Blackfish (The Importance of October 24th)

Seeing the movie Blackfish reminded me of a talk from my new favorite author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “The Danger of a Single Story.” I really hope people will listen to her talk and her wisdom, her power. She discusses the problems that arise when we just tell one part of a story. 

Blackfish works to tell a whole story about a killer whale (also known as an orca) at SeaWorld Orlando and, to the best of the documentary’s ability, uses the voices and pain of orcas captured for captivity.

I have known for decades how animals end up in marine “parks,” zoos, and aquariums (or, as Ric O’Barry calls them, abusement “parks”), and yet most people only know about these animals’ lives in the context of a visit to one of these places. No knowledge of how they got there and what they go through. Only the story of their visit.

I was one of those people. 

In 1988, SeaWorld San Antonio opened. Now keep in mind, I was a bit naïve. As someone who was bullied in middle school and whose life was full of financial struggles, I still consider myself naïve about certain things. I was more than just naïve; I was in denial. I was already an ethical vegan and a fairly new animal rights activist.

SeaWorld sponsored a contest where high school students in San Antonio would write an essay and could win a college scholarship. I had not planned on going to college until my animal rights “parents” encouraged me to. So I was a bit behind on any planning.

So I decided to apply for this scholarship. During the contest, you got a free pass to SeaWorld.

For me, this was incredible, as I love the ocean but lived so far away, and wanted to be a marine biologist. I only saw one of the orca shows, as I spent most of my time watching the sharks (one of my favorite animals). I’ll fast forward a bit to why I didn’t get the scholarship: I wrote in the essay about how I felt whole by becoming an animal rights activist and, well, I believe I even talked about wanting to set all of the animals at SeaWorld free.

Umm…yeah….maybe not naïve or in denial, maybe just stupid….or honest.

The folks in the animal rights group were patient with me and knew that I saw the truth about how animals were treated in every other industry, and I imagine they knew I would come to my senses.

Over the years, we held protests at the San Antonio SeaWorld and displayed signs with a message that seems to be standing the test of time: “Thanks but no tanks.”

And what is more incredible is the reality that you have any sea creatures at all in San Antonio. It is land locked. But all marine “parks,” near the ocean or not, have these animals living in small areas with small tanks. It just seems incomprehensible to me. Truly. Who came up with this idea? How could anyone think it would be morally acceptable? Oh, wait….profit. They are preying on the hearts of people who do sincerely care about animals – people who get blinded by a story that starts in the middle and don’t hear the beginning or the end. They see only a snapshot.

It is not that I can’t understand what people think when they go to places like zoos and SeaWorld – they believe they are getting to know more about animals and that these animals are treated well. Of course, that is not the case; they are getting to know how animals behave in captivity, how they behave when they have been taken away from their families, how they behave when their natural habits are deprived. But even if that were not the case, would it make it right? Of course not.

That is why I am so glad that a book like Bleating Hearts (full review later) is coming out this fall. It re-stirred the passion in my heart to fight for these animals. I learned things I didn’t know. Things which burn in my heart and make me wonder why I have not dedicated my life to getting them out of these tanks.* That the reality is just too awful to believe.

And of course there is Blackfish, which is getting the attention and critical acclaim it deserves.

It is a painful movie to watch, but so necessary. Much of the pain stems from the reality of how the captivity industry has destroyed and continues to destroy families. The pain of the mother crying and searching for her baby when SeaWorld takes her away. Unbearable, truly unbearable. There is a lot of crying in the movie – both on the screen and in the audience. And rightly so. I know that those images will probably haunt me for the rest of my life (no different than the beak trimming of chicks for the egg industry).

And of course the film itself is about a larger issue than just this one orca. Lolita, captured in 1970 from the wild, is in the Seaquarium in Miami, where she lives alone as she is the only remaining orca. And here she remembers the unique language used only by her family who swims freely in the Puget Sound, a pod she cries out for. She calls out by herself. Alone.

These are the types of things that I can’t think of for too long for fear of going crazy. The type of psychological pain that we put them through on top of the physical pain is just too much to bear.

As an animal rights activist, I feel that way about all of the issues we work on, but now is our time. With countries like Bolivia, Costa Rica, India, Peru, and others banning animal captivity in zoos, circuses, and/or marine “parks,” now is the time for us to work to end these industries.

I know I will encourage my family in San Antonio to watch Blackfish and hope that my niece and nephew have the opportunity to see for themselves what SeaWorld is all about.

We must make sure that we do not allow animals to be torn from their families and denied everything that is natural to them to end in a tank while we just watch. We must make sure that their story does not end here.

Please join me in making sure that everyone sees Blackfish. With CNN running it on October 24, there should be few excuses to miss it.

Update: Blackfish is now streaming on Netflix!

*Of course, Food Empowerment Project continues to do our good work for farmed animals, for workers, and for justice, but I will do what I can to join others who are pushing this industry to its knees.

Why is it okay for kids to care (and not adults)?

Food Empowerment Project works to fight a variety of injustices, including the deaths of animals killed for food, farm workers who suffer and even sometimes die in the fields for produce, and the worst forms of child labor that take place in the chocolate industry.

And up until recently, my full-time job was working to stop electronic waste from being dumped overseas in developing countries and the social injustices in the solar industry.

Many times I am asked how I cope with all of this suffering that I surround myself with. My response is that working to stop these injustices gives me strength.

Over the past several weeks, I have come to realize something else that I recognize must help me, but I don’t know that I have ever given it credit. And I know many of you will find fault in this – so I apologize for my weakness in advance.

I have this uncanny ability to watch Netflix in the background while I work; in fact, many of my blogs are written this way.

My weakness? Cartoons and kids movies.* Yup.  Although many cause my heart to ache (Secret of Nimh, Fox and the Hound, Bambi, Dumbo, etc.), I tend to watch kids’ movies and cartoons that don’t. Because, well, their drama is not drama when you aren’t a teen or a tween.

While watching these shows, I have started to recognize a unifying theme: those who abuse and kill animals are vilified (no shock here, as many who torture animals say animal rights activists were brainwashed by Disney), but also, the characters who love animals tend to be the heroes or the “smart” kids.

Again, I am not revealing anything shocking here, as we know that in movies including 101 Dalmatians, Beauty and the Beast, and Rescues Down Under, those who kill hunt or want to harm animals are mocked for, well, not being as smart as the average bear.

But I am talking more about the live-action kids’ movies where the kids are organizing animal rights protests against companies that test on animals, students oppose dissection, and those young characters who are vegetarians or even vegans.

They are respected. They are seen as the smart kids.

And yet, why does that change as we get older? Why do adults get an eye roll if we care about animals so much that we go vegan, and yet a child who does this because they care about animals is actually seen as cute and/or smart for their age?

Why are children who work to stop slavery looked upon as saints, but organizations who work to stop the slavery are seen as somehow political?

We all know that as children, we are raised to care about animals and slowly that changes, but why does public perception change?

Why are there shows about kids who care about animals, but such caring in adults is portrayed as crazy or radical?

The movie Hoot (based on a book) is about kids wanting to protect land from development to save the burrowing owl. The kids bond by wanting to protect these endangered animals. And yet organizations that want to do this same work are criticized as being anti-development.

I hesitate to say it, but I would imagine that we stop being cute and start becoming a concern when we could impact, well, capitalism.

Clearly, I am not saying that shows never portray vegans as respectable, but I am amazed by how many kids’ shows really depict caring about animals as a bonus to a child’s character.

It is refreshing. Overall, it gives me hope that a generation of young people will be bolstered enough by their compassion for animals that will it stay with them for a lifetime.

Because these are the people who will save countless lives in their lifetime.

Whatever it is, I hope movies and books continue to come out featuring characters who care about protecting animals and the planet, and in which those who fight for justice are the smart, compassionate, and indeed likeable characters.

Just like we are when we grow up!

*I know that many of these movies are actually based on books, but some of these books came out when, well, it was just easier to watch the movie.

You eat babies

To commemorate my 25th year of being a vegan, I have decided to share some stories from various investigations I have done of factory farms, auctions, and slaughterhouses. Though these investigations were conducted with the organization I started and ran, Viva!USA, they are a powerful part of my life and hopefully will help many understand why veganism is a key part to Food Empowerment Project’s goal of a more just food system.

I debated on the title for this blog and, well, you can let me know what you think. It does make me flash back to my early vegan days when I was in high school – a time when, I acknowledge, I could have done a better job of encouraging people to listen to what I had to say.

But at the same time, the above title is the truth.

People in the US who consume chickens are, well, eating babies.*

Chickens slaughtered for food are chicks, really. They are less than two months old when they are killed. These absolutely gentle and fragile birds are mere babies.

It has always been easy to find farms where chickens are being raised for “meat.” There are so many of them. It is heartbreaking.

The first farm I investigated was in Georgia. It was a Tyson facility. When I opened the door to the shed, I was hit with a wave of humidity and the intense smell of ammonia. It burned my nose and my chest. My lungs burned for a couple of days.

You see, chickens are killed after seven weeks. And workers do not go in and clean the sheds every time they send these chicks to slaughter; they just put more in. So the ammonia buildup is tremendous.

I eventually sought to do investigations of Foster Farms, which are mostly in California. If the name doesn’t sound familiar, the ads probably are: they tend to feature two puppet chickens who talk about wanting to be “Foster Farm” chickens. Yup, just as bad as the “Happy Cow” commercials.

Inside the sheds (like all chicken farms), something seems very strange. After a while you realize it is the chickens themselves: their bodies seem abnormally large compared to their heads and their tiny little chirps.

And that’s just it. They are babies. They are bred to grow very large, very fast. Not only can’t their voices keep up, but neither can their legs.  And eventually, the lungs and hearts of these birds can’t keep up either; many die before they are even sent to slaughter.

Leaving one of the sheds, it was my legs that gave way. Watching these babies struggling to stand wasn’t even the main thing that made me fall down. And I do mean fall down … when leaving one of the sheds, I collapsed. I was overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with the number of birds. The reality of how many are killed. I could take 100 and would anyone even notice?

With every investigation I did, my goal was to create a campaign -- something to focus on. And with chickens, I was overwhelmed with the magnitude of the lives being taken.

Every farm had dozens of sheds, and each shed had approximately 20,000 chickens inside.

At the time, 23 million chickens were slaughtered every day for food. Today it is just under 24 million.

With a number so large, how do I make every individual matter? How do I get people to understand a bird who most have absolutely no personal association with. Not like cows who many pass along the highway. Not like ducks who they see on the ponds. Not like pigs who are the focus of movies. How do we get people to see that chickens too are feeling, precious beings?

This is something I still struggle with.

I hope the more we can get people to learn about chickens as individuals, the more they will empathize with them. Like how both hens and roosters will protect chicks, whether or not they are their offspring; how roosters will let off different warning calls to protect flocks; how chickens mourn, get happy, angry and, yes, have emotions. As with all animals, just getting to know them is key. But why must we get to know their personalities before we have empathy for them?

Oh, to get people to hold one of these absolutely gentle birds, their bones so fragile, and realize that we have the power to protect them! That we need to defend the most vulnerable – like babies. They don’t need much from us to take care of them. They simply need us to stop eating them.

*Most animals raised and killed for food are killed when they are young.

This blog was written in honor of International Respect for Chickens Day.

Some Pig

To commemorate my 25th year of being a vegan, I have decided to share some stories from various investigations I have done of factory farms, auctions, and slaughterhouses. Though these investigations were conducted with the organization I started and ran, Viva!USA, they are a powerful part of my life and hopefully will help many understand why veganism is a key part to Food Empowerment Project’s goal of a more just food system.

Charlotte’s Web is one of those books that made a lasting impact on me. This book not only made me think twice about animals who are killed, but gave me a longtime appreciation for spiders. What is most pertinent about this book today is that the whole point was Wilbur wanted to live – it wasn’t about his living conditions, it was simply about his desire to stay alive. And it also showed us strong and compassionate females. 

My first investigation of a pig farm was down in Southern Georgia (I was living in Atlanta at the time). Here on a very small pig farm, I saw firsthand mother pigs in gestation crates and farrowing crates. The haunting images of pigs in crates so small they could not turn around was no longer on video or in a photo – I was face to face with the reality.

The mamma pigs (remember, they are pregnant when they are in the gestation crates) banging their noses on the bars – over and over. Some of the larger pigs lay on their sides, struggling to move. These pigs were probably further along in their pregnancies. 

Their boredom and their frustration were not something that anyone could question. Day after day these pigs had nothing but bars to bite on, and they hit their noses against the doors. They stood on cement slatted flooring. Nothing to do all day and night.

Though I have never been pregnant, such an experience is not necessary to understand how uncomfortable these mothers were and how much they desperately needed to be comfortable.

From there, we were able to walk into a building where the mammas were in the farrowing crates. Pigs are moved from gestation crates to the farrowing crates before they give birth. 

Here in these crates, where again they cannot turn around or move, they give birth to their babies. And here, I saw anguish in their eyes. 

These crates are still legal almost everywhere.

The first time I ever saw footage of a mother pig, in a more natural environment, making a nest for her babies, it brought me to tears realizing the frustration they must feel in farrowing crates. All of the desire of these mothers to create a comfortable and warm place to have her babies—not to mention a desire for natural movements — is prevented.

Some farmers claim if they did not put the pigs in these crates, they would crush their babies. Can you imagine? How ludicrous is that? That would mean that pigs would have died out a LONG time ago. If a species constantly killed their young, I would imagine they would have gone extinct or would have evolved differently. But I guess the farmers want a pat on the back for saving the pigs, right?

Outrageous. But these types of unbelievable myths continue to thrive.

Charts on the farm wall indicated how many piglets lived and how many died. Clearly, their solution to nature wasn’t exactly working either. But the lives of these animals were just numbers.

I traveled to North Carolina (the second-largest pig-killing state in the US) to investigate more farms. My goal of course was to show how the living conditions of these animals don’t vary by the size or location of the farms.

In one area, I found what is called the “nursery,” which is where the piglets are kept before they get to the “fattening” area. This “nursery” was full of cobwebs (clearly not because Charlotte was trying to save their lives) and although the piglets were unbearably cute, there were some who were dead. The dead among the living – a regular scene on industrialized animal factories.

Shed after shed, I saw pigs in smaller pens within large sheds. Here I videotaped a pig with a leg injury – his leg so swollen he had trouble lying down. I watched helplessly as a pig with a huge, black ulceration died – right in front of me. Nearby I saw the putrefied corpse of a pig; what I thought was a plastic bag behind her turned out to be a small, thin pig who was left in the middle of the alley, without food or water.

Treating living beings as commodities is not just something that we as advocates say, it is reality.

I could cite studies and reports examining how intelligent pigs are, but I shouldn’t have to. I could dispel the myths about pigs being “dirty,” but I shouldn’t have to. Pigs, like all animals, deserve to live out their lives free of exploitation and suffering at our hands, and that should be enough to get all of us to stop eating them and go vegan.

Wilbur asked Charlotte, “Why did you do all this for me? I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.” “You have been my friend,” replied Charlotte. “That in itself is a tremendous thing.”

I hope one day we can truly be friends to all animals.

Bolivarian Food Revolution

I know I am not alone when I express my extreme sadness over the death of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. I have been reading about his illness for a while and was hopeful that he could pull through. 

I know that the revolution is never one person – it is the people. So I know that, unless outside influences try to destroy it, the Bolivarian revolution he started will continue.

I had the honor to hear President Chavez speak when I went to Caracas. I was there to speak at the 2006 World Social Forum. This is actually where the concept of Food Empowerment Project first came to me.

Chavez spoke with great passion about what was happening to Mother Earth and urged us to protect her. He talked about how humans treated her and her creatures with such disregard and how we must act.

I sat in awe of a president of a country who would take time to meet and speak with a group of activists – not donors, not even potential voters – about our shared dreams and hopes for a better world.

I was lucky to see some of the changes he was beginning to institute. I was able to tour an area that was once an oil refinery and see what they had turned it into: one cooperative that made t-shirts and another that made shoes, a free clinic (equipped with a dentist office and other health services), and an organic garden.

The organic garden was maintained by senior citizens. The food was grown to feed the workers and anything left over was sold to a local market. This is similar to what Food Empowerment Project would love to see – people growing their own food and feeding their own community. 

We were able to look down at the ramshackle homes and see the small green roof tops that indicated where Cuban doctors lived, who work for free under the oil-for-doctors program. The doctors live upstairs and their clinics are downstairs. We saw many green roofs because they wanted to make sure there were enough doctors for each neighborhood.

In another area of Caracas, space was created for a garden at the crossroads between two highways. Maybe not the most ideal situation from a toxic perspective, but you can see the creative ideas being generated. The area was previously full of trash and it took about 14 truckloads to remove the garbage. 

The government transformed that space into a garden maintained by homeless people.

I know that no leader is perfect, so I write this to share what I saw and heard.

Venezuela, like other Latin American countries, uses food as a tool for positive change – to empower the people.

And yet, I can’t help but feel many times in the US that food is treated like a weapon. From Monsanto to Coca-cola to the lack of access to healthy foods in communities of color and low-income communities, food is a battleground and a marker of privilege rather than a right.

Instead of handing out ideas, tools, and land to make our communities healthy, we seem to prioritize corporate claims to own our water, our seeds.

When we act here against those who seek to put profit over people, greed over healthy communities, we must never forget we are acting in solidarity with people around the globe who also want a better life. We’re bound together in this struggle and desperately need creative models to feed ourselves, empower the people, and end the exploitation of the most vulnerable.

Photo of organic garden in Caracas, Venezuela 2006.