In Defense of Animals, page 23
Equipped with video and still photographic equipment, we made our way through a manure pit on the ground level, walking between three-foot-high mounds of excrement extending nearly the length of two football fields. The dim light from our headlamps prevented us from accidentally stepping on the decomposing corpses of hens who had escaped their cages only to fall into the pit and die surrounded by manure. Still-living birds wandered aimlessly around the pit, far from the automated waterers and feeders in the cages above. We slowly climbed stairs to where the hens were kept, trying to stave off the inevitability of witnessing first-hand the horrors of the battery cage system. This method of keeping hens has been banned in Switzerland and Austria and is being phased out across the entire European Union. Germany passed a five-year phase-out of battery cage use which will make them illegal by 2007, and the European Union has a ten-year phaseout to end in 2012. Yet battery cages are still used by U.S. egg factory farmers and there is no legislation in sight that will get rid of them.
Swarms of flies cut through the dust, dirt, and feathers floating in a fine white haze. Our eyes, watery and burning, caught sight of a gas mask hanging on the wall. Workers were offered a reprieve from the toxic ammonia-laced fumes and filth. The hens were not.
Splitting into two teams, we started down an aisle. Four rows of battery cages, wire cages each approximately the size of a filing drawer and typically holding eight birds, were stacked on either side of us, stretching for nearly 200 yards. In just one aisle, there were more than 10,000 egg-laying hens. Comprehending the enormity of the factory farm was impossible. How do you get a sense of 10,000 individual lives confined so intensively in just one aisle in a single building?
Yet such overcrowding is routine in modern animal agriculture, which maximizes profit by minimizing animal welfare. Factory farming seems to be premised on the long-since refuted view that animals are automatons, machines incapable of experiencing pleasure or pain. Accordingly, animal agribusiness treats the more than ten billion land animals raised and killed for food in the United States as nothing more than meat-, dairy-, and eggproduction units whose treatment is inconsequential. No federal legislation exists to regulate even minimal animal welfare standards in animal agriculture. The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act provides some guidelines during the slaughter process, yet excludes birds despite the fact that more than 90 percent of animals killed for human consumption are chickens. The federal Animal Welfare Act specifically states that animals raised for food are offered no protection. In fact, the lack of federal legislation protecting farmed animals allows factory farmers to legally abuse the animals we call food in ways that would warrant cruelty charges if perpetrated against those cats and dogs we call companions.
Consequently, life for egg-laying hens in battery cage facilities is harrowing. Hens stand on wire-mesh flooring so unlike the earth that their nails, which would normally wear down while scratching the ground, curl around the bars. Feather loss is common as hens rub against cages until many appear to have been plucked, their bodies raw with sores. They cannot roost at night, dust-bathe to clean themselves, feel sunlight, breathe fresh air, build a nest, raise their young, or even freely stretch their wings, let alone exercise or roam. The frustration and pressures of battery cage existence elevate levels of aggression. Factory farmers attempt to reduce the impact of stress-induced fighting by searing off the tips of chicks’ beaks with a hot blade, mutilations performed without anesthesia and often never healing, making eating and drinking difficult. The animals live in these horrific conditions without rest until their egg production wanes and they are either starved to induce another molt (thereby jarring their damaged bodies through another laying cycle) or they are killed and their bodies rendered, making way for a new shedful of hens.
The dozens of hours of video footage and hundreds of photographs we amassed from ISE’s Cecilton factory farm – a typical battery cage facility – document the inevitable costs of raising the most animals with the least time, expense, and effort. We were surrounded by emaciated, featherless hens covered with excrement from those in higher cages. Countless hens were immobilized in the wires of the battery cages, caught by their wings, legs, feet, and necks, some alive, others dead. We helped those we came across, but we know with absolute certainty that hundreds, if not thousands, are struggling to free themselves, and to reach food and water, at this very moment. In some of the cages we saw, hens were left to live with the decomposing bodies of their former cage-mates. We removed the rotting corpses, many of which had been left in cages for so long that they were flattened to an inch.
We filmed hens riddled with cysts, prolapses, infections, and bloody sores – some so weak they could barely lift their heads or drink the water we offered them. Indeed, disease is common on factory farms. Many animals succumb to physiological pressures from living in unsanitary conditions, so overcrowded that movement is severely limited, muscles atrophy, and immune systems are weakened. The compromised bodies of layer hens often fall victim to illness, and as veterinary care costs more than the bird is worth to the producer, they suffer without treatment.
While virtually every aspect of the commercial egg industry is inhumane, the intensive overcrowding of hens in the battery cage system may well be the most abusive. An egg-laying hen requires 290 square inches of space to flap her wings, yet each bird is allotted an average of 52 square inches – smaller than a single sheet of paper – in which she eats, sleeps, lays eggs, drinks, and defecates. Pressure from animal advocates in recent years prompted a handful of food industry giants to institute guidelines or recommendations on cage-space minimums, but the increased space allowance still doesn’t allow for freedom of movement. McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s voluntary reforms provide hens with 72 to 75 square inches per bird, prohibit forced molting through starvation, and discourage debeaking. On the other hand, the guidelines adopted in 2002 by United Egg Producers, the industry trade association, mandate only 67 square inches per bird with a five-year phase-in period and make no recommendations against forced molting or debeaking.
While landmark in their acknowledgment that the conditions in which egg-laying hens must live are, in fact, worthy of consideration, the food industry reforms still fall short. They do not address the inherent cruelties of intensive confinement that deny animals nearly every habit and instinct natural to them.
At the ISE farm, we witnessed the toll that such severe overcrowding takes on the animals. When just one bird makes a simple movement we perform without forethought – turning around, stretching our arms, taking a single step – nearly every animal in the cage must reposition herself. To reach the single waterer in a cage or the feed trough just outside the bars, hens must maneuver around the others – both alive and dead. The animals commonly stand on each other’s backs and wings for lack of space. It’s difficult if not impossible to imagine living in these conditions, yet the egg industry confines approximately 300 million hens in battery cage facilities at any given time.
Physically exhausted, mentally taxed, and emotionally drained, we left the ISE farm that first time in the early hours of the morning. The two-hour trip back to D.C. was silent as we each tried to process all we had seen. COK’s first investigation had begun.
Our strategy was modeled after the experiences of Australia’s Action Animal Rescue Team led by Patty Mark. First we obtained evidence of animal abuse, then we urged Cecil County sheriff’s department to investigate violations of Maryland’s animal anti-cruelty statute, and asked for prosecution by the state’s attorney. After our written requests to the authorities were met with silence or refusals to take action, we provided aid to sick and injured hens, freed as many animals as we could place in safe and caring homes, and accepted full responsibility for the rescue.
The strength of this strategy lies in its openness. Rescues of animals from places of institutionalized cruelty are normally clandestine, with advocates striving to conceal their identity. Patty Mark and her Australian colleagues not only conducted their investigations and rescues unmasked, they began each film sequence by identifying themselves on camera. And after animals were removed, they notified the authorities of the rescues themselves.
Public response had proven positive in Australia, as media attention focused on why the activists were forced to act, rather than on the advocates themselves. That is, the news coverage stayed on the animals, the inhumane conditions and misery they must endure, and the reluctance by factory farmers to denounce the indisputable evidence of gross neglect and abuse they inflict. The paper trail to local prosecutors, police, and the factory farm further substantiated that the advocates were left with no options but to rescue the animals, as no one else would. Recognizing the undue influence that animal agribusiness has on U.S. policy, we were unsure how the strategy would be received. Nevertheless, we moved forward, making several night-time visits over two months.
One month into the investigation, we sent footage representative of typical conditions of both the facility and the animals to veterinarians and an animal agribusiness researcher for their expert opinions. Without exception, the reports overwhelmingly disapproved of the intensive confinement system, and vet statements also commented on the poor health of the hens, attributed to battery cage life.
During this time, we met with journalists, offering media outlets the exclusive rights to the findings of our investigation and impending open rescue. After The Washington Post agreed to take the story, we prepared for press conferences in Washington and Annapolis, Maryland’s capital. In addition, we began reviewing hours of video footage and producing the documentary Hope for the Hopeless: An Investigation and Rescue at a Battery Egg Facility, to be released at the Washington news briefing. Anonymous homes were secured for the hens we would free from the factory farm. Everything was in place for our final visit to the ISE farm.
On May 23, 2001, we again made our way to the sheds. But this time, we had eight transport carriers with us. Once inside, we again videotaped ourselves aiding animals. Knowing this would be our last night with the hens at the ISE farm, we dreaded the moment we would have to choose whom we would take with us and whom we would leave behind. How do you choose eight lives out of 800,000? How do you leave behind nearly one million animals to continue living in sheer misery? It was getting late and we were running out of time. We couldn’t help but feel we were sentencing to death each hen we didn’t take. Taking some comfort in the knowledge that future generations of egg-laying hens may be spared if we could encourage enough consumers to withdraw their financial support from the industry, we selected hens we came to call Jane, Rose, Lynn, Petra, Harriet, Christina, Eve, and Jackie.
We found Lynn and Eve in a manure pit, heads heavy with rock-hard clumps of feces caked on their combs. Rose was immobilized between two cages, her face wedged in a narrow opening in the bars. Petra had such severe feather-loss her body was completely bare except for a few tufts of feathers on her head. Harriet suffered from an infection so inflamed her mucousfilled eye was swollen to ten times its normal size. The cyst on Christina’s head flapped over her right eye. Jackie’s prolapsed uterus hung outside her body. And Jane was found with a wing pinned in the wires of her cage. She had struggled so violently to free herself that her wing had dislocated, her tendons had torn, and gangrene was eating away at her body.
One by one, we rescued the hens from their cages. While filming our final shot, we heard the metal door – at the end of the very aisle we occupied – beginning to open. Shutting off our headlamps, we fumbled our way through the pitch black as far down the aisle as we could, moving away from whoever was outside. Once the sound of the opening door stopped masking our footsteps, we threw ourselves on the ground. We realized the sheer magnitude of the facility would be our savior: the sweep of the flashlight dissolved into blackness before it could reach us. After what felt like hours but was likely only moments, it was again dark and the door squealed shut. We made our way outside, heavy with our equipment and the eight animals.
The sun had begun to rise by the time we got to my Washington apartment. A veterinarian was scheduled to arrive at 11:00 a.m. to examine the hens. We took them out of their carriers and placed them in a makeshift pen, a space forty times larger than what they had ever experienced. For the first thirty minutes, all eight huddled in a corner, not daring to move. Then, one by one, they began exploring, eating, and drinking. Some basked in the sun shining through the window, their battered bodies stretched on the floor, warming in sunlight they had never felt before. A few ducked under a sheet covering shelves and roosted. And, for the first time in their lives, two of the hens sat with the eggs they had just laid.
After their vet exams, we tried to wash away the months of filth and the misery of their old lives. Once bathed, the hens were visibly more energetic and curious. Finally, it was time to take them to their new homes.
As scheduled, The Washington Post exclusive on the investigation and open rescue ran on June 6, 2001, the morning we released our documentary, Hope for the Hopeless. National media picked up the story, and the horrors of battery cages could be read over the Associated Press and United Press International wires. ISE stated it wasn’t “certain” our footage came from its facility, and the police and state’s attorney’s office claimed they had never received our letters. We weren’t arrested for breaking and entering, trespass, or theft. And the hens were free.
Hope for the Hopeless was shown to thousands, and COK received a deluge of letters and emails from individuals pledging to never again support animal agribusiness. Our first investigation and open rescue were more effective in drawing attention to the plight of egg-laying hens than we had dared hope. In fact, the July 2001 issue of the trade journal Egg Industry published an article on COK’s investigation, calling it “extremely damaging to the whole industry.” And the October 2002 issue wrote about us, too: “A classic example of David trying to bring down Goliath is seen with the efforts of Compassion Over Killing. … The organization may be short on staff but has effectively gotten the public’s attention through the media.”
COK investigations of animal agribusinesses continue, and our investigators have rescued more abused farmed animals. Our third exposé into battery cage facilities in just eighteen months resulted in an exclusive that ran in The New York Times on December 4, 2002, and more than seventy media outlets around the world picked up the story. As of this writing, COK has completed its eleventh undercover investigation.
Factory farming and its inherent cruelty must be abolished. Until legislation catches up with consumers, we each have the power to end our complicity in the suffering, mutilations, and deaths of increasing numbers of animals each year. With every bite we take, we can choose compassion over killing by choosing the vegetarian option. And we can take to heart that the animals would thank us if they could.
14
Living and Working in Defense of Animals
Matt Ball
Since the publication of Animal Liberation in 1975 and the founding of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in 1980 – to mention just two seminal events – animal rights and welfare organizations have spent hundreds of millions of dollars, with volunteers working endless hours on many campaigns, trying to improve the treatment of animals in North America and Europe. PETA alone has over 750,000 members and supporters, and an eight-figure annual budget.
By some measures, these efforts have yielded remarkable results. Fastfood chains McDonald’s and Burger King have, under pressure from animal advocates, announced steps to improve animal welfare standards. The European Union has gone much further, having passed laws that will eventually limit the use of sow stalls to four weeks, and will phase out battery cages and veal stalls entirely. National media have given animal welfare issues unprecedented coverage. The treatment of animals has become a matter of wide public debate, while animal advocates and the term “animal rights” have become fixtures in Western culture.
The State of Animals Today
And yet despite all this, the number of animals exploited and killed has skyrocketed during the past quarter-century. In the United States alone, the number of mammals and birds slaughtered for food each year has nearly tripled since 1975 – about ten billion. That’s over a million every hour – far more deaths than those from all other forms of animal exploitation combined.
At the same time, the treatment of nearly all farmed animals is worse today than ever before. Hidden away from the public eye, farmed animals endure an excruciating existence. Even Jim Mason and Mary Finelli’s gripping description and Miyun Park’s harrowing tale in this volume can’t convey the true horror of what goes on in factory farms. Photographs and videos come closer – layer hens with open sores, covered with feces, sharing their tiny cage with the decomposing corpses of fellow birds; pigs sodomized with metal poles, beaten with bricks, skinned while still conscious; steers, pigs, and birds desperately struggling on the slaughterhouse floor after their throats are cut. But even videotapes can’t communicate the smell, the noise, the desperation, and, most of all, the fact that each of these animals – and billions more unseen by any camera or any caring eye – continues to suffer like this, every minute of every day.
If we are concerned with the suffering of all animals, not just those in labs or fur farms or shelters, these facts demand we reconsider our focus. As The Economist pointed out in its cover story on August 19, 1995, animal advocates in the United States have focused on fur and medical research, while advocates in Britain and much of Europe have focused on animals killed for food. As a result, not only is vegetarianism more widespread in some countries in Europe, farmed animals there are also afforded much greater protection.
