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An animal rights organization in Israel has announced a groundbreaking investigative technique to help activists around the world expose the cruelty that animals endure inside of the secretive factory farms, trailers and slaughterhouses where they are raised, transported and killed.

The organization, Sentient, customized a small, disposable, camouflaged cameras that are affixed to an animal’s back by harmless glue and take streaming video from the point of view of the animal. By wearing the cameras on their backs, the animals are transformed into undercover investigators and whistleblowers.

According to Ronen Bar, the Executive Director of Sentient, the new investigative technique, dubbed “Camera on Animal,” helps to address the challenges faced by activists attempting to expose the dark underbelly of the animal agriculture industry and violations of animal welfare laws. ”As animal advocates worldwide face “Ag-Gag” laws and other hurdles, this novel approach – “Camera On Animal” – offers a creative, lower-risk approach to exposing the truth.”

During the first Camera On Animal, Sentient’s cameras captured dozens of hours of footage in Israel of the final hours of bulls, pigs and sheep. Bar says the footage reveals not only “the brutal reality inside of hidden and sealed facilities,” but also the harrowing journeys of individual animals who are wearing the cameras. He describes a calf who “somehow manages to turn around in the narrow slaughter line and climb over another calf in an effort to escape” and a bull who is “repeatedly electrified in the anus with a probe because he refused to move forward.”

A small camera affixed to a cow’s back takes streaming video from the point of view of the animal

Bar also describes a few moments of a pig’s journey in a transport trailer filled with other pigs. At one point, the pig pushes his way through the other pigs to get to metal slats on the side of the trailer in order to access fresh air and sunlight.

The image of this pig on a crowded transport truck was taken by a camera affixed to the back of another pig

Bar hopes that activists will use this new investigative technique in campaigns targeting specific companies or industries. He also hopes that stories of individual animals will resonate among compassionate people who aren’t already living a cruelty-free lifestyle.

Ronen Bar, co-founder and Executive Director of Sentient

Sentient is is an Israel-based animal rights organization that creates tools for undercover investigations worldwide. Activists or reporters with questions about the “Camera on Animal” technique can contact Ronen Bar: ronen@sentientworld.org

The outbreak of avian flu has prompted parents in New York City to call on the mayor and governor to suspend the operation live animal markets, particularly those near their children’s schools and playgrounds. In a letter shared with the media, the parents argue that the markets, which sell and slaughter multiple species of birds, potentially expose their children to a host of infectious diseases, including e. Coli, campylobacter and the current strain of avian flu, which has infected people in several countries, including the United States.

“The sidewalk in front of the live animal market next to my son’s school is often contaminated with chicken feces and blood,” said Irma Labiosa, one of the public school parents who signed the letter to Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul. “He could be tracking this waste into his classroom, onto the subway and into our home.”

Brooklyn’s leading newspaper, The Brooklyn Eagle, published the letter in full.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle published a letter sent by parents of NYC schoolchildren calling on Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams to suspend the operation of live animal markets near schools until an avian flu risk assessment is conducted.

New York City’s 70+ live animal markets, also known as storefront slaughterhouses, are retail businesses that are open to the public. Many operate in densely populated neighborhoods and are located in close proximity to homes, health care facilities, businesses, public transportation, schools and playgrounds. Despite the biohazards, customers are not required to wear PPE to protect themselves and the animals from disease. Among the 10 or more bird species slaughtered in these markets are chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, pigeons, quails and pheasants. 

“For years, I have been documenting and reporting dead chickens left in open dumpsters and puddles of blood and feces contaminating the sidewalks and streets in front of live animal markets in Queens,” said Edita Birnkrant, the Executive Director of the animal advocacy group NYCLASS. “The filthy sidewalks and putrid odors compromise the quality of life of everyone who lives and works in their vicinity and pose health risks, along with serious animal welfare violations that go ignored. That is why NYCLASS supports passage of state legislation that would prohibit the operation of these neighborhood slaughter markets and create a task force to investigate the public health risks and animal welfare concerns.”

The sidewalks in front of NYC’s live animal slaughter markets, many of which are located near schools and playgrounds, are often contaminated with feces and body parts

In response to the recent avian flu outbreak in New York in March 2022, the NY State Department of Agriculture and Markets banned the operation of fowl shows, auctions and exhibitions. In his announcement about the ban, Richard Ball, the Commissioner, stated, “By banning fowl shows and exhibitions in New York until further notice, we are taking a commonsense step to limit the co-mingling of birds to slow the spread of this disease.” Labiosa, the school parent, believes this ban should apply to New York’s live markets too. “Given how tightly confined the animals are, avian flu could spread like wildfire if an outbreak occurs in a live animal market,” said Labiosa. “They should not be exempt.” 

Irma Labiosa and her son Max walk by a live animal market located one block away from Max’s public school in New York City

Across the street from the live animal market near her son’s school, Labiosa told TheirTurn that she believes that the presence of live animal markets in lower-income areas is a form of environmental racism. “Wealthy New Yorkers would never allow slaughterhouses to operate in their neighborhoods, but lower income communities don’t have the resources to fight back,” said Labiosa. 

Labiosa’s son, Max, is also disturbed by the live animal market near his school, though, while speaking to TheirTurn, he expressed more concern about the mistreatment of animals than getting sick: “I’ve seen trucks stuffed with chickens, ducks and other birds. It makes me sad to see them treated that way.” Neither Labiosa nor Max eat meat anymore.

When COVID-19 reached New York, mainstream media outlets reported on the ongoing efforts of the advocacy Slaughter Free NYC to shut down the City’s 70+ live animal markets (click photo to view ABC News story)

Since 2019, Slaughter Free NYC, an advocacy group comprised of public health and animal rights advocates, has been calling on city and state officials to shut down the city’s 70+ live markets until a public health risk assessment is conducted. The group believed that the outbreak of COVID, which is believed to have been transmitted to humans in a live animal market, would trigger them to take its concerns more seriously, but they did not react. In fact, instead of shutting down the live markets, the state designated them as “essential businesses” during the lock down in March 2020.

Despite the government’s decision to ignore the calls of Slaughter Free NYC, the COVID outbreak did generate widespread mainstream media coverage about the risks of live animal markets and the advocacy group’s efforts to shut them down. In July 2020, Now This released a 10 minute documentary film (Here’s What Goes on Inside America’s Wet Markets) that went viral on social media.

Slaughter Free NYC, a grassroots animal rights group advocating to shut down the nearly 100 slaughterhouses in the five boroughs of New York City, staged a protest at a “live market” in Inwood, a largely Hispanic neighborhood in Upper Manhattan. Live markets are storefront slaughterhouses where consumers can pick out animals in cages and have them slaughtered on site.

The protesters were joined by local area residents who assert that the slaughterhouse compromises their quality of life by polluting their sidewalk with contaminants and exposing them to infectious disease. “You never saw that in a good avenue,” said a local Dominican American man of the slaughterhouse. “This is Hispanic neighborhood. Poor people. They don’t know the infections this could bring to you.”

Activists with Slaughter Free NYC stage a protest and conduct educational outreach at a slaughterhouse in upper Manhattan

Mariolis Espinal, a woman in her 20s who lives on the same street as the slaughterhouse, joined the protest to speak out against both the public health risks and the animal cruelty. “I walk my dog through here every morning, and they leave a lot of dead animals on the floor. It’s wrong, so why is it still happening?”

At live markets in NYC, customers choose the live animals who the want to buy, and workers slaughter them on site.

Slaughter Free NYC launched in January 2020, when local activists learned of a New York City mandate that prohibits issuing new slaughterhouse licenses to any location within 1,500 feet of a residence, which is most of NYC.  “The language of this mandate, passed unanimously, illustrates the very reason why all slaughterhouse operations should cease within city limits, not only new businesses,” said Jill Carnegie, a co-organizer of Slaughter Free NYC. “These slaughterhouses not only pose a health threat, but they also jeopardize property values, exploit workers who are mostly undocumented immigrants, and dramatically impact quality of life for neighborhood residents with horrible odors and sounds of animals fighting for their lives.”

Before the vigil began, several activists entered the live market to document the conditions in which the chickens are held prior to slaughter. “You can hear them screaming. They’re intensively confined. They cannibalize each other. They’re dead in the cages,” said Slaughter Free NYC co-organizer Maureen Medina.

Chickens are stored in feces covered cages until they are purchased and slaughtered

The group is flooding the city reporting mechanism, 311, and New York State’s Agriculture and Markets agency with violation complaints. “Live Markets operate in a grey area between multiple city, state, and federal agencies. According to Jill Carnegie, these agencies consistently pass responsibility to each other, leaving these slaughterhouses free to violate the laws and with little to no oversight.

After customers select the live chickens who they want to purchase, slaughterhouse workers grab them from their cages and bring them into the back room to be killed

“Slaughterhouses are bad for everyone – animals, workers, communities, and the planet,” added Carnegie, “They have a devastating impact on public health and even undermine our struggles against prejudice, inequality, injustice, and violence.”

While participating in live market vigils in Brooklyn, several animal rights activists rescued chickens and a rabbit who were on the verge of being slaughtered. 

“The law treats these animals as though they are inanimate objects, but we know that they are feeling individuals who want to live,” said Katerina Travazzo, an organizer with Brooklyn-Queens Animal Save. “Each of us has an ethical obligation to bear witness to their suffering and, whenever possible, rescue them from the needless violence and death that has been normalized by society.”

A sheep about to be slaughtered at a live market in Brooklyn, New York

“People can bury their heads in the sand and pretend that nothing is going to change, but the reality and the statistics show that it is changing all around us,” said Earthling Ed, a London-based animal rights campaigner giving talks in the United States.  “We can either stand on the right side of history or the wrong side.” 

Journalist Jane Velez-Mitchell interviews Earthling Ed during slaughterhouse vigils in Brooklyn

While bearing witness to the chickens, rabbits, sheep and other animals who would soon be slaughtered, activists conducted vegan outreach with the slaughterhouse employees, offering them dairy-free ice cream sandwiches on a hot summer day. 

Katerina Travazzo, an organizer with Brooklyn-Queens Animal Save, convinces a slaughterhouse worker to sample a dairy-free ice cream sandwich

The rescued animals were taken to sanctuaries in Upstate New York to be rehabilitated and live out the remainder of their lives in peace. 

Activists rescued this rabbit from NYC slaughterhouse and brought him to a sanctuary

During Direct Action Everywhere’s (DxE) 2018 Animal Liberation Conference, an estimated 500 animal rights activists took to the streets of San Francisco to participate in what was, at the time, the largest Anonymous For the Voiceless (AV) event ever.  As more than 100 video screens displayed footage of animal exploitation in six “Cubes of Truth,” dozens of advocates conducted vegan outreach with pedestrians who stopped to watch the videos.  Animal rights activists Chase Avior, Jane Velez-Mitchell and James Aspey spoke to TheirTurn about the impact of AV:

Anonymous for the Voiceless uses “standard-practice” footage of animal agriculture to expose the public to the atrocities that the industry goes to great lengths to hide, and it provides people with tools to switch to a vegan lifestyle.

Jane Velez-Mitchell of JaneUnChained reporting from the Cube of Truth in San Francisco

Since its inception in April, 2016, AV has staged over 4,000 “Cubes of Truth” in 650 cities around the world, convincing over 214,000 people to consider making the transition to veganism.

Cube of Truth in San Francisco organized by Anonymous for The Voiceless and Direct Action Everywhere during the 2018 Animal Liberation Conference.