See it Through Her Eyes: Virtual View inside a Gestation Crate

It’s hard to imagine just how miserable life is for a pregnant pig locked inside a narrow gestation crate that is barely wider than her body. Nearly immobilized day after day, month after month – unable to even turn around – these smart and social animals are treated like mere piglet-producing machines. They suffer both physically and mentally.

More than 70% of the almost six million female pigs raised for breeding in the US are forced to endure such intensive confinement, and their suffering is kept hidden behind the closed doors of animal agribusiness.

Undercover investigators have been pulling back the curtains, going inside massive pig breeding factory farms – most recently in Iowa, Wyoming, and Minnesota – wearing hidden cameras to shine a spotlight on this horrific abuse.

Using this undercover video footage, Mark Middleton, the creative mind behind AnimalVisuals.org, has now developed a virtual gestation crate. This interactive online feature takes you behind the bars to imagine life as an intensively confined female pig – and to see what it’s like through her eyes:

Experts widely agree that confining pigs in gestation crates causes immense suffering.

The scientific consensus is so clear that the entire European Union is phasing out gestation crates (effective 2013), and nine US states – Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, and Rhode Island – have passed laws to ban this barbaric system of confinement.

Welfare concerns are also prompting several major food companies to announce their commitment to eliminate the use of gestation crates in their supply chains — including McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Kroger, Safeway, and Costco.

While this progress for pigs is encouraging, animal cruelty remains standard practice in the industry.  The most effective way each of us can help end this abuse is to simply leave pigs, and all animals, off our plates.

Start today: Visit TryVeg.com.