Animal activists come out from undercover

Sarah Kite is a softly-spoken woman in her late fifties. Articulate, thoughtful and measured in her responses, she fits the mould of today’s mainstream image of animal welfare advocacy — only, she has been on the frontline of animal rights since the 1980s. In fact, Sarah played a pivotal role in pioneering the use of undercover investigations in the UK.

She said: “In 1988, I got a job at a major contract testing laboratory, the Huntingdon Research Centre, working with rodents and beagles used in toxicity tests. It was the first major exposé of its kind in the UK and received national newspaper and TV coverage.

“The conditions in which the animals were kept were appalling. The dogs were in barren concrete pens. Every day, chemicals, drugs and household products would be mixed with their food or forced down their throats. One test involved beagles having a chemical rubbed into their shaved backs, which caused them to blister and bleed. There were rats described as ‘rotting, but still alive’ and it was true; they were being poisoned to death. That’s what toxicity testing is.”

Like many animal rights activists, Sarah’s involvement in the movement evolved from a childhood love of animals. After moving to the country, and having her eyes opened to the reality of farming, Sarah became vegetarian aged 12. A few years later, while studying to be a mental health professional, she became involved in animal welfare campaigns and transitioned to veganism.

Following her own undercover work at Huntingdon, she then decided to devote her career to the cause and joined the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) running their investigations department. Today, she works as an adviser for Cruelty Free International (formerly BUAV).

“Huntingdon had a lasting impact on my life,” Sarah admitted. “As a result, I have focused most of my campaigning on animal experiments either inside laboratories or the international trade in primates for research.”

On January 17, following a joint investigation by the German animal rights group Soko Tierschutz and Cruelty Free International, the Laboratory of Pharmacology and Toxicology (LPT) in Mienenbüttel, had its licence revoked. Sarah was among the team that sifted through hours of harrowing footage showing distressed monkeys in neck harnesses being injected.

“There are moments when you can’t believe this is still going on,” Sarah said. “It does get to you. It’s traumatic. But though there have been very low moments, I have never reached the point where I wanted to quit. I don’t think my conscience would allow me to.”

This is a sentiment echoed by Gem de Silva, the executive director of Tracks Investigations, an organisation hired by animal welfare groups to gather the evidence they need to bring about change. It was Gem’s team that helped edit the footage taken inside the German laboratory. It was one of 233 undercover projects so far carried out by Tracks.

“I feel incredibly fortunate to have forged a career out of something I believe in. As I’m an optimist as well as a realist, I may not think the world will stop abusing animals overnight, but change is happening. I am fortunate to be part of that change,” said Gem.

Unlike Sarah, Gem’s involvement in the animal rights movement was more an intellectual decision than an emotional one. Influenced by Anarcho-punk bands such as “Crass” and “Conflict”, he was studying a “radical” geography degree that included Animal Liberation by Peter Singer in its reading list when he came to the understanding that animals have rights. Denying them rights was a form of speciesism and “a logical extension to racism and sexism”.

After university, and time spent as a hunt saboteur, Gem joined an Oxford film and video collective in the late 1980s. His first film was a documentary using factory farm footage, the first of its kind in the UK. Then, after setting up an investigation unit for Compassion in World Farming, and following a stint at BUAV, Gem established his own company in 2006. Shining a light on animal abuse in 52 countries, his work has not only changed attitudes, but laws. Of course, bearing witness to cruelty brings its own difficulties.

“My first investigation was a broiler chicken shed and it still gets to me. Broiler chickens are bred for their meat not eggs. They grow incredibly fast and reach their slaughter weight in just six weeks. If you grew as fast as a chicken you would be 43 stone by the age of two.

“Such quick growth leads to a mountain of health issues such as leg disorders, heart disease and lung problems. Nothing prepares you for what you are about to experience when you enter a factory farm. You’re faced with a sea of white with 20,000 to 30,000 birds crammed into a single shed. The smell is brutal. The ammonia burns your eyes and nostrils, and as I have asthma, I struggle to breathe. The noise is frightening and it’s hard to focus on individual birds. You film a bird whose chest is red, sore and featherless, but you get distracted by another bird struggling to walk or one that can’t stand up, that’s given up the will to live.

“When you get home, you wash, but the smell lingers and the images of suffering are engraved on your retinas. But these images are not mine to keep. It’s my duty to put them out to the world. That’s the life of an investigator.”

This sense of duty is something Claire Palmer, founder of Animal Justice Project, can also relate to, though that’s not to say she doesn’t experience sleepless nights.

Claire said: “I once filmed at a pig farm where there was cannibalism. Seeing animals being eaten alive and knowing you can’t do anything but watch and document it is tough. Sometimes I struggle to sleep at night because it’s those kinds of images that come back to haunt you.”

Like Sarah, Claire has always had a special affinity with animals and it was a childhood discovery that set her on a career path to help them. “At school we had rats and mice and because I liked animals I looked after them every lunchtime and took them home for the summer. Unfortunately, when I took them back to school, they killed them in a dissection experiment. I never forgave myself for not saving them.”

Claire set up her own organisation, Animal Justice Project, in December 2014. Recently, she completed three successful investigations and she is helping the RSPCA compile evidence against an award-winning farm after her team released footage of guinea fowl being plunged into scalding water without being effectively stunned. If the case goes to court it will be the first scalp for AJP, and it’s this chance to make a difference that motivates Claire.

“You exist for the animals so you keep going. But that has had an effect on my mental health,” she said. “Socially, I go out much less, I’m on the computer all the time and I find it hard to form relations with people who aren’t vegan. The last year was particularly taxing, but I don’t know what else I would do now and I wouldn’t want to do anything else.”