Sentient Media Podcast: No One Wants to Work in a Slaughterhouse, with Undercover Investigator Pete Paxton

Pete Paxton is an active undercover investigator who has been involved in animal cruelty investigations since 2001. He has worked all over the world including the US in Canada and Mexico, Brazil, India and the Philippines, where his investigations have led to changes in legislation, convictions and the rescue of countless victims of animal cruelty. He has also been awarded a coin of excellence from the US Attorney’s Office in Arkansas for his role in shutting down an operation selling dogs and cats to research labs. 

Pete’s work features in his book ‘Rescue Dogs’ and you can see him in action in HBO documentaries ‘Dealing Dogs’ and ‘Death on a Factory Farm’. You can also see him in our Sentient Sessions events ‘Life and Sea’ and ‘Stories that Matter’, or read his interview with fellow investigator Lex Rigby. 

Transcript

Ana Bradley  

Welcome to the Sentient Media Podcast where we meet the people who are changing the way we think about and interact with the world around us. And our guest today is Pete Paxton. Pete is an active undercover investigator who has been involved in animal cruelty investigations since 2001, which is just incredible. The work that he’s been doing, has been covering the abuse at puppy mills, at factory farms, slaughter houses, commercial fishing boats, and at pet stores. And I’m sure there’s many other things that I haven’t listed there. But Pete has worked all over the world in the US, in Canada, and Mexico, Brazil, India, the Philippines. The work that he’s done has been covered in HBO documentaries, Dealing Dogs, and Death on a Factory Farm, which I recommend you to watch. If you don’t want to watch those, then you should grab his book, which is Rescue Dogs. He has also been awarded a coin of excellence from the US Attorney’s Office in Arkansas for his role as an undercover investigator to help shut down a cellar of dogs and cats to research labs. So Pete, I mean, that’s just a small kind of snapshot into your last 20 years in this field. But it’s such an honor to have you on the podcast. So thank you so much for joining me today.

Pete Paxton  

Thank you. It’s an honor to be here. I’m a big, big supporter of Sentient Media, and a lot of the work that I do, would go nowhere, without Sentient Media promoting it.

Ana  

Well, it’s so yeah, it’s just it’s awesome to see what you’ve done. And, you know, anytime I get an email from you, I get so excited. Like, okay, what are we doing now, Pete? So, I mean, like I said, so much of your work has involved going undercover for like periods of weeks or months. And you’ve done stuff like with undocumented immigrants, who have been exploited a lot in agriculture, and all these different factors amongst all these commercial animal operations that lead to all of this, you know, predictable criminal behaviour that you uncover. But I’m curious, like, what’s it like, going undercover for such long periods of time? 

Pete  

Yeah, so, a lot of the employment-based cases, I guess, the more recent ones, they haven’t been as long, some of them, you know, six weeks or something, maybe two weeks. But I’ve done some where it’s six months at a time, or you’re just having to go back undercover continually. It’s a little difficult to answer only because what I’ve discovered now, after so much time away, is that you’re in the zone when you’re there. And then what I thought at the time was like that, when I’m leaving, like, Okay, I’m out of it. And now I’m back to normal life, but it’s not really like that, there’s like a little bit that stays with you. And, it took me a long time to learn how it was staying with me, how it was affecting me and what I had to do to deal with that. So I think that it’s also that you kind of like you get, you get a little bit used to it, you know, being or dealing with all that, you know, everything, everything that’s going on, but you also like, like, you get used to the cruelty as well. So that you’re just like the other workers and that, you know, when there’s an animal like, you start to forget, oh, there’s animal screaming. There’s blood flying everywhere. Oh, right. Right. I’m supposed to get like, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve forgotten like, Oh, right. I’m supposed to get the campaign shots that I’m just looking for. I know this one guy is going to commit this crime. I’m looking forward to that. Right, because you’ve gotten so used to it. Yeah, sorry this is going to be the most depressing and stressful episode of this entire podcast series.

Ana  

No, I mean, it’s super important. I think that a lot of us, you know, it’s almost like, with people who have this cognitive dissonance thing, right? Where people don’t want to, like, look at things, they don’t want to engage with things to kind of, you know, like, enhance their own behaviors and their own mindset. And I think that quite often, like even within, like the animal protection space, like we don’t consider and we don’t talk to or, you know, want to really think about what people who go undercover have to deal with. And as an undercover person, you, you know, your identity is completely shifted. And you’ve been in this field for such a long time. Like we’re talking 20 years over 20 years now. And I know like a lot of undercover investigators do it for, you know, a period of months, or maybe even a period of years. But I mean, can you imagine doing anything else? Like, was this the plan to kind of do this like forever?

Pete  

Um, I have no idea what else I would do. I mean, I suppose that it’s possible. But there has been a point, when I thought this career was over for me, there’s actually been more than one point I thought like, this is it, I can’t keep going. And turns out I could write. But um, but yeah, when I reached that point, I was trying to figure out if I could go into animal cruelty investigations and law enforcement, and it didn’t work out. And you know, I’m glad that it ultimately didn’t. But yeah, when I reached that point, I thought to myself, I’ll continue to help the animal rights movement as an activist somehow, but I’m gonna go do investigations some other way. Because that’s just where my heart is, but you’re right. It’s like, it’s hard to know, like, how to like, how to think about it, or what else to do. And one of the things that I can remember is that when I started, there’s the mindset that I developed or how to think about investigations and what I’m doing. And then I learned very quickly that activists don’t think about it the same way. And I found that there’s other people that do think about it, but it’s not, it’s, it’s, um, it’s like a, it’s like a defense mechanism that you got to put up. So that you are not going crazy with the distress of what you’re dealing with and the trauma or you’re dealing with, but at the same time, can then try to step back and be objective later, the thing that I’ve been dealing with lately with that is with the where the anti carceral movement deals with animal rights, right, which is like I have to be sympathetic, sympathetic to the workers. Which to be honest, I would have would have been, but that I need to be I need to let that affect, you know, when I’m putting stuff together, how does that mean, I’m working a case and then going to make a recommendation to a prosecutor or law enforcement, or if this should go to a prosecutor or law enforcement. And it’s, it’s very difficult to explain how to think about that to the to the activist community, because when I’ve talked to when I’ve talked to a therapist, you know, which no surprise that I speak to therapist about stuff, or when I’ve talked to friends of mine, who are, you know, if they’ve if they served in the military, or if they’ve done undercover work, as you know, as law enforcement, there’s a completely different way about talking about this, than when I talk to animal rights activists. And it’s like, it’s like, we’re just in totally different ways. And I’m trying to exist in a world where I’m on both at once, and it’s difficult.

Ana  

Can you elaborate a bit on that? Could you give me an example, perhaps of like, one thing that you could say, you know, to, like, say, like somebody who’s served in the military, versus how you would have to present the same thing to somebody in an animal activist community?

Pete  

So I remember, there was the first case that I ever did. It was that HBO documentary called Dealing Dogs made it right. And it was, I don’t have to go into a lot of gory detail. My goal in this interview is to not make listeners cry. Okay, that’s what I’m trying to do. But really bad stuff is happening. And two dogs, right. In fact, the stuff was so bad that when a documentary came out, in fact, before the documentary came out, it was just like, the evidence got released. And I remember that the group I did the case for sent me handwritten letters that were sent to them. One was sent by an active duty soldier and one was sent by an ex-cop, and both of them said they would have killed people for doing that to dogs, you know, what they saw in the documentary, the amount of letters that I got from just ordinary people saying the same thing, right? And it was that, you know, and so I was there for six months. And it was that the, the mindset that I had to have about what I was doing, and and why I was doing it, and how I could talk about it was I really realized after didn’t line up with activists when I saw online, that by the time the documentary came out, I looked at what people had to say 90 percent of their comments, were not about the case, or about dogs being sold to research or pet theft. 9 percent of the comments were about me, and half of them were negative. And it was people saying how could this guy let this happen to these dogs? Why would he participate in any of this? I remember, there was a slaughterhouse I worked at, a sheep and goat slaughterhouse. And I’m on the kill side, but I’m not on the actual like slitting the throat side, right? So I go down listeners, you’re not going to cry. So I go down, and it’s and it’s a halal thing, right? So there’s not like, they’re not getting stunned, right. They’re just like, you know, bolt cut, bolt cut, and I’m trying to spend time talking to the guy who’s slitting the throats before the carcasses are getting up in my part of the line. And I’m right up on him. So I can film this right. And I got no excuse. Other than like, I’m really interested in how you do these halal killings. And he’s like, oh, yeah, you know, you want to try it out. And I’m undercover. So to me, when someone says that there is no hesitation there is okay, I’m going to do this. And I remember talking to, I’m not gonna say who but I was talking to a very experienced activist who asked me, Well, what did you do? Well, I slit the lambs’ throat, and he couldn’t believe it. And it was like this light went off like, oh, like, whatever I tell that buddy, or tell that story to my other buddies that do undercover work in any capacity. They didn’t need to ask. But for activists, they would even bother to think what would I do in that situation? Right. And so it’s like, it’s, the thing is, is that with undercover work, as opposed to other kinds of investigations like surveillance, which I do, or as opposed to any other form of activism. You have this degree of whether you call it disregard or leeway with your morality, right? Like, I believe it’s wrong to kill animals, I killed animals working undercover, I believe it’s wrong to eat animals. I eat animals when I work undercover. And I do not believe in that behavior. I believe it’s wrong to lie. I lie when I’m undercover. I don’t have that behavior when I’m not undercover. And I don’t believe anyone else should have that behavior. I believe I should have accountability for what I do. But I do believe that specifically with undercover work, animal rights movement, military, law enforcement doesn’t matter, that there are different rules, you’re gonna abide by each of your foundational beliefs that you have. And some people get that, some people don’t.

Ana  

Yeah, I mean, it’s like, you have to have two sides, you know, you know, we all have many sides, but very clearly distinct distinction between having to do something because you see the the outcome of it, you see that legislation might change, you see that you are contributing to a world where nobody has to slit the lambs throat, undercover investigator or otherwise. I’m curious, like you, what do you do? It is so risky, obviously, for yourself for you know, if you did hesitate, for example, when they you know, it’s like, Oh, do you want to give it a go? If you did hesitate? Then you’re putting yourself, you know, in danger as well, like, have you because you might get exposed? And, you know, who knows what happens, then, have you always been, you know, into taking risks? Has it been something that you know, during your childhood, were you like the kid who was doing the daring, kind of risky stuff?

Pete  

I guess one thing I should say is that it is definitely, the work is risky. And definitely at times is absent, like, absolutely without question. There’s been times where I’ve been really concerned, I was gonna get killed. The majority of the work I’ve been under cover in is not as risky as you think. I’ve had people say, What the hell are you doing here? You know, we know and you’re not supposed to be here. And all I had to do was just look at the meat. And then they back away. I mean, it’s not it’s not as bad as you might think, in most cases, but yes, I’ve always taken risks. I love taking risks. I have a lot of broken bones and concussions to the effect. Yeah, if there’s no risk taking is not a normal part of life that I’m, I’m bored pretty quick.

Ana  

Yeah, I think I kind of could have figured that out without asking. So this week, I’m excited to talk to you because we’re taking a closer look at the underreported world of meatpacking. And I, you know, I’ve been vegetarian vegan, like my whole life. I’ve never, you know, since I was a kid, I’ve never really thought about meatpacking or that step of the process. I mean, I haven’t even pictured what a meatpacking facility looks like. So I was curious if you could tell us you know, what happens in a meatpacking facility and what work you’ve done in meatpacking facilities?

Pete  

Yeah, so okay, it has been. I’ve worked undercover like what you would call like a conventional employment base undercover case. And all kinds of slaughterhouses in the United States. You know, golden lamb and field cattle. Um, chicken and turkey. And then I’ve, I’ve done a dog slaughter case in the Philippines. And then I have done and then I’ve been in, throughout Mexico, they’re all all across Mexico, I’ve been to all kinds of slaughterhouses. Some are large, you know, just conventional, industrial slaughterhouses. And then others are these things called rostros. That is, some of them were literally nothing more than a concrete slab on the ground with a roof over it, and you bring your own slaughter tools and animals to kill them there in that area. And that’s similar to Amish slaughter, and wet market slaughter I’ve documented in the U.S. So it’s given me this, that when we think about slaughter, the way most of us think about it, is you have a big slaughterhouse and animals are going in, and they’re all getting killed. Right. But I’ve documented, you know, illegal slaughter in the US as well. And I’ve gotten to see how that’s done in a way that is terrible by itself. I’ve also seen how it’s done in a way that is, like, it matches what I’ve seen at the smaller slaughterhouses in Mexico, but it’s hard to say it’s any less humane than the larger slaughterhouses, right, and there’s a different way that we treat it. And then, of course, we’re where the where the, you know, the, during those cases, and considering all of that, you know, intersectionality with anti-carceral movement, and anti-racism has got to come in super quick, because you’re largely because in the US, the vast majority of the people that are that are working in slaughter, you know, they’re going to be Mexican, South American. And if you’re talking about illegal slaughter, in the US, you’re talking also Mexican, South American, or like the wet markets, you know, where that’s a typical thing in major US cities all over the place. A lot of people don’t know that, you know, we have these areas where, you know, you go to pick out the chicken, and, and someone’s gonna go, they’re gonna kill the animal and, you know, cut off the chicken’s head, throw them in a trash can flop around, and they, they prep the animal for you, right? And we, and we tend to not want to talk about these issues, because there’s a lot of immigrants that are doing stuff like that. But I think that we need to wrap our heads around it. So that we can learn so that we’re not, we’re not trying to just like, ignore them, and figure out how to deal with it. I just thought about that. But I’ve experienced all of that. All of that kind of stuff.

Ana  

Yeah, I mean, just thinking about this work, like obviously, yourself, you know, excluded from because you’re in a different mindset when you’re there. But like, what does the job look like? For the workers? Like, in your experience? Do people tend to seem like they are fulfilled in their job? Are they getting like, you know, job fulfillment? Are they? Do they seem happy? Does it seem like a place where people are excited to go to work and do this stuff?

Pete  

No. So the thing is that, when you have, like the largest industrial slaughterhouse, you typically have this environment where I mean, it’s like, you’re a number, like the animals are a number. Right? And, you know, it depends. I mean, for me, it would depend on what side of the border I’m on, right? Because if I’m, if I’m, you know, the United States, I mean, it’s gonna be 99% Hispanic workers, right? From Mexico, South America, and there’s going to be different races of management that are more likely to be white. Those USDA inspectors, the government inspectors, they’re going to be white, and they’re in charge, they got a different coloured helmet, let you know, they’re in charge. Right. And, you know, there’s ways to fool immigration and to fool the process, determine if you’re a citizen or not. So there’s a large amount of undocumented immigrants that are working in these jobs. And that fear that they constantly have just pervades everything, right. It’s hard to show up, it’s hard to show up to work and you’re just grinding yourself to the bone in a job that’s so difficult. It’s almost inhuman to even do and then you’re constantly afraid that if you speak up for your own rights, that you’ll be arrested and demonized, if you and your family are gonna get kicked back across the border, right, but you go south of the border, and you do the same job. And it’s different, right, you’re not gonna get paid as much, but you have more respect for what you do, more people have respect for what you do. Right, it’s easier to have more self respect. Right. And, you know, you know that, you know, that’s your I mean, even in those small slaughterhouses, you know, people could be proud of what they’re doing.

Ana  

Do you have a sense of the things that are, like considered… so within the illegal slaughterhouse network in the US, which you? You know, I didn’t know about that until you told me about it. You know, I mean, it makes sense, in hindsight, but I just have never considered illegal slaughterhouses in the US. But do you have a sense of what the rights are of the workers in legal, you know, in the nicest, you know, most highly graded most humane slaughterhouse out there versus in these illegal slaughters, slaughterhouses versus, you know, south of the border?

Pete  

Sure, illegal slaughter is going to be very small, it’s going to be that you’re, you’re just, you know, you’ve got, you have your own little operation in the yard or out in the woods or whatever, and you just take the animals and you’ve been you kill them. And that’s, it’s gonna be, it’s generally gonna be like, you know, maybe people work there, but it’s going to be family run, you know, so that’s what it’s going to be. And the thing with that, is that you have, like, where you have the smaller slaughterhouses that are out in you know, like, let’s see the roster as I was talking about Mexico. You know, you have people that will show up, and it’s like, there’s no, there’s no oversight of any kind. So I saw, like, you know, I saw a bull, I saw a grown bull get killed with a sledgehammer to the head, you know, in hogs get stabbed with, I saw seven year old kid, using a knife to try and kill a hog tied with a he had a we had a rope tied around his leg to a steak, and was standing on the wrong side of his chest. But his dad was drinking beer and, you know, wasn’t saying anything. Right. And but was not concerned, I was openly filming. And I had no concern about right, because that’s just how it is. Right? And so, when you, you know, when, when, and then, of course, you go to the large slaughterhouses anywhere in the world, US, Mexico, you know, doesn’t matter. And, then you see the amount of things might be efficient. But up until those animals get in there, there’s a hell of a lot of abuse that goes on. Right? And, you know, and it’s on a mass scale, right? So what you have is you have a whole lot of people that they’re used to doing things a certain way, like, I know how to butcher animals, right? And if I go down to the livestock auction, I can people from my community are going to sell their animals, I’m going to buy them, I kill them myself, or my buddy has got a space in his backyard for killing them, I’m going to take them they’re like, why would I go to this big corporate, you know, place, right? You can’t even you can’t take your animal to the corporate place and bring your animal out. So, you know, it’s, like I said, so you can have a lot of sympathy for these workers and a lot of sympathy for why they would want to do things a different way. But just because it’s a mom and pop backyard place, like and it doesn’t matter. It’s not like, it makes no difference where they’re from. I mean, I see Amish people do and it’s, it’s horrendous, right? But there was a slaughterhouse that I hit in California. And it was this guy, Roberto Celedon. And his uh, you know, he was giving us killing all these, you know, sheep and goats, all these different animals. And, though I filmed him, so first of all, his slaughterhouse was illegal. But he got nailed, not just for that, but the manner in which I saw him kill two animals was by itself a cruelty violation. It wasn’t even humane how he did it. Right. And so it’s like, it’s like, you know, there’s so much to square with this issue. Right? Like, like, what does that mean, for slaughter? What does that mean for animals? But also, what does that mean? Like, like, if you’re if we’re trying to help out the workers, right, like, what do we do when we come across, like an illegal operation? Do we let it go? What if they’re documented, or what if they’re not, right? In that case, I needed a legal mechanism to bust this guy. And because there was a mechanism because that mechanism was used 60 I believe it was 64 animals were taken out and sent to the Gentle Barn sanctuary in California, and a lot of their lives were saved. Right. So there’s a happy ending to that story. But yeah, it becomes complicated, quick.

Ana  

Yeah, that’s so that’s a nice, a nice, happy, happy end to that story. I mean, it’s really funny, because when you look at like, when we get so in the activist community or outside, you know, when we see stories that have been published about, you know, slaughterhouse workers, meatpacking facilities, etc, we’re so focused on what we can see in front of us. And that’s, you know, the individuals who are on the kill line or you know, the people who are kicking the animals, whatever. And we just, it’s like, we become blind. And this is true across like, all kinds of crime. The drug user on the street is going to go to prison. But you know, the Sacklers are going to, you know, remain free with their billions. It’s like this, how do you use your undercover investigative work to tackle the real what I would consider, you know, the real criminals in this situation? Who are the ones who are running, you know, JBS, we’re doing it on that such a huge scale? 

Pete  

That’s a good question, because I’m learning as I go. And this is why it’s so important that we have intersectionality in the movement. So it’s why it’s so important that we have anti-racist and anti-carceral movement coming into the animal rights movement. There’s a, there has been the majority of the cases that I’ve done, it’s that, you know, law enforcement prosecutors would go after the workers not go after the owner. Now, in some cases, they would, I’ve worked cases where getting a confession from the owner of the facility may seem he got convicted, or, or I worked at an egg farm, where, you know, he was civil charges of animal cruelty brought against the company, you know, and that, and that worked out. There’s creative ways to do it, you know, for for, you know, hitting a facility and saying your animal welfare, what’s happening doesn’t match up with your animal welfare standards, you know. But it’s very difficult. And there have been cases that I’ve worked, where there have been workers that have been prosecuted, and I look back at some of those cases. And I say to myself, like, I wish I didn’t push for prosecution on that one, you know, and what, what has happened is that since I can tell you like this, this is how I see that, you know, overall this time is that because it used to be, I would say, like the first 10 years of my career, everyone used to say, You’re lying, you’re doctoring the video, you’re making this up, right. And part of the reason is that no one could believe that what they were saying could actually happen, right? Everyone always used to say, my parents and my grandparents were his animals. And they didn’t do that. Bullshit they did. It’s that there weren’t cameras around the filament at the time, right? Like, cruelty didn’t suddenly spring into existence for large and small operations. But you know, we have a lot of cognitive dissonance, and we weren’t around to see a lot of that stuff. And so we know, but it’s so people couldn’t believe it. But when a law enforcement, even though law enforcement has consistently is there inactive or or corrupt on these issues, because law enforcement was was began taking action of some kind, on these cases, by like, 2011, is when it’s when it stopped, people stopped saying these are isolated incidents, or you doctored the video, the public, the media began accepting cruelty habits, right. But whether like, you know, right or wrong, whatever the case is, I believe that that has really led to a point where people see things for how they are now. But we are definitely at a point now, where instead, there needs to be less law enforcement action on the workers for predictable activity. And there’s this, there’s one case everybody likes to point to this Butterball case that Mercy for Animals did, and the investigator, I have a blessing to discuss her was named Liz Prashad. She’s a good friend of mine, the second investigator that I ever trained, she’s an absolute badass. And she worked at this turkey farm. And there were a bunch of these, you know, these, you know, poor Black workers, right? Like, they’re like, no social agency of any kind, you know? And, man, you know, they were doing they were doing some cruel stuff to the turkeys. But everybody did. And, and Liz was hesitant, in wanting to testify against them and have charges brought against them. And I was one of the people who said no, you know, there’s got to be justice on this case. Something has to be done. And I wish I hadn’t I wish I had not pushed her on that and those guys got convicted. And it’s you know, there’s a fine, right, it’s not the most time people are going to be evicted, it’s not like they got to go there, most of the vast majority the time, no one’s going to jail. Right? It’s very rare you go to jail, but it’s a conviction. It messes up your record, it’s stigmatized. See. Right. And, you know, I think that there’s a lot of people that like, like, they may not, they may not understand that it’s like, like, in that case, Liz had a much deeper understanding of what was going to happen in that case, then I think, then, then anyone who’s talked about it, no one is, for example, no one has ever called Mercy for Animals and says, it said, you know, I want to talk to Liz, because I’m writing about this case, right? That case just gets written about a lot. No one knows, you know, what happened. And so with that case, when other cases have done, I wish that I didn’t push for prosecution all the time. But it’s hard. It’s hard, right? Because it’s like, when I, when I will work like that I worked a case for SEED. And it was an auction / slaughterhouse. And I see these animals that are going into the auction, and they’re going into slaughter, and people are beating the living hell out of these animals. Right. And so that’s pretty damn cruel. And fortunately, we had, we found federal violations for disease traceability, we could go after and hit the target. But what if we didn’t find that? What if all that we found was a bunch of cruelty? What are we supposed to do? Right? You know, and we don’t want the workers to be persecuted, but we want the animals to be helped, you know, what if? What if, like, you know, like the illegal slaughterhouse that I came across, right, like that guy, Roberto selling. You know, what if I come across another illegal slaughterhouse today, right? What if the guy running it is a US citizen? What if he’s not? Right?  What if I know law enforcement is, you know, going to be nice? What if they’re not? What if I need the law, if I need that legal mechanism to save the animals? And I guess what I’m really getting at here is that I am, I am very excited about my job, that there’s some scrutiny on it, and that there’s a need to change it. But what I’m seeing is that in the anti-carceral movement, it’s a critical part of our movement. But I’m beginning to see some degree of fundamentalism in it. And I would like to push back on that. Because my job is where the rubber meets the road. It’s where abstract ideas start to break apart as they hit a concrete situation. You know, it’s like, anyway, sorry, I could go on about that. But yeah, that’s it, it becomes a difficult question.

Ana  

Yeah. I mean, have you ever considered going on to cover in like an executive role?

Pete

I, you know, I wish I could, but I can’t. You know, everybody. I’d be found out pretty quick.

Ana  

I guess that yeah, I guess that’s kind of more than the role of whistleblowers.

Pete  

Yeah. Yeah. That’s what we want, right, we want to go after the people at the top, you know, right. Yeah, yeah. How do you go after the people at the top and not forget about the victims all the way at the bottom? Which is, which includes the animals?

Ana  

Yeah.

Pete  

The way that I see is we have all these ideas in the movement for like, how we’re how we’re doing things, and, and we realize, Oh, crap, it’s, like, look, we’re, we are kind of we’re persecuting workers at the same time, we shouldn’t do that, right. And part of that solution is that like, especially with the Hispanic community, we want to relate to them in the US, bring them into us, we are white as fuck in the animal rights community. We need a lot more people of color, like in the movement, like if we want to relate to their communities bring their communities into us, right. But the other thing is to understand that once we have an idea, like the anti-carceral movement, or anything, that we got to have flexibility, like we treat, we tend to treat answers in the movement, like this can be political or philosophical can be anything, we tend to treat answers, like we’re climbing up a mountain, right? And we’re going past the old ideas, and those are the failed ideas and we get to the top. That’s our new idea. And you can’t go any higher than this. Like my idea is the new thing. It’s the answer. But answers tend to not be like that. Even if they’re philosophical or political. They tend to be like waves on an ocean. You get on one, it’ll take you so far, and then you need to get on another one. That’s why I need to be open-minded to changing how I operate what I do in my job.

Ana  

That’s really cool. That’s a really good approach. I think we could all learn a lot from that. In just thinking about it, like the meatpacking slaughterhouse person not holding what, you know, what you’ve seen is people don’t consider this to be a dream job, like you’ve seen that on the ground. Like, what do you think then, from a workers perspective of the introduction of, you know, robots and technology coming into these spaces too? Yeah, take over from the human?

Pete  

I mean, it certainly makes sense. You know, I especially, I mean, there’s so many of the jobs that I could see, you know, robots doing, it certainly makes sense to, to as far as like, well, less workers are being exploited. Right. But of course, I can’t say that there’s necessarily going to be less violence if the robots are on the animal handling. Right? Because, part of the reason you have violence is because, you know, people are people, they get stressed, they get frustrated. But what if you have something there that has no discretion? Right? Has no, like, like, is impossible for that thing to have empathy? Well, I can’t say it’s necessarily going to be a whole lot better. So I would say, especially on the cold side, or, you know, it certainly makes sense. But, you know, I’m still skeptical about anything humane coming from it.

Ana  

Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, if we’re creating it and programming it in our own image as well, then those built in, you know, biases towards cruelty are going to be built into whatever we produce, presumably. One of the things that I literally quote you on all the time, is this notion, this phrase that you’ve spoken about it with us on various Sentient Media sessions and other things. One of the things that the vegan community likes to tout is that, oh, you know, if slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegan? And your answer is like, no, because everybody who’s in the slaughterhouses isn’t vegan. And I, you know, when I first heard you say that it was like, you know, an eye opener for me, because I agree. And I believe that not only that, we have a culture of cruelty that you can elaborate on in a second, but also that we become absolutely, we just become numb to this stuff. And there’s an element of that when we see so much kind of depressing content online as well. When we see snippets of animal cruelty and animal suffering. It’s just like, yeah, it’s just another kind of, you know, depressing news cycle. And we see it obviously all the time at Sentient Media. But yeah, could you elaborate on this on the culture of cruelty and this idea that we wouldn’t all be vegan? If slaughterhouses had glass walls?

Pete  

Yeah. Um, yeah. Thanks for calling me on that, by the way. That’s cool. Yeah, I think that is, I understand the sentiment behind it, but it does miss something. And this is gonna sound condescending to people to say that and sorry, not to be condescending. Not trying to be a jerk. But that is it. It comes from, understandably, it comes from the point of view of someone who’s on the outside, and looks on the inside and says, I can’t believe what you’re doing. I’m gonna judge you for it. Right? And we tend to not see it like that, because we’re speaking up for the animals for these victims. Right. But it’s that, you know, when you’re part of a culture of cruelty, and you’re part of something where law enforcement doesn’t care about what you’re doing, the government doesn’t care about what you’re doing. Everyone does it, right? It’s like, you’ve You swore to yourself, you’d never do something like that you got stressed enough that you just started doing it. You know, and no one’s gonna speak up about it because of their immigration and their perhaps their, you know, criminal status, they already got a record, so no one’s gonna blow the whistle can’t get another job, right? It just becomes, you know, accepted. And then also anyone else who’s gonna report on it, you begin to see them as a threat, right? A threat to your culture. In the animal rights movement, we tend to look at that. And we get angry about that, because we believe it’s wrong. I believe it’s wrong, right? But just believing that it’s wrong doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist, that it’s not normal, right? If slaughterhouses had glass walls, and everyone could see what was going on, every day that they drive by way quicker than you think they’re going to stop looking. And they’re gonna stop caring. It’s part of the reason that we got you know that as you well know, a lot of people in the media are just like, I get it. There’s animal abuse. What do you want me to do? We do that with war now. It’s like, okay, there’s war. That’s terrible. The war is still going on how many people are dying like, you know, we, we do that in the US with mass shootings all the time, there’s more people that killed with with machine guns or I just just like we just we just you know, we get, we get desensitized quick. And there is a tendency when we are, there’s a tendency when we are hurt. Or like we’re abused or were hurt or anything the human the natural human tendency for an individual is sometimes it’s I don’t want anyone else to hurt. But sometimes it’s the same reaction as when you have a group of people or a culture that is abused or traumatized. And that is, I want others to feel what I have felt, right? And it’s like, if you and you just kind of like you want to spread it out there. You want to normalize, you want everyone to know about it. And with the animal rights movement, we feel that we see these animals getting hurt. And we’re like, I can’t believe this. Everyone needs to know about this. I’m angry, you need to be angry, and the rest of the world. Man, you’re a victim. You’re a victim of gun violence, you’re a victim in a war. You’re you’re you know, whatever the case is, most people don’t want to know about it. And if they do it every day, they start it’s like it’s too much trauma for them, they start to forget about it. So yeah, we have to be a little more creative in how we’re explaining things to people instead of just shoving it in their face because they will quickly not care.

Ana  

I mean, you just touched on something there about being sensitive and also being desensitized. Like how do you as an undercover investigator who is vegan, who does not want to, you know, who wants to see a world where animals aren’t suffering, like how do you keep hold of that sensitivity whilst also having to be completely desensitized. When you’re undercover?

Pete  

Well, I’m just totally fucked up. So no. I would say, You know what, it’s actually it’s a very, it’s very, very complicated. It’s it is it’s that I’ve certainly been able to, I’ve certainly been able to push things out of my mind. And then it comes back later. And part of what has made that easier. Is that an undercover work is adrenaline. When there’s adrenaline involved, everything changes. You don’t know it. Until you have until you have been there until you felt it like you were once once your adrenaline is up. The whole experience changes for me, right? Yeah. If no one can relate to that. Maybe you’ve at least heard people say like, I didn’t realize I had trauma until later. That’s because in that incident, who your adrenaline Hey, right, you were thinking about everything totally differently. So what when I’ve seen abuse and all of that, it’s not just that I’m seeing abuse, it’s not just that I feel terrible for that animal. I’m trying to not get caught while filming. Right? I’m saying to myself. Am I looking cool? While I’m seeing this, right? Or? Or if I’ve, if I’ve snuck away to a place I’m not supposed to be and I’m filming it? Am I like, is anyone there? Is anyone coming? Right? That’s that that completely changes the experience, and then I can think about it later. At other times, it’s just that it’s very difficult. And with it as opposed to like surveillance or other stuff, it’s that, you know, we’re going to cover work is this particular thing where it’s that, you know, you’re not saving the animals, right? But you’re glad you got the evidence to then try to tell their story. And in that way, and this is this is dark and complicated, but it’s like pride and shame. Like become like the same thing. And that that’s just that’s something that you know, that’s something that you just you have to you have to deal with. You can’t you can’t expect anyone to understand that if they haven’t been through it, you just you know.

Ana  

Sorry. Is there any, not to like keep pushing you like into a depressing corner, but I was wondering like before, you know, when you’re talking about the puppy mill stuff, like, is there any animal that kind of like, like, for me, the idea of going into a puppy mill is, you know, to see a dog in that in those situations, you know, it’s so hard or a dog slaughter situation. You know, these are our companion animals in this country. But you know, there are other animals there’s well farmed animals that kind of get me you know, like, I can’t look at pigs. You know, it just it’s too I can’t look at gestation crates, like it’s just like, is there any animal that like that kind of penetrates through the adrenaline that you’re just like, gosh, I just can’t.

Pete  

Oh, yeah, dogs, dogs, dogs, dogs. Dogs are my number one thing. I mean, I’ve seen some stuff happen to dogs that, you know, like, a big part of the reason why I keep trying to do undercover work, is it part of it is because I love undercover work. But part of it is because the first case that I did was a successful case, the target was shut down. Literally hundreds of dogs, you know, were saved in the end, but, but the things that happened, the things that I did, and the things I didn’t do is the kind of stuff where if I was to be like, alright, well, you know, done with that, I’m gonna go I’m gonna go to speaking tour. And, you know, I mean, like, I would, I would really have to be a special kind of dirtbag because, like, because, yeah, because I, I, I know I owe it to dogs. I owe it to all animals. But I owe it to dogs to keep going. And, and I guess I should say real quick, Much love to all the investigators that have left the profession and that are that are speaking about it. I didn’t mean anything negative about that. I just meant that, you know, for me, I just I, I just haven’t, you know, I just feel like I just need to keep doing something because I Yeah, dog dogs have a special place in my heart. There’s and it’s made. It’s made it difficult with the puppy mill work, but you know, keeps me pushing with the puppy mill work.

Ana  

I mean, my next question was going to be about which animal exploiting industry you think is the most corrupt? I guess? I don’t know if you would go and pick puppy mills there. But is there any animal exploiting industry that you’ve worked in that you think is like, this is just the worst?

Pete  

The worst, the absolute worst? As far as corruption, I would mean, puppy mills and factory farming, they’re really kind of, you know, one thing that even covers each other a lot. Even in how they’re sold, right? Like you sell meat products, and you’re like, Okay, well, we got to have some safety measures here. And also we’re going to start to have animal welfare standards and there’s going to take all the welfare standards to the bullshit right there quite literally. For meat, it’s to say that the meat is safe. And that everything’s humane. You say it’s USDA, inspected, and with puppies is the exact same thing. You go to a pet store and they say, you know that everything’s humane and fine because they’re USDA inspected. So yeah, in trying to get law enforcement. Another thing is a lot of people may not know that the US is like, you see, if you see we’re talking we’re talking really bad cruelty. Like, we’re talking like the cruelty that you saw recently on that livestock neglect case ahead in Kansas, right, like animals just just, you know, carcasses on top of carcasses because they’re dying. You know, well, I mean, you know, not too not too far from there, I documented a puppy mill where it was just dogs living in their own waste and you know, there’s you know, and you know, living in wire cages and the person didn’t have a license or I’ve seen dogs that are you know, living they’re just their bowls are filled with ice they have open wounds, you know, matter dogs, cattle, sheep makes the difference in the United States 99% of the time and local cops they’re not going to move on someone like that because those are agricultural animals. So the corruption is the same. And in the Philippines, you know, with dog slaughter. I found that like that as well, you know, it was just it was man I was foolish to go to the Philippines and go work at dog slaughter case and think that something was gonna get done. Yeah, that’s

Ana  

Really rough. I’m sure it’s super depressing. 

Pete  

Everything is Terrible. 

Ana  

Ok, let’s go to a happy place like say, say all you know, corruption and all of these things are wiped out. And we no longer need undercover investigators. What would you do with your time?

Pete  

Um, let’s see. I would scream out and punch walls and that’s a good question. I would remain active in the movement in some capacity. I will probably get involved with animal rescue. You know, probably get more involved you know with rescue but I would have to do investigations in some capacity, whether that’s for another movement, or whatever the case is. But I love investigations. So, yeah,

Ana  

We really appreciate everything you were doing. And obviously, you know, Sentient Media is a home for you. And we do love working with you and finding out how we can get your stories out there. And I know you’re working on a course for us right now, about undercover investigations, which will be coming out in the Writers’ Collective real soon. So I’m very excited about that. And you’ve got some great, great speakers in there as well, right?

Pete  

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes, yes. Some really cool people. Um, yes, some famous people too.

Ana  

This is gonna be very exciting to get that out into the world. So, I mean, like, I had, like so many more questions that I wanted to talk to you. We’re gonna have to do this. Again, sometimes. Like, I’d love to get into detail next time about the work you’ve done at sea. I know, we’ve done our life at sea session before, but I just find that like what you did there, you’re relating. I guess you could talk briefly about this. Because what you did was so smart, because you had this strategic approach to how you were going to, like tie your investigation to legislation that was likely to get passed in California. Would you mind this is the gillnets story. Would you mind telling us a little bit about that? 

Pete  

So there, I wanted to do a commercial fishing case. For no other reason than, no one was looking for me on commercial fishing boats. And I was trying to figure out, how am I going to do something that’s going to make a difference? And I thought, Okay, well, if we could, like, pass a law to ban a fishery and get it, that’d be great, but we have to have to press on. Alright, so what’s the press going to focus on? The press is going to focus on cute animals, right, and, you know, fish and squid and all that. They’re not cute to most people. But I realized that the drift gill net boats are consistently killing dolphins and sea lions. So I thought, if I get on those boats, Can I film the cute animals coming up and dying? The press will jump on it, and then a law could get passed to ban a fishery? And, yes, super long story very short. That’s what happened.

Ana  

Yeah. 

Pete  

The power of the press. 

Ana  

Yeah, and the power of your strategic thinking about, which area to target? You know, I mean, that’s what we always strive to do is like, how do we figure out which areas to target, which things to cover that are going to be the most, you know, have the most impact? So no, so super awesome. Pete has been so cool to speak to you today. Where should we direct? I mean, obviously, you’re an active undercover investigator. So it’s hard to kind of build a personal brand and stuff during this. Where’s your Twitter? Where should we direct people?

Pete  

Let’s see, I do a lot of work for and I’m the director of investigations for SEED: Strategies for Ethical and Environmental Development. I also work for the Companion Animal Protection Society, Humane Society of the United States and Grey2K USA. These are my clients right now. And if anyone wants to read my book, it’s rescue dogs. If someone wants to reach out, those are the groups I work for.

Ana  

So amazing. Thank you. And I hope you come back and we’ll catch up on your current investigation at some point. But yeah, thank you so much for being here. 

Pete  

Thank you.