Hall of fame for SPCA free-range egg advocate

Sunday, 8 April 2018

Carol Ercolano holding Opal, the Nelson SPCA's resident duck, has been added to the SPCA's National Hall of Fame.

SPCA stalwart Carol Ercolano has been added to the animal welfare charity's 'Hall of Fame' for her work to promote free-range poultry.

National Chief Executive Andrea Midgen presented Ercolano with a glass koru at the Nelson SPCA on Thursday, honouring her long service which began in 1967.

Ercolano spent 30 years on the Nelson SPCCA committee, and 24 years on the national council – which led her to be involved in the SPCA's advocacy in the poultry sector alongside former national president, Peg Loague.

'We were put onto the poultry code of welfare, to rewrite the code of welfare,' she said.

The pair worked alongside vets, farmers, and industry representatives and were aiming to promote free-range and barn egg industries, but it wasn't an easy sell.

'It's pretty hard to get through as animal welfare, to get the industry to change in the way you want them to change,' she said.

They devised a free-range scheme to give SPCA verification to egg producers who complied with specific SPCA standards, allowing the SPCA logo to be displayed on egg cartons in supermarket.

'Hopefully people buy the product because they believe in the SPCA and what it's doing, and they know that those eggs are being produced up to the standards that the SPCA wants or demands, not just the industry minimum.'

It went beyond just complying to a set of rules.

'It was mainly by visiting them and approving them, and then obviously there are follow ups, but by doing that you could see that the welfare of the birds was important to the people there. They were concerned about the animal, it wasn't just a money thing.'

The SPCA Blue Tick egg scheme started in 2001, and was extended to include pork products in 2009 and, in 2012, chicken.

Ercolano spent years teaching children about animal welfare – visiting schools and developing an educational unit distributed to every school in the country in the 1980s.

She was proud of the growth of the Nelson SPCA, and the support the Nelson community had given the organisation over the years.