tigers are critically endangered, there’s only roughly 300 left in the wild. We’ve nearly wiped this amazing animal off the face of this planet. I understand wanting to save this beautiful species and I understand the breeding programs and the situation the responsible world zoos are in with this animal, but you have to think, who is it for? Us or them?

*From the series – “Zoo”.

13. HERE SHE SAT. WAITING FOR DEATH.

Here she sat. Unable to move. Starved for a week or more. Weak and dehydrated. The free range egg shed she lived in was cleared out a week ago. All her friends were sent to slaughter because they were no longer producing enough eggs at 18 months of age. She evaded being caught. The shed door was left wide open and foxes came in every night and took her remaining friends. In this image, you can see the feathers of her friend taken by a fox not long ago.

Here she sat. Waiting for death.

*From the series – “The Price Of Eggs”.

14. SHACKLE

This is a shackle at a poultry abattoir. Chickens are grabbed from crates and slammed on to this contraption. They hang here, by their feet, until they die. The shackles are attached to a conveyor belt that then takes the chickens on to the killing floor, their throats are slit (many are missed) and then they are dumped in to boiling water. A large percentage go in to the boiling water without their throats slit and are still alive.

*From the series – “The Price Of Eggs”.

15. PUNISHED FOR BEING A MOTHER

I watched her as she watched her baby walk around in front of her. She wanted to be able to move so she could watch her baby and tell her baby where the safest place to go was, but all she could do was lie there and follow as far as she could with her eyes.

Punished for being a mother.

*From the series – “A Pig’s Life”.

16. CRIMINALS

And so there we were on the opening morning of duck season. Chased, hunted down through the wetlands, through the reeds by two depi officers. Escorted back to shore by four Police and two depi officers. Me fined. My friend banned for the season. Caring about animals who are suffering, injured and left to die is a crime in our state. All while being yelled at abused by disgusting hunters.

*From the series – “The Hunters”.

17. LEGHORN

Through the small holes in the transport crate, I could see that she had given up. She had nothing left. Nearly two years spent as a commercial egg layer, she had ended up at the abattoir squashed in this transport crate. There was no hope left for her. She had nothing left, not even the will to look at me.

She was slaughtered the next morning.

*From the series – “The Price Of Eggs”.

18. BROILER CHICKS

A sea of broiler chickens, born to be eaten.

*From the series – “Born To Die (The Life Of A Broiler Chicken)”.

19.  PEKIN DUCKS

The reality of duck farming in Australia. Denied of water to swim in and clean themselves in. Denied of earth and sky. Living on mounds of their own waste.

*From the series – “Ducks Out Of Water (Duck Farming)”.

20. HER DEATH

She died like this. There was nothing humane about it. Nothing. She was grabbed and thrown in to this transport crate on Tuesday night. She was literally squashed to death from overcrowding in that crate. After 18 months living on an egg farm (a farm that produces, cage, barn and free range eggs), this is how it ended for her.

There’s nothing humane about eggs.

*From the series – “The Price Of Eggs”.

21. HELP

In a sea of sheep at the saleyards, people can forget (or ignore) that these animals are thinking, feeling individuals.

*From the series – “Life For Sale”.

22. BROKEN

She wouldn’t look at me. She just sat there, broken mind, broken body, broken spirit and broken soul. She wouldn’t even look at me. Battery cage hens usually either look at me in terror or with hope that I may save them , but this girl, this girl was just beyond it all. She just wouldn’t look at me.

*From the series – “The Price Of Eggs”.

23. QUAIL EGGS

Those quail eggs in your fine dining experience come from here. They come from these beautiful, sweet little birds who suffer greatly from living in these conditions. They are sick, stressed and bullied. Their skin is rubbed red raw in places and they eat an unsatisfactory crumble feed that is cheap and nasty.

*From the series – “Fine Dining With Quail (Quail Farming)”.

24. SCULLY

Left to rot away at a pig farm, Scully lived with open, festering wounds all over her body. The worst ones being on her ears on a huge one on her left hock. She lived with infection invading her entire body. She lived with a tumour in her throat which made it impossible for her to eat. After rescue, she lived for almost a week. Even with intense vet treatment, there was no way this girl’s body could go on.

She died and left her rescuer and all viewers of her images devastated.

25. BOBBY BOB BOB

This was the first time I ever saw Bobby Bob Bob. She was living in a battery cage with 5 other hens. She had broken vertebrae in her neck, nerve, eye and beak damage. She had a respiratory infection and a screw in her gizzard. She was terrified and miserable. Today she is my beloved friend who has temper tantrums, loves bread, yells to demand everything, has a love of the computer, licks boots, licks pants and loves her life.

These images are but a fraction of Tamara’s work. Please visit her series page to explore her bodies of work.