The animal agriculture industry is shrouded in secrecy. We don’t see where our food
comes from or what the beings who become our meals go through to get to our plates. And
frankly, we don’t want to. But there’s one group that wants to open our eyes and
not look away. They instead go into the belly of the beast and attempt to give some solace,
even if fleeting, to the animals bound for slaughter.
Hi it’s Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome to another vegan nugget. Toronto Pig Save,
and really all of the pig save organizations worldwide do the exact opposite of the vast
majority of the population. They look. They literally look into the eyes of the victims
of our food production because they believe that the very least we can do for the trillions
of animals that we kill every year, is look them in the face and let them know that we see
them, that we’re sorry, and that we’re trying.
I had the honor of speaking with James of Toronto Pig Save, also known as Veganoso on
Twitter, about the importance of bearing witness.
Alright, well James, I want to thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule
to be on the channel.
It’s a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
So, could you tell us a little bit about your own vegan journey?
Yeah, well I moved to Toronto 8 or 9 years ago and I like to mention, there’s
a slaughterhouse downtown Toronto. Me and my wife, girlfriend at the time, we’d
often see these trucks. We’d see the Toronto Pig Save vigils out on Lakeshore when we were out
walking our dog, and it just kind of evoked us to question the choices we’re making
to eat animals. We went vegetarian for a couple of years, unfortunately. But mainly because
we weren’t aware of the cruelty in the dairy industry. I think a lot of people go vegetarian,
they think they’re doing the right thing, not really understanding the full story. That
was it, we both went vegan the same day. After 2 or 3 years of being vegan we both felt that
we needed to do more to get involved in activism for the animals.
Alright, could you first, I guess tell everyone a little bit about Toronto Pig Save
and basically what all of the Pig Save organizations do?
Sure. Well, Toronto Pig Save, it’s a grassroots organization. It was started
in 2010 by our founder Anita Krajnc and she’s a vegan. She was walking along Lakeshore which
is a really busy road here in Toronto, and she saw several trucks go by full of pigs
on their way to the slaughterhouse. And she decided to start a vigil to bear witness to
these pigs in their final moments, and that’s kind of how the organization was born.
So, one of the things that I know you guys do is, obviously one of the main thing
is holding these vigils and there’s a video on YouTube of a Pig Save organization giving
water to these pigs who are their way. Could you talk a little bit about the importance
of holding vigil? Because, some people may argue, ‘okay, how is this actually helping
the animals? They’re going to go and die anyway, so what is this really serving?’.
So, could you speak to that?
Yeah, I think the video you’re referring to, and I think it’s got over a million
views. So, I think that straight away shows the power of these vigils. We take photographs
of the animals at the vigils, and we post them on our instagram accounts or our facebook
account, and it just spreads the message. Lots of people get to see it and we have lots
of conversations on the back of those photographs, and people become vegan as the result of that.
And it’s also really important for the animals. They’re so scared. They’re in such pain,
that they really feel a connection with us, like they know we’re there for them.
They really appreciate it. I mean, you have to experience it to understand that I think.
But yeah, it’s great for the animals and it’s also great to raise awareness of the
problem of animal abuse, and the holocaust that’s going on.
What to you has been, I mean, there might be many but, what has been one of the
most moving experiences you had in one of these vigils?
Well yeah, I mean there are many like, every time you go it’s a fresh experience.
Yesterday we had, well Thursday actually, we had an all day vigil from 7AM - 7PM and
we saw maybe 30-40 trucks each carrying like 200 pigs. And I mean, this slaughterhouse,
it can kill 10,000 pigs a day. And when they stop at the traffic lights, and you’re trying
to give them water. There was this one pig and he was too scared to take water, or water
that I’m trying to give him, and I was just connecting with him. We’re looking into
each others eyes and it was just really really traumatic. A really difficult experience knowing
that he was just going to go around the corner and get his throat slit. It’s just horrific,
but an experience like that happened every single time. We were at a chicken vigil a
couple of weeks ago. The chickens, I mean they cram like 5-10 thousand chickens into
these trucks. And the chickens are so terrified when the workers just pull them out of cages,
and they’re gripping onto their cages so tightly that their feet literally get ripped off.
When the empty trucks were leaving we saw 8 or 9 feet in the trucks and,
like it's just...it's just horrific. It’s absolutely horrific.
For someone who might want to start an organization like this in their area to
hold vigils, how do you recommend they go about it? Is there a way to find where trucks
are going to be stopping along the way to the slaughterhouses?
Yeah, since we started in 2010 save movement has grown, it’s an international
movement now. We have locations in the U.S., in Australia, Brazil. Hope to open one in
the UK soon, and anybody can get involved. It’s a really kind of...like I said, it’s
a grassroots movement where were always looking for new volunteers. We’ve got details on
our website: www.TorontoPigSave.org about how people can get involved. And we can offer
logistics support, any help people need. I mean...my personal experience which brought
me to attending vigils is that I’ve been vegan for 4 ½, 5 years now, and kind of like
the first year I was vegan, it felt amazing. It felt like a weight’s been lifted that I
didn’t know that was there. I just felt really vibrant. And then the longer it went on
the more it weighed on my shoulders, the suffering that’s going on with the animals, and I
came to realize that just being vegan, it’s not enough. People have to do something to
stop this holocaust that’s occurring, and bearing witness, being there for the animals.
That’s a great thing that anybody can do, and I really encourage people to do it, and make a difference.
When you’re going up to these trucks and everything, have you ever had any interaction
with the truck workers themselves or any issues from the truck workers?
Yeah, lots of occasions, and in the general public. Like the vigil 2 days
ago we had lots of people shouting ‘bacon’, that kind of thing. It’s very like being
in a real life vegan sidekick comic. People just shout stuff out at you out the window
of cars. And the slaughterhouse workers as well, when they come out, they kind of make
fun, laugh at us.
Has anyone ever tried to actually impede them from entering?
Yeah, last year we had a day of action where we deliberately blocked the trucks from
going into the slaughterhouse, and I think 6 people got arrested on that day. All the
charges were eventually dropped, but yeah, we have done that, and civil disobedience.
Maybe that’s something we’ll consider in the future as well.
It’s interesting because if you do that in America you can be labelled a terrorist
because we have the American Enterprise Terrorism Act, which is frightening. Honestly, it’s
written so vaguely that I could be [laughs] labelled a terrorist.
Yeah...yeah that’s pretty shocking.
Anyone leafleting could be labelled a terrorist.
Yeah, and we do that as well. At the vigils we have leaflets. We hand them out
to causes that get passed. You know, we’re just trying to spread the vegan message. Just
trying to bring awareness because the disconnect is so strong with people. People really don’t
realize what they’re doing. We’ve being brainwashed since infancy to think that it’s
normal, natural, and necessary to eat these products.
Alright. Well James, I want to thank you so much for your time again and for all
that you do with, you know, holding vigils for these animals.
My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
I hope you enjoyed hearing from James on the importance of bearing witness. You can connect
with him and Toronto Pig Save via the links in the video description below.
I'm personally going to be joining James and Toronto Pig Save on Sept. 24th for one of their vigils.
I would love to have you with me exposing the
hidden world of animal agriculture and showing what really goes on behind closed
doors is a powerful and vital tool for animal liberation. And it gives a voice to the trillions
suffering and dying in the shadows of our society, completely ignored and vehemently
denied by the very people who pay for it to happen.
If we can’t look at the cruelty we are paying to have inflicted, then we have no business
eating it's ultimate “product.”
Now, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this matter. Have you even been to a vigil? If you aren’t
vegan, do you think watching what your food goes through would change your behaviors?
If you are vegan, was this type of action a part of your decision to change?
Let me know in the comments!
If you found this video compelling and of importance, please give it a thumbs up and share
it around to give a voice and a face to the victims of our food industry.
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Now go live vegan, bear witness, and I’ll see you soon.
Her mannerisms and sounds, and everything she does is exactly like a pig.
And yet we collectively eat pigs and love bulldogs.
Doesn't make much sense...
Okay, okay....hold on! Hold on, you get a num-um! Ooby!
I give you a num-um! You did a good job