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Working Undercover on a Factory Farm Traumatized Me
Some images in particular still haunt me
I remember one mother pig especially. She was physically worn out and very sick. She was sprawled out in her crate, her snout resting in a mound of stale feed, and she had stopped eating. Workers had spray-painted a red “X” on her back to indicate she would be “culled,” or more simply, killed. Eventually, every mother pig who could no longer give birth received this designation.
I knew that things would never be better for her. She had known nothing but pain and suffering for her entire life, and by the look of resignation in her eyes, I could tell she had given up. Over the course of a week, when I was sure I was alone, I’d stop by her cage, sit down next to her, and quietly talk to her — a risk I barely ever let myself take.
I couldn’t blow my cover as an undercover investigator for Mercy for Animals. But I felt that if I could impart to her a tiny bit of warmth in a life otherwise devoid of compassion, that had to count for something.
A few days later, she was gone. The workers had sent her to the slaughterhouse, and all that was left was the little mound of food, still untouched.
My job was to document the conditions inside one of the nation’s largest pig factory farms, Iowa Select. The footage I obtained with a hidden camera would be used to alert the public, government officials, and food retailers to what was really happening to animals at factory farms.
A vegan since age 21, I was only in my mid-20s when I decided to do more by becoming an undercover investigator for Mercy for Animals. In my months of training for the physically and emotionally taxing job, my biggest fear was that I would somehow blow my cover. I practiced my poker face, watching graphic undercover footage of animals being slaughtered and tortured until I could train myself not to react. Of course, nothing could have prepared me for what it was like to actually work at a factory farm.
