This past weekend, I had the pleasure of speaking about
undercover investigations at Animal
Advocacy Camp in Vancouver. Hosted by Liberation BC,
the annual event serves as a two-day learning and sharing forum for the vibrant
activist community on the West Coast.
The talk was an emotional one–an uplifting, hope-inspiring
discussion of the groundbreaking results gained by Mercy For Animals through undercover
investigations: cruelty
convictions (at the time of the conference, yet two more Butterball workers in
North Carolina were found guilty of cruelty to animals), passage of new laws to
protect farmed animals, and compassionate corporate policy changes. Such successes
have seemed so difficult to achieve for farmed animals in Canada.
When I spoke of the unprecedented media attention garnered by our
first undercover investigation into Canada’s pig industry, the flourish
of applause brought me to tears.
I discussed the Kansas State study which found that meat
consumption declines whenever animal welfare issues are in the news, as well as
the astounding 12% drop in US meat consumption since 2007. Converted into
numbers of animal lives spared, this
means that 400 million fewer land animals are killed each year in the United States
for food.
As our amazing sister group in the United States has already shown,
undercover investigations have the power to touch millions of people, change
laws, hold animal abusers accountable, and move our society towards a more
enlightened time.
I’d like to extend a huge thank you to the good folks at Liberation BC
and to all of the activists who work tirelessly for animals.
