Louise van der Merwe

Louise joined the Argus Group of newspapers as a cub reporter in 1969 and continued in mainstream journalism until 1984.
During this time, she spent eight years as Supreme Court reporter for The Star newspaper in Johannesburg, and also served as the newspaper’s foreign correspondent in London, Paris, and Washington DC.
In 1989, in the process of establishing The Humane Education Trust, she started the first newsletter in Africa focusing on the plight of chickens in battery cages. Initially titled ‘Humanity for Hens’, the newsletter evolved into the magazine ‘Animal Voice’ and in 1994, exposed the live-plucking of ostriches before slaughter.
See here: https://d91fe348-4a25-4dc0-a30d96976402b0e1.filesusr.com/ugd/186d0e_a319e0ae88fe49b68655af801d5f40d9.pdf
This exposure resulted in an official ban on the practice. The vast coverage of institutionalized atrocities imposed on farm animals, is recorded in 87 issues of Animal Voice archived under ‘magazines’ on the website www.animalvoice.org
They represent a professional, in-depth reflection on the social evolution, in a South African context, of attitudes towards famed animals over more than 34 years.