Words from an Australian animal activist.... the first time I ever went into a factory farm I was terrified... I was with a very experienced team of people, but the idea of seeing first hand an Australian piggery had my heart beating a million miles an hour...I could barely breathe from fear... I had seen footage of pig farms on the internet... I had cried over my computer screen on too many occassions to count, BUT I had never seen it first hand... the thing with intensive piggeries, is that you can smell them long before your eyes see them.. there is a saying regarding this... if you want to locate a factory farm, just wind down your window and let your nose do the rest.. it will not let you down... my first time was in a bad place, even by Australian poor standards... after the smell, which is enough to make your stomach violentilly retch...their was the noise... piglets screaming, it was deafening... the experienced activists i was with told me that is the sound of piglets suffocating... they all are trying desperately to reach their mothers milk and the smaller ones get crushed and cannot breathe under the weight of their brothers and sisters... the first room we go into is the kill room... it is the same room that I have found myself in during many nightmares that began long before I even learnt the truth.. large hooks hang from the ceiling... dried blood is on the floor... my eyes turn and see a young pig hog tied... his little body is green from bruises of where he has been beaten... next to him is another pig and on closer inspection half his face is missing, he has been violentally killed with an axe... I stand there trying to take this scene in... there are no words and there is no adequate explanation other than some really mean people have abused and ripped away his life in ways I cannot even fathom... what did he go through the moments before the axe came down on his head?? I follow the other activists into a farrowing shed... the mothers are covered in flies, their bodies are covered in open sores... dead baby piglets are in buckets everywhere, evidence that they are just cogs in the machine their little lives and deaths mean nothing at all to the people who run this place... my time here alters the gravitational pull of everything I was before coming... I am changed forever in ways that words could never adequately express... I am scarred, on a level that is beyond deep... I go back to my second, third, fourth, fifth, fiftieth visit to Australian piggeries. Each time I am terrified... it never leaves me... each time whilst learning to climb barbed wire fences a bit better, each time learning to unlock shed doors a bit better, each time facing these hellholes front on, I am always still frightened... Im not always entirely sure what I am frightened of...but with experience, the fear is lesser now, I am able to stand with that fear and talk myself back into reality... the words that always cross my mind are think of them, think of their fear think of their suffering being in tiny cages, in sheds, where they have no ability to live as they were created to live think of them being used and abused and only seen as commodities.. marked with $$$ signs.. think of them never able to see the star filled sky that I get to see whilst waiting to go in... I always make it an absolute that in any shed I go into now, I take the time to connect with each individual sow... I will bend down and look every single one in the eyes as a means of connection... my way of saying I see you..I may not be able to help you, BUT I see you as an individual and... and the and is so MASSIVE.. I feel your pain and I will fight for you with everything in me, until the day I die... there is something deeply wrong about humans ability to look the other way, to dissconnect and go about their day to day lives whilst Australian and all animals suffer in conditions that are barbaric and worse than cruel.. their is something about humans apathy to others suffering that defies all logic and meaning to me... I am an animal activist... I have seen with my own eyes the immense pain animals are put through in the dark all so humans can enjoy the taste of their flesh on their lips and there is NOTHING ok about this... nothing at all... perhaps my late night visits do nothing more than bearing witness, God knows sometimes my frustration is palpable at changes happening so slowly, but I will continue to do it, because it needs to be done... I can only hope that some day soon people will look at the reality for these beautiful, intelligent creatures and make the connection that animals are not ours... for more information on Australian piggeries please visit aussiepigs.au or freerangefraud.au
Posted on: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 13:23:26 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015