Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams
November 2018
The slaughterhouse rescue came out of an unlikely friendship between an activist and farmer, and aimed to show the world "that even adversaries can show compassion this holiday season."
In an "act of Thanksgiving mercy" that aimed to show the world "that even
adversaries can show compassion this holiday season," the owner of a Utah
farm on Monday released 100 turkeys to animal rights activists, including
some who face felony charges for investigating his massive turkey farming
operation.
This slaughterhouse rescue was "the result of an unlikely friendship between
Wayne Hsiung, founder of the animal rights network
Direct
Action Everywhere (DxE), and Rick Pitman, owner of Pitman Family Farms,"
according to a DxE statement. The birds will now live out their days at
local animal sanctuaries.
DxE live-streamed the "shocking and heartwarming" event on Facebook.
Last year, DxE activists led by Hsiung documented "intensive confinement,
injuries, and disease" at barns that supply the Moroni, Utah-based Norbest
turkey plant, which Pitman purchased earlier this year. They were charged
with felonies that could lead to years in prison for rescuing three sickly
birds.
"In my 20 years of investigating animal abuse, I've never seen conditions
this horrifying at a corporate farm," Hsiung, a former law professor, told
Glenn Greewald at The Intercept. "We saw animals that looked dead but were
still breathing; animals, languishing, who had virtually been pecked to
death; many animals collapsed on the ground in their own feces and filth. It
was as bad as it gets."
While Pitman, who does not support the felony charges, spared a hundred
birds, the activists shared vegan food with employees and locals at the
event on Monday. As the DxE statement noted, this friendly dynamic was in
stark contrast to another of the group's actions in the state, which also
led to felony charges:
After DxE released an investigation exposing horrific animal cruelty at
Smithfield's Circle Four Farms in Milford, Utah—the largest pig farm in the
U.S.—FBI agents raided farm animal sanctuaries searching for piglets removed
from the farm by activists. Six activists were later charged with multiple
felonies, including a racketeering charge, punishable by up to 60 years in
prison.
The rescue action came as part of the Animal Liberation Western Convergence,
a grassroots animal rights conference that brought together more than 600
activists in Salt Lake City from Friday to Tuesday. Cromwell, Hsiung, and a
crowd of activists on Tuesday brought dead piglets into the Utah's State
Capitol Building in hopes of pressuring top state officials to probe
Smithfield's treatment of animals and drop charges against animal rescuers.