So many lives….

The reality of sitting in front of a slaughterhouse as animals are brought in to be killed is never something those who care about animals can really prepare themselves for.  I had to do this again recently in preparation for our vigil in front of Petaluma Poultry, a local slaughterhouse, and I was thankful to have one of our volunteers with me (thanks, Sarah!), as no one wanted me to do it by myself.

I can get into “work mode,” like I did when I was doing more factory farming investigations – get the footage and get out – and break down later. It was different at the slaughterhouse, as we needed to stay and watch trucks come in order to know what times we should be there to bear witness.

So many lives! That is all that kept running through my head – these are all babies, so many babies. All of these gentle little birds crammed into crates, loaded on trucks, and moved around like boxes.

Soon we will also do our part to bear witness to these birds as they arrive.

Petaluma Poultry can talk all they want about how their chickens are raised, but in the end, every individual bird will perish at the slaughterhouse.

Last year, Mark and I traveled to Toronto, as I was giving a talk at the conference, “Human Rights Are Animal Rights: A conference on commonalities of oppression” held in Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

Mark’s book Bleating Hearts had just come out, and we met up with Jo-Anne McArthur, who took the photo on the cover. (Read more about Jo-Anne in Mark’s recent interview with her.)

I was very familiar with Jo-Anne’s powerful images of activists giving water to pigs in a transport truck on their way to the slaughterhouse. The person I was not familiar with was the woman who started Toronto Pig Save: Anita Krajnc.

We were lucky that Jo-Anne had invited her to lunch with us. She talked about the influences of Tolstoy on her life and the concept of bearing witness: “When the suffering of another creature causes you to feel pain, do not submit to the initial desire to flee from the suffering one, but on the contrary, come closer, as close as you can to him who suffers, and try to help.”

Anita invited us to participate in the vigil that night at the cow slaughterhouse. Mark and I had never been to Toronto before and, being activists, we felt this was an important way to get a feel for the city.

Did I mention it was November and it was freezing? To those of you who know me, I don’t mean it was below 70 degrees: it was really freezing!

We went.

There were about six of us. We got there before Anita and were welcomed by some of her crew (including a great activist named Bo). Those we met included a former chicken slaughterhouse worker and a couple of other activists. It was one of those rare animal events where men were the majority and it was equal between people of color.

We held signs as people drove by.

The owner of the slaughterhouse was leaving as we were there and Anita pulled us over to meet him, which Mark and I were both incredibly uncomfortable with. But it was clear Anita was engaging him in respectful conversation, and she gave him a copy of Forks Over Knives to read and encouraged him to no longer be a part of the bloody business he was in.

Later, we went over to the chicken slaughterhouse where they also do outreach. This happened to also be the slaughterhouse where our fellow activist had worked. He pointed the setup out to us.

While we were there, I mentioned to Anita that I wanted to work with her and figure out how to be a part of what she had created – I was inspired!

Coming back to where I live now in Sonoma County, we have a number of slaughterhouses. It has always amazed me that people could pass by and not think once of the lives taken inside them on a daily basis. So that is also where Sonoma County Chicken Save has come from: a desire to not let people drive by slaughterhouses guilt-free, and also to bear witness as an activist.

Would I love for the slaughterhouse to shut down? Absolutely! But until that happens, I want to make sure that those who drive by are reminded that when they eat animals they are taking a life. I want them to see us on a regular basis and eventually come to talk to us and make changes.

But in addition to this, we will also be handing out whistleblower cards to the workers.

No one who kills animals every day wants to do this job – circumstances are why they are there and given the 100% turnover rate, it is clear that most want to get out.

In fact, Rick, one of our board members, sent me a fascinating article on some workers who, in 2012, filed a complaint to OSHA against a pig farm due to the horrifying conditions they encountered, including dangerous workplace hazards (like toxic fumes and unsafe structures), inadequate or totally absent safety equipment, being discouraged from going to the doctor for injuries, wage theft, and similar treatment.

They also filed a civil rights complaint based on the racial discrimination they faced – such as white workers being treated very differently than the Mexican workers, and being berated for speaking Spanish – and an animal welfare complaint documenting the abuse they had witnessed.

What was interesting to me was the fact that when these workers were empowered to talk about their own abuse, they also chose to take the opportunity to speak about the pigs. They reported pigs who were sick, had maggots on their legs, and pigs who they had seen kicked, slapped, and hurt by supervisors.

Maybe when workers are able to speak up and defend themselves, they might be more likely to speak up about the other non-human animal abuses that they see and which bother them.

Anita’s work with the Save movement inspires me with her intelligence and heart.

And this work is about the animals and keeping the focus on them - not just for a day, but for as long as they are there, and not just once and walking away, but being a constant presence for them.

And that is something we all owe them.