Vegan goes on furious rant at Hawera McDonald's restaurant, insisting cows had souls

A vegan has been filmed having a screaming rant at a McDonald's restaurant.

The clip, posted to Reddit and TikTok shows a young woman protesting in a Hawera McDonalds.

"There are cows on the f***ing ship and they are alive and they have souls," she screams.

It is believed she was protesting about a livestock ship departing Port Taranaki on Friday, transporting 4000 cows to China for farming.

"And you don't give a f***, all of you in this room," she says.

"I hope when you die, you get to meet those souls," she goes on to say.

"Do you cow's have souls?" A McDonald's customer asks, before he was met with a furious 'yes you f******"!' from the young woman."

She approached customers who were heard laughing at her emotional rant.

She is then asked to leave by a McDonald's staff member who threatened to call the police.

The woman and her friend were then lead out of the store by staff.

The woman was protesting about livestock ships transporting cows to China, The Daily Mail reports.

The woman was filmed shouting at McDonald's Hawera customers. Photo / TikTok

Users on social media criticised the woman for her actions.

"This lot don't help anyone," one user commented.

"People like this young woman do more harm than good because they polarise the argument."

Another agreed that the woman's actions went too far.

"When will they understand this is the wrong way to change people's minds…all they are doing is making people want to eat more meat out of spite rather than berating," a Reddit user said.

Another stood up for the women's actions: "As a vegan I completely sympathise with how she's feeling. It's kind of maddening living in a society that pretends to be civilised by condones such cruelty."

The clip has since been removed from Reddit.

A spokesperson from McDonalds NZ confirmed to the Daily Mail Australia a person was acting in an aggressive manner at the Hawera and says staff intervened effectively to diffuse situation.

The woman's heated protest comes after McDonalds NZ released a McVeggie burger, and released a disclaimer stating the burger isn't actually vegetarian, because it is cooked with the same equipment used to cook chicken.