TaylorRadig

No problem!

Probably the worst was on my first day, when one of my coworkers showed me a young blind calf. He was the smallest calf I had seen, and was so sick he couldn't even stand, and being blind made it even worse. My coworker laughed as he told me about his cloudy blue eyes, then proceed to violently kick the calf in the back over and over again, trying to get him to stand but knew he couldn't. He then decided to pick him up and throw him in a trailer where he landed right on his neck. Another calf was poisoned with iodine and left as he cried in pain(an unusual way for how calves signal pain, which meant he was in A LOT of pain), while my coworker took a break.

Thanks for asking this important question!

"Ag-gag" laws as they are coined, are laws pushed by the animal agricultural industry that try to keep people from exposing what is really going on in their facilities by criminalizing undercover investigators.

Some of them stipulate that if someone sees abuse they have to report it immediately or can be charged with animal cruelty themselves. The problem with this law is that although it sounds innocent, it's incredibly deceiving. As investigators, it's important for us to build a case; find out who is involved in the cruelty, how far up management knows about it, and demonstrate with evidence that the abuse isn't isolated incidents of cruelty.

Other forms of these bills prohibit lying on applications, or taking videos without the farmers consent. This last one shuts investigations down completely, because obviously a farmer would never allow an employee to take photos or video.

When these laws are passed, investigators won't go to those states, in fear of being arrested if they do, which prevents animal cruelty and serious food safety issues from being exposed

For many, these laws are not only a threat to the protection of farmed animals, but are also a threat to food safety and an ultimate threat to the public at large.

I unfortunately can't do investigations anymore because my mugshot was publicized so many places.

Thank you for this question. I had the privilege of hearing him speak at a conference, and was blow away.

I refer to their abuse as horrible because it was, and I would never want to reduce the horrible nature of their abuse because they were nice to me. At Quanah a couple of my coworkers treated me like a daughter.Other than a couple people I have worked with, they are all extremely nice to humans, but are completely numbed by violence to animals. The people I worked with and other in these industries are typically in dire poverty and just needed a paycheck to help feed their families. Although abusing animals is never okay in any circumstance, many of these workers, including those I worked with, have to get things done at an incredibly face speed or face losing their job. As an undocumented person, getting jobs is extremely difficult in general, which makes them even more likely to conform to whatever standards their company requests. As a whole, I think the animal rights movement need to more actively fight calling convictions against workers as "victories". It further pushes the idea that the problem is with the workers, and not the industry as whole. After investigations, companies like Walmart and Tyson come out saying things like, "Glad we fire those abusive workers, sorry about that," when it is ultimately their fault. As animal activists, when we blame the workers like they do, we do the industries work for them.

It's extremely difficult to keep it together as an investigator. We try to keep our focus on what really matters--the animals. If we loose our cool, the animals suffer and we put ourselves in a huge amount of danger. I would have stages where I really hated human beings, but then was reminded of all of the amazing activists fighting this abuse, that the video I was shooting was going to expose the cruelty, and hopefully get people to go vegetarian/vegan.

It's extremely emotional, but nothing compared to what these animals go through.