The images
in the following program
are very sensitive
and may be
as disturbing to viewers
as they were to us.
However,
we have to show the truth
about cruelty to animals.
Respected viewers,
on this week’s edition
of Stop Animal Cruelty,
we meet Nathan Runkle,
the courageous
vegan founder
and executive director
of Mercy For Animals,
a non-profit
animal advocacy group
based in Chicago, USA.
The organization
conducts sustained
community outreach efforts
and effective
advertising campaigns
to inform people
of the exploitation and
torture of farm animals
and why we must switch
to a plant-based diet.
Mercy For Animals
also performs
undercover investigations
of factory farms in the US
to bring to light
the unfathomable
barbarism and violence
that occurs in the meat,
dairy and egg industries
on a daily basis.
We focus on protecting
farmed animals
because this is the area
of animal abuse
in our society where
the largest number
of animals are killed
and exploited.
Over nine billion cows,
pigs and chickens
in the United States are
killed for food every year.
If we look at the global level
we’re talking about
over 50 billion
farmed animals!
And each one of
these animals are
unique individuals with
their own personalities
and needs and interests.
So Mercy For Animals
sets out
to expose the cruelty
that’s taking place
in factory farms
and in slaughterhouses
and inspire consumers
to adopt a healthy
and compassionate
plant based diet.
Why did Nathan Runkle
decide to
make safeguarding
our animal co-inhabitants
his life’s work?
I was actually raised on
a farm in rural Ohio (USA)
and always had
a natural affinity
for animals.
I always cared deeply
about their protection
and I witnessed
a lot of animal abuse
growing up and that
always felt wrong to me.
When I was 11 years old,
I came across information
by a local animal
protection organization
that opened
my heart and my eyes
to animal cruelty issues
on a broader scheme
and taught me
about factory farming
or the industrial animal
agriculture systems that
are used in this country
and across the world
where animals are kept
in tiny cages and
stalls and pens, so small
that they oftentimes
can’t even turn around,
and they can’t
extend their own limbs.
I learned about
the harsh realities
of slaughterhouses
and at that young age
I felt that this cruelty
was not something
that I wanted to support.
It wasn’t something
that I wanted to
take place in my name and
I became a vegetarian
at that young age.
And then we formed
Mercy For Animals
a few years later.
So how old were you when
you actually started it?
I was 15 years old
when we formed
Mercy For Animals.
I saw a need
for an organization
in our local community
to work on behalf
of farmed animals,
these animals
being so abused,
so intensively confined,
having basically no
legal protection from some
of the harshest abuses.
We set out to give
these animals a voice
and have grown to a
national force since then.
There is a reason
why factory farms
and slaughterhouses
keep tight security and
do not allow outsiders
to view what goes on
within their walls.
If people were
to see the mass murder
and obscene torment of
innocent beings occurring
inside, the consumption
of animal products
would quickly end.
Really backbone
to the advocacy work
that we do on behalf
of farmed animals is
undercover investigations,
inside of factory farms,
hatcheries,
and slaughterhouses.
And our investigators go in
and they serve as
the eyes and the ears for
all of us, every consumer.
They go in, they work
side by side with people
in these factory farms
and slaughterhouses
for months on end; they
risk their personal safety,
they give up everything
that they know,
they go in wired
with hidden cameras
and they document
case after case of
routine and systematic
animal cruelty and neglect
in these facilities.
We have entered seven
of the largest egg farms
in the United States
from coast to coast,
and every single time
without exception
our investigators find
just appalling abuse.
We’ve been inside
of the world’s
largest hatchery
and inside of
poultry slaughterhouses.
Inside of these egg farms
our investigators document
the standard confinement
of these birds,
which consist of cages
stacked in tiers,
lined up in rows, in huge
windowless warehouses,
where up to 200,000 birds
are kept in wire cages
that are about the size
of a folded newspaper.
And anywhere
from five to seven birds
are crammed
into these cages.
They can’t
fully spread their wings,
they can’t walk,
they can’t perch,
they can’t dust bathe,
they can’t engage in
the most natural behaviors.
And these birds
as a result,
they lose their feathers,
and they get injuries
and infections.
Their lives are just filled
with the most
harsh treatment
and exploitation that
any of us could imagine.
When they’re about
two years old they’re
ripped out of their cages
and they’re
literally thrown into
metal kill carts, which
are then filled with gas
and the birds are killed.
This is the reality of
modern egg production.
This is how
95% of egg laying hens
live and die.
On the front end
of the egg industry
the male chicks which hatch
are considered useless.
So what happens
in the United States
every single year
is that over 200 million
male chicks
are disposed of.
They’re either thrown
away into trash cans
while they’re still alive,
or as we documented
at the world’s
largest hatchery,
these male chicks
are thrown alive
into grinding machines.
When Stop Animal Cruelty
returns, we will continue
our discussion with
Nathan Runkle, founder
and executive director
of Mercy For Animals.
Please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television.
This is Stop Animal Cruelty
on Supreme Master
Television,
featuring an interview
with Nathan Runkle,
the vegan founder
and executive director
of Mercy For Animals,
a non-profit
animal rights group
based in Chicago, USA.
The organization
was founded in 1999 and
has over 35,000 members
and supporters.
So what has been
the public response
to your work?
People are really kept
largely in the dark
on where
their food comes from,
and that is intentional.
The meat and the dairy
and the egg industries
spend hundreds
of millions of dollars
every year
to convince consumers
that farmed animals
live happy lives out
in open pastures
and they come back
to the big red barn.
But that’s not the case.
The vast majority
of farmed animals
are intensively confined
on factory farms, where
they’re unable to move,
turn around,
and they’re mutilated
without painkillers.
And when people
find out the harsh reality
of these systems
and the fact that
cows, pigs and chickens
are being treated
as little more
than production units
and commodities, not as
the sentient individuals
capable of feeling pain
that they are, people feel
like they’ve been misled
by the meat, dairy
and egg industries.
And the more
that people learn
about these industries
the more they see
that the treatment that
these animals endure
is unacceptable
and it runs against
their most basic needs,
and that most people,
I believe,
are good at heart and
they’re compassionate
and we’re seeing really
a groundswell of people
that are starting
to reject these industries.
The imprisoned animals
are raised under
nightmarish conditions,
with every aspect of
their growth controlled
in order to
maximize profits,
without a thought given
to their desperate cries
that fill the air
asking for mercy.
In many regards
these are almost
“Frankenstein” animals
of what they once were
because they’ve been
genetically manipulated,
they’ve had
their feed manipulated,
their lighting manipulated,
and many of them
are injected
with growth hormones.
So we now see
our broiler chickens
or meat type birds,
going to slaughter when
they’re only 45 days old.
And these birds
have been bred to grow
so large and so fast
they are victims
of their own bodies.
They have
crippling leg deformities.
They have problems
breathing.
Many of them
have heart attacks.
Some studies say that
90% of these birds have
problems even walking.
You look at turkeys,
they suffer the same sort
of problems to the extent
that they can’t even
reproduce naturally.
All of them have to be
artificially inseminated.
Pigs are
artificially inseminated,
dairy cows are
artificially inseminated
and these animals endure
those cycles over and
over and over again until
their bodies can’t take it
and they’re slaughtered.
In 2007,
Mercy For Animals
conducted an
undercover investigation
of the seventh largest
turkey slaughterhouse
in the USA.
What they found
was beyond shocking.
Our investigator gained
employment at the facility
and worked on the
“live hang deck,” which
is where trucks come in
with the birds in crates.
They come from
the turkey farms where
they live in huge sheds
packed wing to wing,
living in their own feces
in these huge windowless
warehouses oftentimes.
And what he documented
is they arrive at this
facility and the workers
take these
frightened birds who are
flailing and screaming,
rip them out by their legs
and snap them
by their fragile limbs into
these moving shackles
which take the birds
upside down, fully
conscious, and still alive
through a process.
And the first stage after
they’ve been slapped
into these moving shackles
is their heads are taken
through a pool
of electrified water.
And what this water does
is it paralyzes the birds
temporarily
so that they can’t move
and then a rotating blade
slits their throat.
And the investigation
found these birds
flailing about, blood
all over their feathers,
and this form of slaughter
is standard.
This is how
the eight billion or more
chickens in this country
and the over 200 million
turkeys in this country
are killed
every single year.
So that’s the day to day
operations at this facility,
subjecting these birds
to enormous cruelty.
One of the problems
with this slaughter system
is that some of these birds
will go into the scalding
hot feather removal tanks
of water while
they’re still conscious
because their throats
either weren’t slit at all or
the birds hadn’t bled out
or they weren’t dead yet
by the time they reached
these tanks of water.
So some of these birds
go into the water
while they’re still alive.
We all have the power to
end the horrendous scenes
we have seen today
that are representative
of what is occurring
all across the world.
Please choose to follow
a compassionate
organic vegan diet
as it ensures
that animals are spared
from being brutalized,
exploited and
violently killed for food.
Our deep appreciation
goes to Nathan Runkle
for being a true hero
and standing up on behalf
of our animal friends.
May all animals on Earth
soon enjoy free and
beautiful lives as a result
of the efforts of groups
like Mercy For Animals
and individuals adopting
the plant-based lifestyle.
For more details on
Mercy For Animals,
please visit
www.MercyForAnimals.org
or
www.ChooseVeg.com
Thank you
for being with us
on today’s program.
Please join us
next Tuesday on
Stop Animal Cruelty
for Part 2 of our interview
with Nathan Runkle.
Coming up next is
Enlightening Entertainment,
after Noteworthy News.
May all life always be
protected and cherished
and receive
the blessings of Heaven.
There are several stories
of how animals
have communicated.
Probably one of the
first things that I heard,
other than my first mare,
was some chickens about
two days after I started
communicating.
Besides being
a gifted telepathic
animal communicator,
Ms. Holly Davis also
has expertise in the field
of Zoopharmacognosy
or the study of animals
self-selecting and
using specific plants
with medicinal properties
for treatment of
their health conditions.
I've primarily
been working with it
with my own horses.
I've been working
with them for about
two years now.
And we've been making
some really
good headway with it.
Please watch
“Soul to Soul: Telepathic
Animal Communicator
Holly Davis –
Parts 1 and 2,”
Friday and Saturday,
May 14 and 15
on Animal World:
Our Co-Inhabitants.
The images
in the following program
are very sensitive
and may be
as disturbing to viewers
as they were to us.
However,
we have to show the truth
about cruelty to animals.
This is an issue that
transcends age, gender,
background, anything,
because
everyone has to eat.
Everyone has to
make food choices.
And our food choices have
profound consequences,
not only on our own
bodies and health,
but on the environment
that we all live in,
the one Earth
that we all share,
and the lives of animals.
Benevolent viewers,
on this week’s edition
of Stop Animal Cruelty,
we feature Part 2
of our interview
with Nathan Runkle,
the courageous
vegan founder
and executive director
of Mercy For Animals,
a non-profit
animal advocacy group
based in Chicago, USA.
The organization
conducts sustained
community outreach efforts
and effective
advertising campaigns
to inform people
of the exploitation and
torture of farm animals
and why we must switch
to a plant-based diet.
Mercy For Animals
also performs
undercover investigations
of factory farms in the US
to bring to light
the unfathomable
barbarism and violence
that occurs in the meat,
dairy and egg industries
on a daily basis.
The footage from our
undercover investigations
really speak for themselves.
And these animals
are living oftentimes
in their own excrement.
And these
inherent problems with
factory farm systems,
when you take hundreds
of thousands of animals
or millions of animals and
confine them intensively
in any given area,
there is bound to be
diseases and infections
that run rampant,
because these are
breeding grounds
for disease and filth.
These animals are all
creating an enormous
amount of excrement
and urine and
oftentimes they’re living
in these conditions and
especially with egg farms,
these birds can develop
eye infections,
sinus infections,
and other sorts of
respiratory problems,
because they’re constantly,
day in and day out,
365 days a year,
having to breathe
in the ammonia and
other sort of toxic fumes
that are being created
by their feces.
A study by
Penn State University, USA
found that pigs
were able to learn
to play computer games
with specially adapted
joysticks within minutes.
Sadly most of
our pig friends are treated
as if they are not even
living beings and eventually
cruelly slaughtered.
Another recent investigation
that we conducted was
at a pig breeding facility
and this was
in Pennsylvania,
one of the largest
pig breeding facilities
in the country; thousands
of sows or mother pigs
locked inside of
two feet wide metal stalls
called gestation crates.
And these stalls are
so restrictive that the sows
can’t turn around,
they can’t even lie down
comfortably.
They’re kept in these stalls
for almost four months
at a time and as a result
many of these pigs
will literally go insane
from a lack of physical
and mental stimulation.
They will
bang their heads up
against the sides
of their cages constantly.
And, these are animals
that are just as intelligent
as dogs and in fact
three year old humans
and they’re deprived
of any stimulation.
They can’t do anything
but take one or two steps
forward or backwards.
He also documented
baby piglets at this facility
being thrown
across the room
like footballs
at the other workers
and them being grabbed
roughly by their ears and
being thrown to carts.
He documented
the standard practice
of mutilating piglets
without a single drop
of painkillers.
The male piglets
have their testicles ripped
out of their bodies,
cutting through their skin
and nerves
without pain relief.
Having their tails cut off
without any painkillers.
These animals
squeal in pain
and fight in terror
as this happens to them.
Our investigator
also documented sows
with untreated infections,
prolapsed uteruses,
broken bones, just a host
of medical emergencies,
and these animals were
denied any meaningful
veterinary care.
And we are led to believe
that these sort of conditions
are in fact very common
and standard
in these industries based on
the various investigations
that we’ve conducted.
Our investigator found
that the sick or injured
piglets at this facility
were not treated
by veterinarians
but in fact they were killed
by being literally thrown
into gassing carts, where
it would take sometimes
up to 10 or 15 minutes
for these animals to die.
They were killed
with carbon dioxide,
which is painful.
It’s acidic for these animals,
essentially suffocation.
And he would find that
many of these animals
would survive the process
and then
have to be gassed again;
it’s extremely fearful
and terrorizing for them.
And this is the ugly face
of intensive agriculture
and this is
what we’re supporting
when we buy pork products.
Globally, over 56 billion
land animals are
mutilated and murdered
each year for food.
The loss of life
in the oceans is also of
unimaginable proportions.
According to
the United Nations,
in 2005, commercial
fishing operations took
90 million tons of fish
from the oceans.
However this huge figure
does not even begin to
give one an idea
of the true
scale of death caused
by the fishing industry.
Fish are just as sentient
and just
as capable of suffering
as any land animal is.
They have the same
capacity to suffer and
deserve protection as well.
And we’re at
a crucial point right now
with dwindling
populations of fish
and this is largely
due to overfishing
and huge trawler nets
which essentially
clearcut the ocean
of all of their life,
sweeping up everyone
and everything
in their path,
because these nets
are indiscriminate.
And factory farming
is taking place with fish
as well.
These animals
are being confined in
crowding concrete troughs
and they’re having
infections and all sorts of
welfare problems as well.
When Stop Animal Cruelty
returns, we will continue
our discussion with
Nathan Runkle, founder
and executive director
of Mercy For Animals.
Please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television.
Our investigator also
documented birds
with broken wings, with
cantaloupe size tumors
on their bodies.
And these are birds
that were sent through
the slaughter process
and potentially going into
the human food supply
as well.
So this investigation
shined a bright spotlight
on the cruel realities of
what takes place behind
the closed doors of our
nation’s slaughterhouses.
This is Stop Animal Cruelty
on Supreme Master
Television,
featuring an interview
with Nathan Runkle,
the vegan founder
and executive director
of Mercy For Animals,
a non-profit
animal rights group
based in Chicago, USA.
The organization
was founded in 1999 and
has over 35,000 members
and supporters.
Factory farm and
slaughterhouse workers
are also casualties
of a bloody
and destructive system.
Studies have found that
these employees experience
higher than average rates
of drug addiction,
alcoholism, violence,
suicide, mental illness
and family disharmony
as compared
to the general population.
They work
day in and day out,
shackling animals,
sending them to their deaths
and slitting their throats.
It’s a violent place to work
and is not only
physically dangerous
and demanding
but it’s also
emotionally damaging
for the workers themselves.
So we see
that slaughterhouses
are not only one of
the most dangerous jobs
in the nation to work at,
but many of the people
that are working there
suffer themselves
from having to
witness so much
cruelty and violence
on a regular basis.
In many ways the workers
in factory farms
and slaughterhouses
are victims
in their own sense.
Many of these individuals
are undocumented workers
who are taking this job
out of desperation.
There are poor
working conditions
and these people
are oftentimes victims
of this out of control
industrial farming as well.
They’re doing
the dirty work that
few people want to do.
And these systems
are inherently cruel
to the animals
because you’re raising
thousands of animals
in intensive confinement,
and it’s just
simply impossible
to provide these animals
with any sort of basic care
that fulfills
their natural needs.
And these people that
work in these facilities
oftentimes
become desensitized to
what’s taking place there,
because they have to,
for the sake of their job,
participate in this abuse
and as a result oftentimes
take out their anger
and frustration
on these animals.
Part of Mercy For Animal’s
mission is to help
expand people’s love
for farm animals.
Mr. Runkle now speaks
about societal attitudes
toward our
fellow sentient beings.
In our society,
often when people
talk about farm animals,
it’s in a derogatory way.
Somebody that may be
lazy or overweight
is called a pig, or somebody
that is shy or fearful
is called a chicken.
And we sort of reduced
farmed animals to something
that we don’t want to be
and is negative.
But the reality is
the more you get to know
farmed animals,
the more you see
that they are every bit as
intelligent and sensitive
and caring of others
of their own species
and other species
as dogs and cats, which
many of us know and love.
And there have been
many animal behaviorists,
and ethologists
that have actually started
to study farm animal
cognition or learning.
And every year
more exciting information
comes out.
So, for example,
what they’re learning
is that chickens have
a language of their own.
We now know of
over 30 different calls
that chickens have.
They have
different inflections
with their way in which
they communicate
with chickens that
they consider to be friends
or that they are
more intimate with.
Mercy for Animals
has saved many victims
of the intensive
animal agriculture system
during the course of its
undercover investigations.
We asked Nathan Runkle
to tell us about
one of the animals
the group liberated.
One case that I think
is particularly telling
is of a hen that
I actually rescued from
a factory farm in Ohio,
and this was a bird
that was thrown away
in a trash can
on an egg farm.
She was still alive; she
was hanging onto her life,
she was left to die
on top of dozens
of other dead birds.
And we were there
documenting the conditions
and I saw this hen
look up from atop this pile
and we took her
out of this bin and
took her to veterinarian
who treated her and
brought her back to health.
And then we moved her
on to a wonderful
farm sanctuary in Ohio
where she is able to
live out the rest of her life.
She is able to
spread her wings
and engage
in natural behaviors and
she has a happy ending.
She serves
as an ambassador
for over 200 million
chicks and hens that
we have to leave behind
in these facilities.
Here are
some final thoughts
from Mr. Runkle on the
unconscionable practice
of factory farming
and how we can end it.
We vote every time
we sit down to eat.
Every time
that we pay for our food
we are paying
for a certain form
of production and
the consequences of that.
So we encourage people
to use your pocketbook,
use your money to vote
in line with your values,
and to vote
for a kinder world,
a more sustainable world
and if we all
started doing that
the accumulative effect
would just be incredible.
We really owe it
to our children and
our children’s children
and future generations
to address this issue now
before it’s too late.
We applaud Nathan Runkle
and the members
and supporters of
Mercy For Animals
who valiantly advocate
on behalf of
our animal friends.
May all animals on Earth
soon enjoy free
and beautiful lives
as a result of the efforts
of groups like
Mercy For Animals
and individuals following
the plant-based diet.
For more details on
Mercy For Animals,
please visit
www.MercyForAnimals.org
or
www.ChooseVeg.com
Thank you
for being with us today
on Stop Animal Cruelty.
Coming up next is
Enlightening Entertainment,
after Noteworthy News.
May we all awaken now
and adopt
the life-affirming
organic vegan lifestyle
to protect the animals,
save humanity,
and preserve
our one and only planet.
In response to disasters
or when someone
has gone missing,
K-9 Search and
Rescue of Texas
goes into action!
The dog will track
or trail the path
or the track that
the person walked,
in order to locate them.
To meet some of
the team’s swift and
intelligent dogs,
join us on
“Devoted Canine Heroes:
K-9 Search and
Rescue of Texas”
Saturday, May 22,
on Animal World:
Our Co-Inhabitants.
The images in the following program
are very sensitive and may be as disturbing to viewers as they were to
us. However, we have to show the truth about cruelty to animals.HOST:
Respected viewers, on this week’s edition of Stop Animal Cruelty, we
meet Nathan Runkle, the courageous vegan founder and executive director
of Mercy For Animals, a non-profit animal advocacy group based in
Chicago, USA.
The organization conducts sustained community
outreach efforts and effective advertising campaigns to inform people of
the exploitation and torture of farm animals and why we must switch to a
plant-based diet.
Mercy For Animals also performs undercover
investigations of factory farms in the US to bring to light the
unfathomable barbarism and violence that occurs in the meat, dairy and
egg industries on a daily basis.
Runkle(m):
We focus on protecting farmed animals because this is the area of
animal abuse in our society where the largest number of animals are
killed and exploited.
Over nine billion cows, pigs and chickens
in the United States are killed for food every year. If we look at the
global level we’re talking about over ５０ billion farmed animals！
And
each one of these animals are unique individuals with their own
personalities and needs and interests. So Mercy For Animals sets out to
expose the cruelty that’s taking place in factory farms and in
slaughterhouses and inspire consumers to adopt a healthy and
compassionate plant based diet.
For more details on Mercy For
Animals,
please visit
www.MercyForAnimals.org or
www.ChooseVeg.com