Vegan advocate project We Animals has just released a short film called Undercover.
The project, which was set up by Toronto-based photographer Jo-Anne McArthur, documents animals in human environments. According to the group, its goal is to ‘break down the barriers that humans have built which allow us to treat non-human animals as objects and not as sentient beings’.
Undercover work
The film is narrated by former undercover investigator Geoff Regier, who worked in chicken slaughterhouses. He gives his personal account of spending weeks – then years – working as a chicken catcher as well as on the kill floor.
He talks about the birds arriving at the slaughterhouses with broken bones sticking out of their skin or dying of weather exposure.
He also talks about how he became numb after some time: “You stop seeing the suffering.”
The system
We Animals says: “Footage is from filmmaker and We Animals team member Kelly Guerin, who was granted rare full access to film in a chicken slaughterhouse. Guerin’s forensic lens reveals the stark, mechanized workings of the slaughterhouse, and offers an unflinching and intimate look at the birds caught in this system.”
While inside the system, Regier also talks about the people. He says:”Otherwise good people – people with families and senses of humour – are doing terrible things to animals, because that’s how the system is set up.
“The workers hate the job too.”
To find out more – and to watch the film – visit the project’s Facebook page.
READ MORE:
Workers Fired After Undercover Video At Chicken Farm Shows ‘Sadistic’ Abuse