(ominous music)
[Joey] Let's just do it from here.
Alright, Dan?
[Dan] Yeah.
[Joey] All right, the security camera's just there
[Dan] Where those two pillars are?
The gas t*nk though, you've got the big t*nk there.
The gas chamber is, it's more to the right,
it's more towards the puff.
(ominous music)
[Joey] So my heart's pounding.
My body was saying, get the hell out of here.
My worst nightmares were coming through.
I'd have to leave it.
(suspenseful music)
If I'm not willing to risk my life
to expose what's happening to them,
then I don't really care about it enough.
(upbeat music)
You're on private property, bye-bye.
(machine whirring)
(ominous music)
[Joey's Father] Hey Joey, what do you got from there?
So, ever since I was a little kid,
I was always an animal lover, but I really love pigs.
(upbeat music)
Honestly think the catalyst
for me loving pigs so much
was the movie "Babe".
And after watching that I would
always draw pictures of pigs
and I was at school making cutouts of pigs,
and they were just the main
characters in all my drawings.
My name is Joey, I'm from the northern suburbs
of South Australia.
I come from a broken home and my dad left
when I was really young.
From about the age of 14,
I started experimenting with dr*gs.
I started becoming acclimated
to street v*olence actually.
Things progressed, like what happens
is the environment starts to shape you.
The v*olence started to step up a notch as well
and it was just a crazy, crazy world.
'Cause when you start getting
to higher level organized crime,
there's starting to be power struggles,
there starting to be wars on the streets,
and there was sh**t, and
assassinations were happening.
There were stabbings but it was the amount of dr*gs
I was using that started to spiral my mental health.
And it happens over the course of years.
And yeah, so I always had a g*n on me for protection.
You're really stupid if you
didn't actually in that world.
And I remember one night I
was on the run from the police
and they caught up with me at a cheap hotel,
and they found the firearm down my trousers, and bang,
it was the sobriety that prison gave me
that made me start analyzing
my life from a new perspective.
I started seeing that my actions have reactions
and I started thinking to myself,
do I really wanna stay here for the rest of my life?
'Cause that's where I'm going.
(gentle music)
So when I got released from prison,
it was an amazing feeling.
I was like so grateful for my
freedom, and to see my family,
and I just knew what I'd lost,
and I knew what I could lose at that point.
But that sobriety is what made
me change my whole mindset.
I started to really think of my future
and I started thinking, what the g*ng life, not for me.
That was one of the most anxious times in my life
actually being sober and leaving the gangs
and I had an existential crisis.
I didn't know who I was.
I had an identity crisis but I stayed strong
and stayed sober, and that
was the beginning of my new life.
So people might think it's pretty funny
for an ex-g*ng member,
but even to this day I still really love pigs.
You are my favorite animal ever.
Look at you.
Hello, hello.
I just love pigs.
Hey, bud.
Do I get a cuddle?
I love their demeanor.
I love their intelligence.
I love the way that they care for their families.
Some are playful, some are lazy,
and they all have their own unique personalities.
They're all individuals.
What do you know about pigs?
[Interviewee 1] They're cute when they're small,
and they trot around and stuff.
[Joey] They're cute.
Let's see, pigs are a domestic and wild animal.
They're found throughout the world
and people think they're dirty
but they're actually quite clean.
They got a curly tail.
A little like noses.
They've got a language of their own.
Have many varieties and colors.
[Joey] So what do you know about pigs?
They live in pens and we tend to eat a lot of them.
I don't know much about pig.
I know you can get the most meat off of them.
(ominous music)
Easy to keep good for sausages, bacon.
[Joey] What many people don't know about pigs
is everything that happens to them in order to end up
on the supermarket shelf.
I can't blame anyone for not knowing.
I had been fooled for most of my life,
but when I found out what was really going on,
I had to do everything in my power to expose it.
(ominous music)
The majority of pigs in the
UK are k*lled in gas chambers.
The meat industry say it's humane,
but they definitely don't want the public to see
what's going on inside of them.
(ominous music)
No one has ever planted cameras
inside of a UK gas chamber.
I needed to change that,
but it would be the most dangerous thing
I've ever attempted in my life.
For months I studied gas chamber blueprints.
I had to consider so many different variables.
Any mistake could be fatal.
(ominous music)
I couldn't do this alone.
So I asked my partner Tarion
to come along for the journey
and I turned to Dan to go in as an undercover employee.
Put a ladder here.
This here is the access point.
And then we will climb up there
and walk across the roof to the stairwell.
Yeah, there's a stairwell, external stairwell.
Once we get on there, then it's just a walk around
and then the pigs are here.
So I'm 53 years old, you know what I mean?
I should be sat at home in me slippers and my pipe now.
But I need to do it.
I need to do it.
I spent 48 years of my life paying for this abuse.
So I've got a lot of karma to pay back.
You know what I mean?
A lot of karma to pay back.
And this is the only way I know how to do it.
Because we know what's happening to the animals,
we can't just sit by and let that happen.
We have to do everything in our power to help them.
Joey started planning this
even before we met in 2019
when he first told me about it all,
I was like, you are planning to do what?
It was just so many things to think about
and it was something that
we were discussing every night
and every day for almost a year.
So if God forsake anything does happen,
most I can do is ring 999.
He looks like a Frank.
You look like a Frank.
I wouldn't get away with Frank.
He's Frank all over.
You get away with Benny though.
Yeah, you definitely get away with Benny.
I'm a Benny.
Yeah, you look like a Benny.
(ominous music)
This one is yours.
(ominous music)
So that's my lifeline.
(ominous music)
We wear these and then we wear the hats.
Mask.
Yeah, we've gotta be carrying that.
(ominous music)
Test, test check.
(ominous music)
When Joey and I first met, I didn't know
that he was a well-known activist
and when we were getting to know each other
I learned all about his background,
how he turned his life around
and began his work for animals.
Animals do not want to die.
It's just the world we live in.
It's a frustrating situation not being able to run
and help these pigs.
But the best way we can help is to advocate for them
and be their voice.
And things have stepped up and stepped up
as I've been an activist over the years,
and I keep pushing the envelope.
Understand that the language
of what they're trying to
say but suffering is universal.
You can see in their eyes.
So in 2015, Animal Liberation Victoria
released an investigation into the gas chambers
in Victoria, Australia.
[Reporter] The action coincided
with the release of footage, the group claims
shows abuse in the pork industry.
Members say it's part of a two-year investigation
where one of the activists
infiltrated a gas chamber.
That was the first time I'd ever seen pigs
in gas chambers.
And it was extremely shocking to me.
I didn't even know they were using these machines.
I'd heard about them in history,
I didn't know they were using 'em on animals.
And the idea you get when you hear about,
oh, the meat industry used gas chambers
is they must be using some type of sleeping gas.
So it must be painless.
And it's the impression that the marketing
of the meat gives you.
It's like well it's humane slaughter,
but that's not the case.
I did center my activism around gas chambers
from that point onwards.
It would be one of my main talking points
because to me I couldn't believe these machines
actually existed to k*ll these intelligent beings.
Do you know about gas chamber in the meat industry?
Gas chambers?
Not in the meat industry, no.
Do you know about gas chambers?
Yeah.
For pigs?
Ah, really?
I thought you were talking
about the Second World w*r
or something.
Yeah, but.
Oh, I didn't know.
I don't know anything about it
but I rather not know really
'cause it's pretty nasty, innit really?
They gas the pigs?
Yeah.
Do you know anything about CO2 gas chambers?
Yeah.
See this is why we're talking to people actually,
'cause a lot of people don't know.
No.
[Joey] The first gas chamber was designed in the 1850s
by the British physician, Benjamin Ward Richardson.
In 1952 with the rise of factory farming,
Hormel Foods introduced the
concept of CO2 gas stunning
to the meat industry in the
USA, the practice was adopted
by the famous wiener manufacturer, Oscar Mayer,
notorious for advertising
their product to children
Oh, I'd love to be an Oscar Mayer wiener
By 1970, CO2 was introduced in Europe
and in 1988 gas chamber manufacturer, Butina,
had a hundred installations across the EU.
Right from the outset,
the industry promoted this method as humane.
This pamphlet from the seventies claimed
that the animals are gently put to sleep.
So gas chambers are used across the world
on many different species of animals.
The spent egg-laying hens will be gassed.
The little male chicks that don't make it
to the egg industry will be gassed.
We got chickens in the meat industry are gassed.
Turkeys as well are gassed.
There's also sometimes it's used on salmon and fish.
But the main method for pigs across Australia,
the US, Europe, and the UK is a CO2 gas chamber.
Is there a humane way to do this?
How would you feel if you were used for your body,
confined into a cage, and the only thing
you had to look forward to at the end of your life
is a gas chamber?
So when I found out about the chambers,
I started campaigning in Australia
and then I took it to the world stage, and went to the UK,
and done a lot of campaigns over there.
I've been in slaughterhouse myself.
I've been out the front of gas chambers in Manchester,
and hearing pigs scream for their lives.
High-welfare slaughter is a fairytale,
that is nonsense.
But everything sort of went up a notch
when I come across this notorious
gas chamber in Manchester.
(ominous music)
Pilgrim's Pride is owned
by the Brazilian multinational giant JBS,
the world's largest meat producer.
Its customers include
just about every major
supermarket chain you can think of,
plus several fast food outlets.
On the Manchester site alone, some three-quarters
of a million pigs are gassed and k*lled each year.
It has been a focus of a lot
of animal rights protestors
over the years.
A lot of people know about this place.
(ominous music)
It's actually notorious
because it's located smack bang
in a suburban area.
There's actually a path
that goes down the back of the chamber
where people walk their dogs
and you can hear the pigs screaming
and it's really haunting.
(pigs screaming)
[Dog walker] You know the screams are pigs.
[Joey] Yeah.
[Dog Walker 2] Well, yeah,
but mom used to like vegetarian food as well.
[Dog walker] I used to, I told you my mom used to live
in the third house on there.
[Joey] Yeah.
[Dog walker] I used to see 'em queuing up.
[Joey] Yeah.
[Dog walker] They was screaming.
[Dog Walker 2] I used to live on Wall Street,
and the trucks had come,
and I could hear from my bedroom window,
the pigs would wake us up about seven in the morning,
screaming.
[Dog walker] Yeah.
[Dog Walker 2] And then my mum said to me,
they know they're gonna die.
[Dog walker] Of course, they do,
they know it's coming.
They can sense it, yeah.
I had that thought to myself,
I thought if I really care about these animals,
these animals have to experience that terror
before they go down into
that gas, and they're screaming,
and they're like little infants in their mind.
They don't understand, and they scream in terror,
and beg for mercy and no one cares.
And I heard those screams for so many years
and I thought they have to experience
a horrible factory farm and go into this death pit.
And if I'm not willing to risk my life
to expose what's happening to them,
then I don't really care about it enough.
And that's sort of the way I evaluated it in my mind.
I was like, I've gotta do this.
I have to do this.
And it was something inside of me pushing me to do it.
(pigs screaming)
(ominous music)
Placing cameras inside of these chambers
wasn't gonna be easy.
That slaughterhouse is very secure.
There's workers there 24/7,
there's CCTV that's constantly operating
and there are security guards on site.
Get out.
You're on private property.
Bye-Bye.
Private property
Bye-Bye.
They wouldn't let someone
like me get a job at this place.
I'm a well-known person.
I've got a large social media presence
so I couldn't be the one to go into this place.
So the plan was we needed a worker to go in there,
do some groundwork, find out about the place.
I can't do everything,
but I had a pretty good person in mind who could.
Breaking news and some activists
have chained themselves off
and caused a total shutdown.
The police are there.
So we're gonna see how close we can get.
See if we can get some footage.
Maybe go live on Instagram.
[Police Officer] Stay back a bit.
[Dan] Alright.
You don't need to touch me, mate.
I just thought he's really courageous
and he'd be the perfect person to go in undercover.
Okay.
So I went for the induction.
What I did find funny was the woman
who was taking the induction,
she talked about the vegan
activists outside, who protest.
And I've been one of those a few times over the months.
And then she turned around and she said,
but don't worry there's a lot of security at this place.
So there'd be no vegan activists
getting inside the factory.
Boop, she looked right at me
and I just couldn't help but smile.
And I'm here, I'm already here, girl.
So this is where the pigs are kept.
The pigs were kept in horrible dirty conditions.
As you can hear they're screaming.
They were scared.
(pigs screaming)
I'm going to try and hide this camera somewhere.
They were kept in rooms right next to the gas chamber.
So they come up here, come up this ramp,
come into the gas chamber here.
(pigs screaming)
They come out the gas chamber there,
which is right next door to where the pigs are kept,
and this is the fell floor.
Yeah, it's not very nice work at all.
The induction itself gave me a bit of indication
about what type of people that they employ.
People who haven't got any qualifications,
can only basic reading and writing skills,
which it isn't a bad thing.
I don't see that as a bad thing,
but it just speaks volumes about the type of work.
People who work in slaughterhouses
when they're engaging in the k*lling
or harmful behavior towards animals.
That's quite a traumatic experience,
especially if they have high
empathy towards animals.
And that traumatic experience
can lead to mental health difficulties.
So people who work in slaughterhouses
are significantly more likely
to experience depression,
anxiety, and other mental health difficulties
where they're now having to work out a way to cope
with those experiences so
that they can get the job done.
Being low-income workers,
they don't feel like they can leave this job
and go and do something else.
They have to find a way to get through it.
Yeah.
So animals are the primary
victims of slaughterhouses,
but the workers there are also affected.
My research focuses on the social
and psychological factors
associated with why people harm animals.
But more recently I've become
interested in this paradox
of people who can legally k*ll animals
and whether that's a psychological harm on them.
So you can have two people
who commit the exact same act.
One will be a cow, one will be a dog, but one will be paid
and one will be convicted of offense.
What you'll find is that
there are typically two types
of people who work in slaughterhouses.
You'll have the one type
where they are self-selecting
that form of employment.
There's something about
working in a slaughterhouse
that draws them in.
Unfortunately, they tend to be the type of people
who want to act out their aggression.
They wanna act out more
antisocial ideas in that environment
and they get paid to do that.
The other type are the people who probably
would be considered a bit more vulnerable
because they've been trying to get employment
in any sphere that they can.
But the slaughterhouse is the one opportunity
that they've been successful in gaining
and as a result they are not coming in with the idea
to harm animals or k*ll animals,
they just know that this is a job
where they're gonna have to do this.
Not understanding what impact it might have on them
and their wider family.
I worked at the slaughterhouse in Manchester.
For me, it would've been the last place I wanted to work,
but because I was on such hard times, I needed the job.
My misses were pregnant and was about to have a baby.
So for me, it wasn't a second guess of a question that,
yes, on Monday I start there.
So I started on a Monday.
(ominous music)
You walk in and the first thing you see
is piglets hanging from the ceiling
and hooks going through the skin.
And below them is just a river bed of blood
that's just flowing all the way through the abattoir.
And in the background, you can hear the piglets
squealing for their lives.
And it was our job to remove the pig's toenails
and to burn, singe the hair off.
And we'd rotate, me and this lad, and I seen
and witnessed one of them
rip pig's eyeball out of its head
and kick it across the abattoir floor.
And they all just started
laughing between each other.
Nobody stood back in horror
and went, what are you doing?
They become so desensitized to it.
They're there every day, a lot of them 12 hours a day.
They have been for 20 years.
I had to run out of the abattoir and ring my partner
and say, I can't physically do this.
It's not right.
The screaming I feel stays with me.
But even more so than the eye.
I know that doesn't sound the best,
but just hearing them, it's
like hearing a person scream
before they're k*lled.
They just echo through the abattoir
and it's something of nightmares.
(pigs screaming)
Hearts, lungs, guts.
Yeah, I work in slaughterhouses.
And I would be assessing for disease,
any issues within the carcass
and looking at the tails.
And sometimes you'd end up going down to the gut room
and looking at how many
worms were coming out and stuff.
You're quite a pivotal role as a vet in the industry
in that you work with Red
Tractor, RSPCA, laboratories,
pharmaceutical companies, nutritionists,
geneticists, and of course, the producers.
And then four years I spent as a pig vet,
so commercial pig vet.
And that involved working
with hundreds of Britain's farms
covering a huge area of England.
I mean they stink as well, these places,
you can smell the fear, the gut contents,
the excrement, the blood, like hot blood,
burning skin and hair.
Yeah, the slaughterhouse work
has obviously stayed with me
for some time.
Working in slaughterhouses
is quite a traumatic experience.
There's no amount of
preparation that people can have,
even though they're going in
knowing that they're gonna k*ll animals.
But once you walk through
the door, all the sensory stimuli
that you experience is overwhelming.
And so as much as possible to keep,
maintain that employment,
people will develop these coping mechanisms
to look after themselves.
Unfortunately, they can be quite problematic
like dr*gs or alcohol.
This could spill out in terms of aggression
and v*olence in their personal lives.
That could be in their homes
or it could be out amongst others.
I often drive by the slaughterhouse
but I live five minutes up the road.
So every time I do it takes me back to that place
of where I can hear them screams,
I can see that river of blood,
I can see them people abusing the carcasses
and it's not nice, it stays with me.
It stays with me every day.
I'm already here, girl.
So then she talked about the shifts
and she said there's a hygiene team that worked
from four till midnight, which
I jumped up straight away,
I says, I'll do that.
She was so happy
because nobody wants to do that job you see.
(ominous music)
To be honest with you,
this was the first major investigation I directed.
So I was a little bit out of my depth,
but I gave Dan some hidden cameras to start planting.
Then on the following Monday I started,
so what I did in the first
week was I started walking in
and looking at places to place my camera
and then just making a move towards them,
and looking suspicious, and climbing on things,
and looking over things.
And I did this every day to see
that if I got pulled in the office and I never did.
So that was that, everything was set in place.
(ominous music)
So Dan was looking for an opportunity
to start placing these cameras and he ended up
placing them in a pretty good positions.
(ominous music)
Yeah.
So Dan first got me the k*ll floor footage
and when I saw it, I was like wow,
we've really got a glimpse from inside of here.
There'll be someone there
slapping the pigs on the back
and pushing 'em into another compartment
and then a mechanical door pushes them in.
It's all machines and pushing
these sentient conscious beings
into this sort of death chamber.
And then the door comes closing down behind the pigs.
(ominous music)
I could see the footage
that he got from the k*ll floor.
It's just something out of a horror story.
These poor little childlike beings being strung up
and stabbed to death all day.
Thousands of them.
The pigs, their dead, lifeless bodies
being dragged out by their little trotters
and hanging down there.
It's just a pool of blood.
And then, but I needed Dan to to get a glimpse
of inside the chamber.
So I only asked them to put a
camera on the top of the hatch
to get a glimpse of what happens
to the pigs from the top.
(ominous music)
I looked in that gas chamber and it's really deep.
I mean I was even going to plant a camera in the bottom
of the gas chamber and when I lifted the hatch
and stuck my head and I could just smell the gas
and I went dizzy instantly.
And I put that down, I thought no.
Sod that, no way.
(pigs screaming)
What we're looking at here is the top
of a two-story gas chamber sunk into the ground.
A carousel system of cages
takes the animals from the top
right down to the bottom where the concentration
of CO2 gas is deadliest.
So you can see the pigs going in,
you can see them from the top there.
There's just one extra part we needed
and that was inside the chambers
to see what actually happens to their behavior
when they're in that gas.
But it's not gonna be easy either
to get a camera inside the cage.
It's another level of risk.
So you couldn't just do it as a worker in there
and messing around on a ladder.
It was something that needed a lot of planning.
We needed to take in so many different variables,
there were so many different
things that could go wrong.
Yeah, so this is the-
I can't work that out.
So while planning the next phase of the mission,
I wanted to hear from the
people who were still involved
with the use of gas chambers.
I wanted to see why they
were still using gas chambers
to k*ll pigs.
(ominous music)
Especially, since the science on CO2 being so cruel
had been around for decades.
So it ended up, we reached
out to around 40 organizations
including 12 animal research scientists.
And either no one got back at all
or people were just trying to handball us off
to other organizations.
But finally, there was a breakthrough.
The first to respond to our requests
were some members involved with animal welfare
For more than quarter of a century,
scientists have been clear that high levels
of carbon dioxide for k*lling pigs
causes severe respiratory distress.
And that the animals show a profound aversion
to that k*lling method.
And this was not only the case
from independent scientists,
but the method has also been condemned
by the UK's only government's
farm animal welfare council,
way back in 2003.
The European Union's own scientific committee,
EFSA, condemned it in 2004
and reaffirmed that condemnation in 2020.
The science is clear.
k*lling pigs using carbon
dioxide is absolutely inhumane.
CO2 is currently used
because it's in the legislation.
The Animal Welfare Committee does not have a remit
on what goes into legislation and what doesn't.
We only advise what could be in the legislation
and what doesn't.
So clearly we said in 2003 that
CO2 was not the best method
for using for the stunning pigs
and that we should phase it out if at all possible.
That this cruel and
scientifically condemned method
by scientist after scientist is now being adopted
by the industry in the UK and internationally
as the humane way to k*ll pigs.
Why is that?
Because they can k*ll more pigs
in the same premises at a lower cost.
Yeah.
So in 2003, the Animal Welfare Committee,
who are an arm of Defra called
for a ban on CO2 gas chambers
and they wanted that implemented
within the next five years.
But that never happened.
Our recommendation is to Defra
and Defra's minister obviously
receives that information
and then can advise what action should be taken.
Alright.
I think maybe 'cause we're in
London, we should go to Defra.
So it'd been four months and we still hadn't gotten
a response from these organizations,
and I just got so sick of being hand-balled around
and there was only one thing left to do.
This is Defra.
[Security Guard] Hey.
Hey, mate.
And a security guard stopped us out in the front
and said no, you can't film in here.
Is this Defra here?
[Security Guard] You can't film this in this bit.
You've gotta stay there.
Oh, that's all right.
Do you wanna pass a message on
that we are making a documentary,
we want to speak to someone from the Defra office?
I dunno how you do it, but-
Oh, we're just gonna be filming out here anyway.
No worries.
[Security Guard] Thank you.
(buzzer ringing)
So we rang the buzzer
at the British Meat Processes Association
and no one was there.
[BMPA Employee] You've reached
the British Meat Processes Association,
how can I help you?
We're just making an independent documentary
on the meat industry and we've been trying to email
to get someone from the industry to make a statement.
Pilgrim's didn't get back to us either,
so we decided to visit them at their headquarters.
We've got a bunch of people making comments
and we don't have the other side making any comment.
Have a seat.
Yeah.
[Pilgrim's Pride Employee] Sorry, who are you?
My name's Joe.
We're making a film on pig welfare, CO2, have mentioned.
Are you filming with that camera at the moment?
We wanna ask those who
pride themselves on high-welfare
and use gas chambers, why they use gas chambers,
why they use CO2?
[BMPA Employee] Well, I
think it's fairly well documented
that it's one of the humane methods of slaughter?
Well, it's humane slaughter.
[BMPA Employee] But actually,
we're all working from home,
so unfortunately, there isn't anybody in the office.
So yeah, well, they actually tried to get us in touch
with the Farm Animal Welfare
Council but when we reached out
to you guys for an interview.
So clearly we said thousand in 2003.
But the Farm Animal Welfare
Council, they actually called
for a ban of CO2 gas chambers back in 2003.
[BMPA Employee] I hadn't been aware.
We declined to give a comment.
Why is that?
But we really wanna ask you
because you only use gas chambers here.
[Pilgrim's Pride Employee] Yep.
And you're predominantly pigs.
[Pilgrim's Pride Employee] And I think
it's widely accepted that gas stunning
is currently the most humane
way of stunning animals.
Again humane slaughter.
[Pilgrim's Pride Employee] And I know
that there's a huge amount of research
going into alternative methods at the moment.
When you say it's the most humane method currently,
but you're looking for alternatives,
why are you still k*lling pigs
if you know that that method is cruel?
We told you we're making a documentary
so there's no suspicion of us being a thr*at.
There's no crime being committed.
She looks like who works there, hey?
But it turns out that the way that DEFRA greeted us
was with armed police.
[Police Officer 2] But essentially, if we suspect you
of suspicious behavior, which I'm being honest.
But we told 'em we're filming a documentary,
they do legislation for the meat industry.
[Police Officer 2] Oh okay.
[Joey] So we're investigating the meat industry.
[Police Officer 2] Yeah.
We went to Defra see if anyone would come out
'cause we tried to email them, call them.
So we thought we're in the area.
We'll go film a scene out the front of there.
[Police Officer 2] Yeah.
They told the police that we were trying to encroach
on the building so they lied to the police.
We had nothing to hide.
We showed 'em the footage.
We're just there to do an interview basically.
Yeah, the police were just really nice.
But wish I could say the same for Defra.
[Police Officer 2] Take care.
[Joey] Take care, mate.
No worries, mate.
[Police Officer 2] Enjoy your late lunch.
[Joey] Thank you, mate.
Appreciate it.
See you, buddy.
The following week we did get
a written response from Defra.
We are committed to
ensuring all animals are treated
with the utmost respect at all stages of life.
However, the government
recognizes that high concentrations
of carbon dioxide are aversive to pigs.
And alternative stunning methods
that can replace this in a commercial environment
need to be found.
So this was the UK government telling me
that they treat animals with the utmost respect.
How is it respectful to put these conscious,
intelligent beings in a CO2 gas chamber
that they know scientifically
causes them immense suffering and fear?
How on earth is that respect?
They also mentioned the classic line
about UK farming industry.
"The government has a strong track record
for raising the bar when it
comes to welfare measures."
This messaging is repeated over and over
by industry spokespeople
until it sinks into the minds of the public.
When you think of UK farming, like what comes to mind?
Free-range farms and everything like that.
So pretty good on the most parts of things.
So UK is some of the highest
standards in the world maybe?
I would say so for sure.
Yeah.
When you're in Tesco, you ever see green grass
and the animals in the grass and stuff like that?
Yeah.
And what does that tell you?
Gives it a good picture.
Mr. Speaker, The conservatives
were elected on a manifesto
with commitments on animal
welfare and the environment.
And so some of the highest animal welfare standards
in the world.
Not only will we protect animal welfare standards.
The UK has the highest animal welfare standards.
And we are committing to maintaining
our high standards on animal animal welfare.
We will be able to increase
our animal welfare standards.
That will mean that Britain sets the gold standard
for animal welfare and for
protection of animals overall.
We will not compromise on animal welfare.
That means that if anyone
abuses animals in their care
or is cruel to another animal,
then they can face up to five years in jail.
So the phrase the UK has some
of the highest welfare standards in the world,
it's something you'll hear a lot.
And one of the biggest perpetrators
of this propaganda from the industry
are a group called Red Tractor.
[Narrator] So just by looking for the Red Tractor,
you can see that it was
produced to British standards
and is British food.
[Narrator 2] All Red Tractor animals are treated
with compassion and have everything they need
for a good quality of life.
[Narrator 3] For peace of mind
about what goes on your table
when you shop, just look for the Red Tractor label.
At this point, Red Tractor are a joke.
They've been exposed that many times
that I can't believe they still exist.
But it's almost like they get exposed.
They're all over the newspapers
for being incredibly egregiously cruel to animals.
And Red Tractor put out some PR spiel going,
oh, you know, we care about animal welfare,
we take it very seriously and then it just goes away
and people forget about it.
But at this point, Red Tractor
are like a really low benchmark
for animal welfare actually.
(crowd singing indistinctly)
I believe this is the offices here.
There's another one that says feeding ignorance,
which is true.
Red Tractor feed ignorance
because no one ever looks into it.
So many exposes of Red Tractor farms
have come from an organization called Viva!,
founded by Juliet Gellatley.
My degree is in zoology.
And I have been studying the
impacts of farming on animals
and the wider impacts for a few decades.
Red Tractor is set up by farming groups.
Its guarantors are people
like the National Farmers Union,
Dairy UK.
It is set up by farmers, for farmers.
There is no independent scrutiny.
[Joey] Around 95% of UK pigs are Red Tractor assured
In the industry, essentially, self-policing.
You don't have a government oversight,
you don't have any independent body going in there
that is solely focused on the welfare of animals.
They are all schemes to
market products essentially.
And pretty much every supermarket uses Red Tractor
as a way of saying to the public,
hey, this meat has come from an animal
that's being kept in high-welfare conditions.
And guess what?
It's British so it must be good.
(ominous music)
They really need somebody who knows about pigs,
cares about welfare, isn't financially invested
in any of it just to be rocking
up on farms without notice.
(ominous music)
[Joey] Yeah.
So I did some undercover work
during the making of the film
and I've visited a Red Tractor-approved pig farm
multiple times.
From the farms that I've seen myself,
which are many across the UK.
Viva! must have filmed
in maybe a hundred different pig farms.
The legal requirements for farmed animals in the UK
is appallingly low.
Yeah, Phoenix the hedgehog.
Copy that.
We're gonna make our way over now.
(ominous music)
I usually have a backup team with me just in case
an irate farmer comes out with a shotgun
'cause you never know when
you are actually trespassing
on these farms.
Check this out, she's just given birth.
There's umbilical cord, dead
piglets after birth everywhere
and there's a piglet here having some type of seizure.
It looks like the mother's
about to birth more piglets.
These poor, poor, intelligent feeling beings.
What does it say about us as a species
that we can do this to motherhood.
It's supposed to be a time of celebration and joy.
This is actually a dead piglet inside of a sack.
Pigs that are pregnant I have seen in a sanctuary.
And they go along
collecting all these different nesting materials
and the other pigs in their family help them.
You can sense that excitement
and that joy at the prospect.
And we've just degraded it into something
that's there to make money for people.
[Joey] Look at her.
They can never do their nesting behavior.
They've got nothing to
actually build the materials with.
And then they're giving birth into feces often.
This little baby is still moving
and her siblings that are stepping all over her.
The bars prevent them from doing basic mothering
to their own babies.
And again and again, in pretty much every farm
I've ever filmed in, you will see the dead
left with the living.
Poor darling, look.
They are shown no compassion.
They are left there to give birth all night.
There was no carer there.
I was in there for three hours and no one came.
So these piglets are there suffering
in this horrible factory farm.
And then their babies are taken away at just three
to four weeks old, where they're given nothing.
And I mean nothing.
They never see sunshine,
they never feel the rain on
their back, they never play.
Play's really important to pigs.
And they cannot develop normally without it.
And so it develops aggression and lots of problems
that go with that.
And by six months old, they're sent to slaughter
and that is all, that's what
the human race gives to them.
[Joey] Around 11 million pigs are slaughtered
in the UK each year.
On top of that, if you work
back with the mortality rates,
there will be 2 million pigs that don't make it
from birth to slaughter at five or six months old.
And here's the last one, more after birth,
piglets, suffered mother, abomination.
And for the mothers themselves,
imagine the psychological impact of repeatedly
having your babies taken away.
So remember, these are one
of the most intelligent animals
on the planet.
They know they're going
through the whole process again,
and that they're gonna be put in a cage again,
and they're gonna have their babies taken away again.
And that is the repeated life
of a factory-farmed mother pig.
And is she rewarded at the end of it.
No.
When she gets to four to five years old,
so the number of piglets she produces starts to fall,
she's then slaughtered for cheap meat.
You look at the face of the
mothers and it is heartbreaking.
We should be ashamed that we are still doing this,
civilized society today that should know better.
And this is the norm.
My God.
Yeah.
So I went into another shed
and the piglets were a little bit older,
they were more like little toddlers at that stage,
cute little puppy dogs.
And I was looking down at their little beady eyes
looking up at me and they just looked so adorable.
And I just thought about the fate that awaited them
and it started to make me feel really sick actually.
So I had another plan.
Rescuing pigs isn't straightforward,
their experiences with humans haven't been good.
(somber music)
I had to pick up a pig and the piglet was screaming.
It's okay.
So I had to comfort this
piglet and just like a little baby,
they calmed down and then I put them in the bag.
(somber music)
I didn't want to just rescue one pig
because they need a companion.
And I didn't want 'em to be scared or sad.
So I had to get another one.
(somber music)
Again, I reached down to grab another one
and had to calm the other one
down and put them in the bag.
(somber music)
But then what you notice is there's hundreds
of other piglets in there.
And the bittersweet part about rescuing animals
is you can't rescue them all.
So it's a reality check that most of those animals
won't make it out alive
and they'll have to continue to suffer.
(somber music)
It's okay, babies, freedom.
(somber music)
Beautiful.
And they won't have to go to the gas chamber.
So two survivors.
(somber music)
So in the UK, there are charities set up specifically
to prevent cruelty to animals.
And why weren't more of 'em speaking out
against the use of CO2,
particularly the world's oldest
and largest animal welfare charity, the RSPCA,
the Royal Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
And they had Queen Elizabeth, as their patron.
Legislation will also be brought forward
to ensure the United Kingdom has and promotes
the highest standards of animal welfare.
The high-welfare rhetoric is so ingrained,
even the queen herself used it in parliament.
What's the RSPCA?
It's the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals.
Who are the RSPCA?
Are they like the police for animals or is that?
[Joey] Yeah, that's close.
That's close.
Animal protection services.
Yeah, go on.
Okay.
The RSPCA is set up to protect animals,
to prevent cruelty to animals.
Love, sweet love.
And when people think of the RSPCA,
they think, oh, they look after dogs and cats.
They rescue dogs and cats,
and you might see them
looking after a starving horse.
So when they think of the RSPCA, they think,
oh, well they take care of animals.
Specific animals.
Do you know much about the RSPCA?
Quite a bit because I do support them.
I do send them money.
[Joey] Send them money?
Because they do, I think they do a brilliant job
with lost animals and animals
that haven't been very well treated.
Yeah, like dogs, and cats, and horses.
Yeah, any.
Our cats came from them.
Oh really?
When their name goes on something,
there's an a*t*matic assumption
that it's high-welfare in some kind of way.
And so they're manipulating the public's perception
of what it is that they're buying.
Outdoor bred pork RSPCA Assured.
More pork, RSPCA Assured.
RSPCA Assured.
And what would it tell you?
What would the logo tell you?
I just hope that it would mean
that the animal has been
treated in a better condition,
had a better life in comparison to the other option.
Okay.
Well, you'd think that the animals
have been better looked after.
They've not been mistreated,
they've not been cruelly treated.
[Joey] Okay.
I don't know.
'Cause RSPPCA are people that protect animals,
but if that was on, if it was on the meat
then how's that fair?
'Cause you're k*lling that animal then.
Well, that's taking an animal's life, innit?
Oh, that's made me think a little bit.
Okay, go on.
Okay.
No, well, I'm not even trying here, you're going there.
So when it comes to discriminating between species
of animals, like a dog should be valued
and the pig should be on a plate.
The RSPCA are a big culprit here.
They sort of perpetuate
how you treat a dog differently
as you treat a pig.
Why wouldn't you eat the dog meat?
Tell me.
Because I've never had a dog.
But I really like dogs.
I'm sure if I'd spent loads of time with pigs in my life
and I knew loads of people with pet pigs
that I thought were really cute,
then I'd have more of a thing against eating pigs.
(ominous music)
So the closest most people come to pigs
is when they see them in the supermarket chopped up
and wrapped in cellophane on the shelf.
Most people haven't gone to a sanctuary
and connected with a pig.
Most people have never been inside a factory farm
and connected with a pig or connected with a pig
on a truck outside of a slaughterhouse.
So if that's the closest people have come to pigs,
you can see how they'd have this level of disconnect
and how they would just see pigs as food.
They all have different expressions.
Some are more scared than the others,
some are more curious, some
just look tired and relaxed.
Others just look terrified and worried.
They all have different faces and personalities.
For me and another activist
who have been out the front
of slaughterhouses looking
into the eyes of these animals
who have been inside farms
and witnessing their suffering
and been on sanctuaries and seeing their behavior,
and how playful and curious they are, just like dogs.
It's impossible for us
to see these sentient conscious creatures as food.
We are born into this world
and we learn everything about the world.
We learn about plants, and about colors,
and about the way the world works,
and we learn about animals too.
But as children, we really care about all animals.
But we're always taught that the dogs and cats at home
are to be loved, and cared for, and cherished.
But the pigs, and the cows, and the chickens
are to be chopped up and put on our plate.
'Cause when they look down
at their plate, what do they see?
They see chicken or they see
a fish finger or they see ham
and there might be a picture
of a pig on that packet of ham.
And as we grow up, society confirms that to us,
advertising we see fish fingers, and burgers,
and they are discriminating between these animals
based on species.
And these aren't morally relevant differences.
What's morally relevant are
the fact that both these animals
are conscious beings who don't want to die.
That's why they both deserve equal treatment.
But that's not the case in society.
(gentle music)
Pigs are naturally very inquisitive animals
and I mean they're incredibly intelligent animals
and they can see what's happening, smell, feel.
They are very social and they are easy to train.
Exactly the same as dogs.
There's a lot of evidence
for how complex the behavior
and the learning ability of pigs is.
And one of the things which we did was to see
whether they could learn what you see in a mirror
and they learn what is in a mirror is over here
and not over there.
And they use the information
and in fact, there's only a limited number of animals
where that has been demonstrated.
[Narrator 4] This is hamlet.
(playful music)
He's amazed animal psychologists,
by learning a computer game
designed for chimpanzees,
Hamlet has to move the cursor into the blue area
around the screen.
When he does, he gets a sweet.
The scientists make it
progressively harder for Hamlet,
yet he succeeds every time.
[Scientist] Oh, good boy, that was good.
Pigs have been shown in
studies to have the intelligence,
the cognitive capacity of a 4-year-old human.
They outstrip dogs in a lot of tests.
We've seen pigs painting pictures on the internet
and doing puzzles that you would expect a child
to struggle with and they're doing it with ease.
You can train them to do a lot of things
at least as well as dogs can.
I'm doing a PhD here at the department
and specifically, we compare how dogs and pigs
communicate with humans.
And you might think why pigs,
they are like super different from dogs.
But interestingly, they shared
common things with dogs
that make them perfect
for our comparative research.
What was very surprising for me, first of all,
is to discover that they can
really adapt to a human family.
There is a tendency for people, for humans
to act as though no other species
has any significant ability
and that humans are enormously different.
But actually the more you look at other species,
you find that the similarities are far greater
than the differences.
And all the animals we keep as farm animals
or pets are really quite sophisticated.
So once people understand
how smart pigs actually are,
they'll then begin to understand how aware they are
of when something bad is going to happen to them.
You look at them in a slaughterhouse situation,
they experience emotional contagion
so they can empathize with those around them.
So hearing those sounds,
smelling what they're smelling,
and the fact that they are
aware enough to kind of process
what might be happening there is really,
it's an awful thought, I think.
If I'm gonna sell you something, right,
and you'd feel guilty if you knew,
what would I say to you to make you buy it?
Stick a free-range label on there,
that probably would help the
consumer willingness to pay
and willingness to continue buying that product.
[Joey] If you like seeing some meat
and one said British-made bacon
and one said free-range, what would you choose?
Free-range.
Yeah, same.
I would feel probably
better about a free-range label.
Free-range kind of gives me the idea that, yeah,
they've got more space to roam around.
A little bit more like open pasture,
a little bit more quality of life
before they get turned into bacon.
Companies tell us that it's all hunky dory
and everything's fine,
easily, they could be lying to us
and we could just eat it up.
The public perception of a free-range farm
would be what you see on the labels.
So a big stretch of field, lovely grass or plants
with all these little pigs
running around quite happily.
I decided to go check out a free-range farm.
I'd never been to one before
and I wanted to go see for myself what it was like.
Approaching this free-range farm, it was idyllic.
The hills were rolling in green,
and you could see pigs from the highway playing,
and they had a lot more room.
It was a stark contrast from
the factory farms I'd been to.
So basically, we kept driving
till we found an entrance.
(gentle music)
As we walked up.
I did not expect to see what we witnessed.
Oh god.
(ominous music)
Oh no, oh God.
(ominous music)
It's okay, sweetie.
She's cold and scared.
It's okay, darling.
This is absolutely shocking and sickening.
How long has this pig been here like this for?
This is gross animal neglect.
This is sickening animal cruelty.
It's okay.
(somber music)
[Tarion] Oh my god.
It stinks man.
This smells like dead bodies and rotten feces.
It's really, it's horrible here.
[Tarion] Oh my God.
The diarrhea.
Just diarrhea just squirting out.
(somber music)
Yeah, they've all got these hernias, man, hey.
(somber music)
She's got blood all over her.
It looks like there's blood here.
There's blood on this pig's face.
I felt helpless there.
To think that anyone could leave
animals suffering like that.
And you think like, what have
they done to deserve that?
I've seen all of that before.
All the different manifestations
of sick and dying pigs.
Incredibly common to see that.
The stench, pigs are coughing.
They've got like pneumonia or something.
They look really sick.
(somber music)
This baby is really sick.
She's gasping and she's struggling to breathe.
It's okay.
It's okay, sweetie.
I know.
They were coughing and wheezing.
It was just heartbreaking these little pigs.
Little family being very protective
over this little sick piglet here,
you can see she's suffering.
(somber music)
I think the RSPCA sold out years ago
where farmed animals are concerned.
They're not even taking court prosecutions now
for farmed animals.
They pass it on to trading standards.
The RSPCA do very little to protect farmed animals,
which is staggering really.
We see ourselves as a nation of animal lovers
and yet the animals that we abuse by far the most
have almost no protection.
There's about five or six animals here
that desperately need help right now.
[Tarion] There's so many.
(somber music)
If there's a dead bin here,
they're doing the k*lling from down here.
(somber music)
[Tarion] Jesus Christ.
After witnessing what we saw on this farm,
we decided to launch a
full-scale investigation there.
So we also visited other sites connected to the farm.
[Tarion] Oh my God.
[Joey] Oh my God, that's all foaming and worse.
This is absolutely sickening.
[Tarion] Oh God.
Oh God.
It's the cheapest way to deal with animals
that are not economically viable.
That is absolutely gross.
(ominous music)
That was sick.
So about 15 minutes into our first visit,
we did set up surveillance cameras.
Blunt force trauma up until
very recently used to be legal
for piglets under 10 kilos.
So swinging them by the back
legs and smashing the skull,
you now have to use an instrument for any pig
over four weeks old or over 10 kilos,
you have to use a bolt g*n is the most common thing,
so penetrative, because they have very tough skulls.
Yeah, it's not acceptable to
use blunt force trauma at all.
Particularly a pig over 10 kilos,
it's never been acceptable.
Okay, so we left the camera pointing at this animal
who was paralyzed.
We've got a worker on site.
It is 7:26.
(ominous music)
(pig screaming)
He's got a metal bar.
(pig screaming)
(ominous music)
He's still going.
He's hurt his leg.
We have got you, you scumbag.
Instead of getting vet care for this animal,
they've grabbed an iron bar
and bludgeoned this animal in their head.
How shocking.
It was pretty logical to assume
they've all been beaten to death
because they were suffering and sick.
There's no mercy, no help, no vet care, just an iron bar.
Ruthless, savage, sickening.
No wonder those pigs were
so protective of each other.
No wonder they were trying
to protect each other from,
they thought that we might do the same thing.
They're very smart animals, pigs,
they're very smart animals.
And here he comes again.
Wow.
What a monster.
No help for this animal.
Just a bar to death.
(tractor engine humming)
Absolutely shocking.
(tractor engine humming)
Absolutely just.
But one of the most shocking things about it all
was that the owner of this farm
was named Farmer of the Year.
His photos have appeared across media outlets
where he and his company have been celebrated
for receiving various awards,
including one from the RSPCA.
But if this is an award-winning company,
I wonder what the ones that don't get awards look like.
The free-range label doesn't have a legal definition.
So there's not very much
transparency with the public
is what I'd say in terms of labeling.
It's not that clear what you're actually getting.
We later found out that this site is connected
to multiple major pig
producers, including Pilgrim's UK.
And that the pigs raised there
are actually destined for their gas chambers.
(suspenseful music)
So at about 2:00 AM, me and Dan
dressed as maintenance contract workers,
made our way around the back of the slaughterhouse.
Like we're actually doing this now.
We had ladders and a big bag of equipment,
oxygen t*nk, harnesses, everything.
It was heavy.
[Dan] We got us on the fire escape and that was part one.
And we start walking now
in the slaughterhouse grounds.
(suspenseful music)
[Dan] That was where everything could go wrong
from that point onward, if we got pulled by anybody,
anybody saw us, people could recognize me.
(suspenseful music)
So we get into the door, and there's a washroom,
and the taps are running.
(suspenseful music)
I said, Joe, they're a*t*matic taps,
as soon as anybody walks in front of these taps,
these taps come on.
So we're freaking out a little bit
because if we'd been a few minutes earlier,
we would've run straight into one of the workers.
(suspenseful music)
And then we had the plastic see-through curtains
and that was the final little
bit before the gas chamber.
So I put my head through there, there was nobody there.
Straight through, right on,
right again to the gas chamber.
(suspenseful music)
We get to the gas chamber and I'm just like, thank God.
Because once we get to that gas chamber,
we're kind of half safe from getting caught.
We can climb up on the top of it and keep our heads down.
Just hope to God no one sees us on top of that thing.
(suspenseful music)
[Dan] Gets on top, lifts the lid and that was it.
You could see right into the gas chamber.
This is the thing, right?
No one had stepped onto that cage yet.
I didn't know whether, if I stepped onto that cage
it was just gonna start moving
and drop me straight down
to the bottom.
I didn't know whether the gas was invisible.
I didn't know if I was gonna
start getting dizzy in there.
My main concern was once Joe stepped on that
to be ready to grab him, if it started moving.
But I stepped onto the cage, it didn't move.
Took a breath in of air and I was also relieved
that there wasn't, from what I could feel,
much gas in the chamber.
(suspenseful music)
My heart is like rushing.
And I had to focus
because I had to start connecting secret cameras
to the cages.
(suspenseful music)
First of all, I needed to fix a camera to the top part
of the cage, pointing in.
To me that was the most important view.
'cause we wanted to see what happened to the pigs
as they went down into the gas.
And I set another one up pointing into the front
of the other side of the cage.
These cages rotate, so it's like Russian roulette.
So in order for me to quickly
know where the cages were
that had the cameras on them I used the white marker
and marked the top of the cages.
(suspenseful music)
And then I wanted to set one up
underneath one of the gondolas, the big cages,
so that it would follow the
cage below it and film the pigs.
(suspenseful music)
And then I thought, what if someone switches it on?
I'm sat on this cage with
machinery, and cogs, and chains.
Joel's lied on this grill
with his arm underneath one of these cages.
If this started, Joe would get his arm ripped off,
I'd get crushed into the ceiling.
So that's it.
Heart's going, I'm worrying.
I'm stressed, I'm listening.
(suspenseful music)
I then all of a sudden.
(machine whirring)
Super loud.
I'm just like, I look up at Dan like,
they just turned that gas chamber on?
What is that?
Dan's freaking out.
I was just waiting for things to start turning.
There's nothing I could do.
Started again.
Joel starts getting the camera, put it on.
(machine whirring)
Three times that happened.
(suspenseful music)
[Joey] So my heart's pounding.
My body was saying, get the hell out of here.
Don't think I'm gonna be able to reach that man, eh?
Yeah, but my mind was saying, stay,
you have to finish this mission.
So I just pushed the fear in the back of my mind
and just kept placing cameras.
(machine whirring)
(suspenseful music)
The fourth camera, I placed on the fly-walk,
this central platform in the
middle of the gas chamber
so that no matter what, we would get a view
of the animals going down into the gas.
And I would always be able to retrieve it.
(ominous music)
Now, we had to get outta that place without being seen.
We had to get outta that place without being caught.
(ominous music)
So we start walking across the k*ll floor again.
Luckily, there's no one there.
We go back into the washroom, there's no one in there.
[Dan] We goes past the taps,
we goes through the corridor,
out the door.
[Joey] And we make our way outside.
Like huge sense of relief.
[Dan] That is like, whoa.
Yes, we've done it.
We've done it.
Yes.
But obviously it wasn't over yet.
Oh, fantastic.
We're not there yet.
Yeah.
The retrieval is gonna be-
It's gonna be a bastard
It's gonna be a bit scarier.
Yeah.
I didn't feel any better actually,
because that was like the easier part of the mission.
The harder part would be retrieving.
And if those cages had got to the bottom
and Joey had to climb down
there and go down the ladder
and into the gas, that was a deadly zone to be in.
We've attached all four cameras
and we've made it back safely,
which is an amazing result.
But for now, we just gotta try to calm down
because tomorrow's the big day retrieving,
and that's the more dangerous day.
We need that footage.
We need them cameras to have worked.
We need those cameras to got what we wanted to get.
Now I feel like we're just one step away.
What if I told you that the RSPCA,
that they put their stamp of approval on pigs
that are k*lled in these chambers.
Would that make you think that the gas
was more actually humane?
I'd absolutely think so.
Yeah.
[Joey] Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
If they've got the RSPCA stamp on it,
I'd think it's more ethically correct.
[Joey] Yeah.
What would you believe if you're seeing
just a couple of packages with RSPCA or whatever?
Yeah.
You wouldn't feel as guilty about it, would you?
Yeah.
So the RSPCA had been misleading the public,
their assured logo has been put on meat
from pigs k*lled in gas chambers for years.
I needed clarification.
So I began searching their website
and surprisingly it was easier
to find recipes for bacon than their position on CO2.
We found out there was a massive farming convention
and because they'd been declining our interviews,
we decided to go in undercover as consultants.
Okay.
That's good.
Acting for the farming division of Pilgrim's BQP,
Tarion and I got passes to a major industry event
where they were due to have a stall.
It looked like just about every organization
we'd been ignored and turned down by were there.
But today was about just one.
Here we go.
RSPCA Assured.
Dedicated to farm animal welfare
and CO2 gas chambers apparently.
You work for the RSPCA Assured?
[RSPCA Employee] Yes.
Yeah.
[Joey] Oh, cool.
[RSPCA Employee] Uh, BQP?
[Joey] Yeah.
Yeah.
[RSPCA Employee] Nice.
[Joey] We've had a few consumer concerns
and they were talking about CO2 gas.
[RSPCA Employee] We don't do that anymore.
We've now moved away from that completely.
[Joey] RSPCA Assured then?
[RSPCA Employee] Yeah.
[Joey] Oh really?
[RSPCA Employee] Yeah.
Well, I mean, we're dedicated to farming welfare.
We wouldn't want anything bad to be happening
to any animals, if we can.
[Joey] Well, the main thing question would be
that the welfare concerns are being handled
on the ground with farming.
[RSPCA Employee] Yeah.
[Joey] But in the slaughter, in the abattoirs.
[RSPCA Employee] Yeah.
[Joey] There's still the CO2 issue.
[RSPCA Employee] Okay, cool.
I'll go grab, Barry, he's an abattoir expert.
You bear with me.
[Barry] Who do you work with at BQP?
[Joey] We are consultants.
[Barry] You're consultants for BQP?
[Joey] What we wanted to know is RSPCA will assure
the meat that comes from the pigs
that are k*lled in CO2 chambers still?
Is that true?
[Barry] I dunno 'cause I'm part of certification.
I'm just more interested in
where you work at BQP that's all.
Are you part of BQP as well?
[Tarion] Yeah.
[Barry] Who do you work with at BQP?
[Joey] Why so many questions.
[Barry] Because BQP don't exist anymore, that's why.
[Joey] Yes, we do.
[Barry] Right.
Okay.
[Joey] We still supply Pilgrim's Pride at Manchester
and there's a CO2 unit there
and RSPCA-approved pigs will go to their chambers.
[Barry] RSPCA don't run the abattoirs.
So you'd be better off
speaking to the abattoir people.
[Joey] No.
Yeah.
But you work for RSPCA Assured this label is on bacon.
Right?
These pigs go into gas chambers and they,
have you seen footage from inside of there?
Inside of CO2 gas chambers.
And what did you think about, what did you think?
They're suffering in the gas chambers.
[Barry] How do you know they're suffering?
[Joey] They are definitely suffering.
I would encourage you to watch the footage,
but the stamp is being put on the bacon
from pigs that go to the gas chambers.
And you told me
that they don't use gas chambers anymore, RSPCA.
[RSPCA Employee] Sorry, what?
I'm lost, buddy.
[Joey] That's okay.
We're just asking simple questions.
That's all.
[Barry] So am I.
What's the name of your company.
[Joey] We told you we told you BQP?
No.
You said you're doing consultancy for BQP.
[Joey] Yeah.
So freelancing.
[Barry] Yeah.
So what's the name of your freelance company?
Freelancing.
I don't have to give you all my personal information.
[Barry] No, no.
[Joey] We're just simply asking questions
'cause RSPCA are a big
organization, charity organization,
and we wanna know about
why they're still approving gas chambers.
That's all.
Just a simple question.
We're just inquiring about animal welfare, that's all,
as a concerned consumer.
But no one seems to have answers.
[RSPCA Employee] You seem to have a lot of information.
I'm not sure what answers you're looking for.
[Joey] Well, but basically simple question.
It's why do RSPCA assured still put their logo
on pigs that are k*lled in CO2 gas
after they've called for a ban.
[RSPCA Employee] So, what I'm gonna do
is I'm gonna take your
question and your contact details.
[Joey] Why were they getting so defensive
when I was just asking simple questions
about their own guidelines?
I know it's a lot of pressure for you, mate,
but we just wanting to know, that's all.
It made me feel like they were holding back.
I would say the RSPCA in its duty
and I think in the public eye,
the public would expect the RSPCA
to actually protect animals.
I think them signing off on a source method,
which is known to be causing pain and distress
on a massive scale.
We're talking millions and millions of animals
suffering like this every year.
I think that's false advertising for one.
But I think it's also quite awful.
Like I would implore any policy-maker at the RSPCA
to sit through that footage of pigs in gas chambers
and not change that policy.
Finally, the RSPCA did get back to us.
"We are keen to see more humane methods developed,
including the commercial use of inert gases,
which are not adversive to pigs.
Currently, high concentrations of CO2
or electric stunning
are the only commercially
viable methods available for pigs.
So more research and development is needed
into more humane alternatives,
"which will require significant investment."
So why on Earth was a charity that's set up
to protect animals so concerned
with what's commercially viable.
That's like a human rights organization
prioritizing corporate profit
over the rights of people.
We found out that the RSPCA
has a technical advisory board
that sets a standard for their assured label.
And guess who's on it?
About a half a dozen representatives
from major players in the pork industry,
including a pig breeding company,
a major pork producer, Pilgrim's Pride.
So a charity that's set up to protect animals
also consults meat producers
on how best to k*ll them.
And it gets worse.
I also learned that the RSPCA gets paid by farmers
to be a part of their assured scheme.
But most shockingly, the
RSPCA receives a percentage
from the sold products.
This means the more assured meat that's sold,
the more money they make.
And this amounted to 4.5 million pounds in 2021.
This isn't just a conflict
of interest, this is a sellout.
So after the convention,
RSPCA had conveniently updated their website
to include their position on CO2 gassing,
they apparently use 90% concentration of gas
other than the legal requirement of 80%.
Because in their words it causes less suffering.
So do you think they just fall asleep,
sort of just go to sleep in the gas,
like a sleeping gas kind of thing?
It's not something I like to think about.
Yeah.
I would like to think it was-
[Joey] Just gentle.
Just going to the dentist and just.
[Joey] Yeah.
But I don't think it probably is.
[Joey] Do you think they feel anything?
Do you think it's a pleasant experience or just?
Probably not.
Probably not a pleasant experience though.
No.
Because think about it.
If we was to get our oxygen taken away,
then it takes us a while for us to die
from asphyxiation, innit?
[Joey] Yeah.
So I don't know.
It just so happens that the
gas chamber at Pilgrim's Pride
conforms to the RSPCA standard.
So I think it's about time consumers got to see
what they were paying extra for.
(suspenseful music)
Well, it's either I put the goggles on my head
or I have the headlamp on.
'Cause this is what's gonna save my butt.
The tension in the room,
you could cut it with a Kn*fe.
It's called a lifesaver.
I look calm on the outside,
but on the inside I am terrified.
I can hold that onto the ladder
while I'm reaching around, grabbing stuff, you know?
And I'm gonna need this more tonight
because I'll be going down into the gas, potentially.
The most bizarre feeling though.
Haven't felt anything like it before.
Hoping that the chambers are at the top.
(suspenseful music)
Camera needs to be ready to rock.
(suspenseful music)
Okay.
Clipboard?
[Joey] Clipboard is here.
When he was walking out of the door at the house,
there was a very strong possibility
that I would never see him again.
You ready?
Yeah.
(suspenseful music)
Alright, here we go.
Round two.
[Dan] Round two, piece of piss.
[Joey] Let's get this sh*t.
[Dan] Piece of piss.
[Joey] If I have to put my oxygen t*nk on,
I'll put the t*nk on.
So basically we made our way back the same way,
I was thinking we're gonna get caught, this is it.
(suspenseful music)
[Dan] They might have sussed us out,
they might have found the cameras,
they might have the cameras in the office
and the police there waiting for us.
It's just like there were so many things
that could go wrong.
(suspenseful music)
[Joey] Dan's in front of me and he gets to the door
and he just stops.
Gets to the door, peeks through.
There's someone there.
And that was it, I just froze.
I just thought like, we're
dressed as maintenance workers,
let's just give it a cr*ck.
[Joey] Let's go.
And then Joey just walked straight past me
and walks right through the door.
And that was it.
I had to follow him.
That was it.
We walked through the door, McGaffey's there,
who'd known me for nearly three and a half weeks
when I worked there, he looked straight me in the eye
and I just looked straight ahead, carried on walking,
[Joey] Streamlined straight to the gas chamber,
still thinking he's gonna yell out, stop.
[Dan] Walk around the corner and I just thought
please don't follow us.
Please don't follow us.
But I didn't wanna look round.
'Cause if you start looking
round, you look suspicious.
(suspenseful music)
[Joey] We get to the gas chamber again,
climb up the ladder.
Gets on top of the gas chamber,
and then I just glanced over
and I could, nobody's followed us.
Nobody's followed us.
We're fine, we're great.
So Dan opens up the hatch and I was like, oh my God,
the chamber's filled with gas.
It was like a thick silvery mist and it shocked me.
So below the fly-walk is where the gas is.
So I had to be extremely
careful not to do anything stupid.
(suspenseful music)
He wasn't climbing in, I noticed something.
It's like there's a haze, there's mist and it's pungent.
(ominous music)
And then I began the mission
of pulling off the cameras.
I retrieved the first camera.
It's underneath the fly-walk quite easy.
The second camera I grabbed was at the top.
So I just pulled it off by the lens and chuck in the bag.
The other top camera, which
is an important camera to grab,
was in the second level.
And that's the death zone.
So I had to get the oxygen t*nk on.
I get my goggles on and I start squeezing my body down
this little gap to get down
and wrap myself around to get to the ladder.
(suspenseful music)
This is a two-story drop below us.
There's gas.
And my worst nightmares were coming through.
He would have to go down that ladder.
And if anything happened, I would have to leave him.
I quickly stepped down, I step onto the second cage,
and I grab the lens.
And now there's gas, I'm smothered in gas,
there's gas all around me.
And I begin bringing gas in through my goggles
and I'm bringing it into my nose,
and it's going into my eyes, and it's fizzing in my eyes,
and it's starting to burn.
And I begin to hyperventilate.
I couldn't go after him.
I couldn't go and see if he was all right.
I couldn't help in any way.
I just had to sit there and wait.
And it was like an eternity.
It was like, it just went on forever.
So I'm thinking, God, I've got this camera in my hand.
I've got these goggles filled with gas,
and I've gotta reach back up to the ladder,
compose myself and start
pulling myself back up this ladder.
[Dan] He comes stomping up and he is hyperventilating.
He can't breathe.
He's panicking, he's shaking.
Just trying to get some oxygen back into me actually,
put the third camera in the bag.
And there was one more to get.
(ominous music)
This was the bottom camera, but it had swapped sides.
And now it was a lot harder to get.
(ominous music)
I'm lying on the fly-walk, still a bit dizzy,
reaching out to this camera, trying to pull it off.
And it's caked in feces and urine.
It's just really slippery.
And my little arms aren't long enough
and I'm trying to pull this camera off
and I keep slipping and slipping,
and I just can't get a good grip.
(suspenseful music)
We need every single one of these cameras
in case one has failed.
So we can't just leave a camera here.
(suspenseful music)
So obviously, you needed someone with longer hands.
(Joey and Dan speaking indistinctly)
[Dan] All right.
Be careful, Dan.
(suspenseful music)
And then he laid down on the fly-walk
and I'm there on top of him holding him
by his waistband like this.
I can smell the gas again.
(suspenseful music)
I gets down and gets my arm underneath
and I can just get my fingertips
on the edge of this block,
which is the camera.
And then I'm thinking, what if I drop the camera,
the footage, it's gonna go down to the bottom,
it's gonna hit the deck
and we're not gonna be able to get it back.
So I grabs it, it's slippery, it's sliding.
I pulls it and I thought, I'm just gonna have to go for it.
There's another way.
And just pulled it and it came away.
Yeah, got it.
But it was far from over because then, of course,
we have to get out.
(suspenseful music)
So we get outta the gas chamber, we go down the ladder.
And I just thought to myself,
there is no power on earth
that will get these cameras off of me.
Like you will have to k*ll me
to get these cameras off of me
after all we've just been through.
(suspenseful music)
If anybody caught us, we had a plan,
just run like hell and get out of there.
That was it.
That was the plan.
That's all we needed to do.
(suspenseful music)
Walks back through, who was there still, McGaffey.
So we had masks on,
but I just distinctly remember
he looked up at me again,
but he couldn't see it.
But I had a big massive grin on my face
and I just nodded at him.
And then we walked out through the door.
(suspenseful music)
[Joey] So head down and just walk straight out of there
with a bag filled with four cameras
of secretly filmed gas chamber footage.
The first of its kind in the UK.
(suspenseful music)
We've done it.
We've done it.
All those times I'd spent outside of that gas chamber
in Manchester, just right
there in the park by the wall.
And I was convinced
that what was going on in there was horrible.
Now we had the footage, and that footage does not lie.
The industry may lie to you,
but this footage is the truth.
Now, no one from the UK can ever apply the word humane
to these gas chambers ever again.
Now, there was no denying it.
(suspenseful music)
(machine whirring)
(pigs screaming)
[Philip] What carbon dioxide does
is it makes the pigs have a deeply aversive reaction.
The chamber starts turning,
and as soon as they hit that second level,
they start freaking out, struggling,
desperately trying to escape.
They can't get any oxygen.
They look like they're suffering.
They start to hyperventilate.
They feel like they can't breathe.
The carbon dioxide then gets into their eyes,
their nostrils, their lungs,
they're burning from the inside out.
And these animals are terrified,
in most hideous pain and suffering.
And that goes on for 15 seconds, 30 seconds,
up to a minute or more.
(pigs screaming)
That is what some tried to describe
as humane slaughter.
[BMPA Employee] Fairly well documented that it's one
of the humane methods of slaughter.
[Narrator] All Red Tractor animals
are treated with compassion.
[Pilgrim's Pride Employee] The gas stunning
is currently the most humane
way of stunning animals.
[Theresa May] Be able to do that and maintain
those high standards and quality standards
for which we have a very good
reputation across the world.
We all know it's wrong.
We all know slaughterhouses are bad.
That's why no one wants to look at the footage.
And we all know it's not humane.
[Philip] Carbon dioxide, k*lling of pigs
is non-stun slaughter of the worst kind.
(pigs screaming)
This footage is so clear.
Just the innocent animal is
just desperately gasping for air
and flailing about in pain.
It's something nightmares are made of.
Couldn't be more cruel to the pigs
if you just cut their throats
and just left them to die.
Jesus.
When they get down into the gas, see, it's moving down.
Oh.
You'll see when they start to react.
Absolutely unbelievable.
Oh my God.
That's horrific, man.
That's absolutely, that's barbaric to a point.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, that's awful.
Can we stop with that one, please?
Yeah, no, I don't agree with that.
That's awful.
That is so cruel.
And in fact, it's upset me watching that.
The most appropriate thing
would be to stop k*lling pigs.
If you can't do it in a way
that's not gonna cause extreme suffering,
which I think the consumer expects.
They're given this humane
slaughter lie, essentially.
So if we can't do that,
we absolutely shouldn't be slaughtering pigs at all.
So theoretically, what humane alternatives to CO2
would the AWC like to see in the future?
We don't know what the answer is.
And there's work going on at the moment
on the use of nitrogen foams.
But if we knew what the answer was,
I can assure you we would've recommended
that it had to be in place now.
Until there is an alternative available
wouldn't the recommendation be
to just stop k*lling pigs altogether?
I thought you might ask that.
We've had the problem, haven't we?
I can only say that I'm not here to make any comment
about people's lifestyle and people's choices.
I'm here that people farm and therefore,
while people are farming, I believe those animals
must have a good life and a good end.
But just from the AWCs position,
wouldn't they just advise the government
you should stop k*lling pigs immediately
because they're suffering
horribly in these chambers?
No, we haven't advised that.
And I don't think that comes under our remit.
Even as advice.
Even as advice
The industry know there's no humane, humane,
viable method of slaughter at the moment.
But economically, that's what we've got.
A possible alternatives may
be using a non-aversive gas
to render the animal unconscious, argon, for example.
I've known researchers
looking into alternatives to this
and stopping eating pigs and poultry as a result.
Even the ones they're trialing as a better option
are absolutely horrendous.
And CO2 is worse.
Other examples, electrical stunning,
which has its own problems.
They're getting a shock
through their brain and their body.
That's not at all acceptable.
I'd really like to expand on it a bit
because the conversation
usually is steered towards trying
to find the right way to k*ll.
Wouldn't the most humane thing be
to not k*ll the animals at all.
Through the animal's eyes
their life is just as precious
and important to them as your life is to you
or mine is to me.
If you wouldn't trade places
with an animal in a slaughterhouse
to be humanely slaughtered,
I think that will tell you
everything you need to know
about whether or not it is justified
to do this to these innocent beings.
The word humane slaughter,
what do you think of that word?
It's a non sequitur.
The two don't go together.
You can't treat someone humane
and then slaughter them, you know?
Well, how can it be humane if it's a slaughter,
that's impossible.
They don't go together.
Come on.
That's just another way to pull the wool over our eyes.
It's all about finance.
So the word humane means to show compassion,
kindness, or benevolence.
How can you be kind to an animal
when you are robbing them of their existence?
Animals have a desire to live.
They want to continue their experience.
And whenever you are thinking about what's humane,
what's not humane,
try to put yourself in the victim's position.
If you didn't feel any pain before you were k*lled,
would it be morally acceptable to k*ll you?
That's a question people have to ask themselves.
And especially for something as trivial as a flavor.
Ask yourself this, is the fleeting satisfaction,
the fleeting taste pleasure
you get from eating an animal
worth more to you than an animal's entire existence
is worth to them.
You have to weigh that up.
I don't think there's any
such thing as humane slaughter.
Those animals do not want to die.
They are full of life, and curiosity,
emotionally sensitive beings
who want to explore the world.
How can something be humane
when you are taking from an animal
the thing that is the most precious to any animal,
including us, is our life?
Humane Slaughter Association.
What a joke.
There is no such thing.
It's us trying to fool ourselves that we can be kind
to animals by k*lling them,
by actually taking their life.
This decision isn't about survival.
This isn't life or death, it is for the animals.
But it's really just a choice
of changing to a plant-based product for us.
And just because we've done something
for a long period of time,
that doesn't mean we should continue to do it.
There's a lot of bad things
that have happened throughout history
and just because they're part of traditions
or have been passed down through generations,
that doesn't mean we have a moral justification
to continue doing them.
Just as we believe that all humans deserve
to be treated with dignity, respect, and compassion,
we should also extend
that same moral consideration to animals.
All sentient beings, no matter their species
deserve to have rights
protecting them from enslavement,
exploitation, abuse, and m*rder.
You're here.
Come on.
So immediately after I rescued
the piggies from the farm,
we took them straight away to a safe place.
Awaiting them was basically a new home
where they could be with their own kind
and they can just live out their lives
and do all the things pigs love to do,
nuzzle in the ground, and play with hay,
and eat all the lovely foods.
So yeah, it was a very wholesome moment.
There you go.
There you go.
(inspirational music)
Just like a puppy.
I feel you never see what's wrong with it
until you see it and witness it.
And I would've never have
thought I would've been a vegan.
It never crossed my mind.
My parents and nobody I know is, really.
But that turned me,
that turned me the complete opposite way.
No longer eat meat at all.
And witness what I've witnessed it isn't a nice thing
and I wouldn't wish that on anybody
to witness what I've witnessed.
But I feel people do need to
realize what we're consuming,
[Joey] So three months
after I'd rescued the two piglets,
we visited the animal sanctuary
that was now their home.
They had a surrogate mother
and they were free to run around and play.
[Tarion] It's so funny.
Can we think for ourselves
and actually think, okay, yeah,
we've been doing it this way
for a while, but actually we are healthier as a vegan.
We have a chance to save the planet,
reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
reduce wildlife extinctions by going vegan.
And we don't have to actually
k*ll these creatures at all
and put them through this absolute t*rture
because by far the most cruelty
that's committed in the UK
is to farmed animals by a million miles.
If I was gonna eat that hot dog
that I just ate in a cinema and you came and told me
that this hot dog here, gas chamber is mad,
I would've put it down.
It's just, that's wrong.
I would actually come on,
I'd come and stand outside and say, stop.
Yeah, seriously.
I think I've realized for
myself that I couldn't expect
the industry to do the right thing.
I couldn't expect the government
to do anything about it.
I raised all these concerns and nothing changed.
I was in that industry for four years
solely with the purpose of improving welfare.
And I couldn't change anything.
So I think consumers mustn't rely
on any sort of welfare improvements coming
further down the line.
It is really, truly horrific.
And I don't know how to word that seriously enough
like it is, I've got such a bit of PTSD
from what I had to do in that industry.
And I think the only solution
is to not buy into it at all.
Do not fund any of these industries
that are exploiting sentient beings.
Based on my experience,
it's very clear that the industry
and the government won't make this change for us.
Not while there's this much money involved.
So the people at home
and the people who are buying these products
really have to realize
that the power really is in their hands.
The power is in their hands.
So much so that if everyone in the UK
and the world stopped buying these products,
slaughterhouse would no longer exist.
'Cause there would be no reason for them to.
So if every single individual had the mindset
that together we can make a difference,
then they can realize really
the power is in their hands.
(somber music)
(pigs squealing)
(sheep bleating)
(pig chomping)
So there's been some huge breaking news.
Pilgrim's have announced
that they'll be closing down
their Manchester gas chamber.
This comes just two weeks after we released
the footage on social media,
which garnered over 2 million views
and made national news headlines.
We actually did it.
We shut 'em down.
But that's not the end of it.
There are still gas chambers
all over the UK and the world.
Although we've won the battle, the w*r is far from over.
(inspirational music)
(gentle music)
Pignorant (2024)
Moderator: Maskath3