Kate Pickert, Time.com
May 2012
My initial plan in life was to become a cop and then join the FBI. But I started to learn that the worst things I've ever read about human beings doing to each other — similar if not identical things happen to animals on a mass scale. I felt that there were enough people in law enforcement but there weren't enough people working in animal rights. In 2001 a private investigator trained me, and my first job on my own was working at a dog kennel in Arkansas.
"Pete" in a scene from Death on a Factory Farm
One of the most powerful tools animal-rights activists have is the video
footage shot inside places like poorly run dog kennels, animal-testing
facilities and factory farms, used as grim evidence of the brutality that
can take place. But how do animal-rights crusaders actually get those
videos? Through people like "Pete," a 20-something undercover animal-rights
investigator who, armed with a hidden camera, surreptitiously got a job in
2006 at an Ohio hog farm. The resulting footage — captured with the help of
a group called the Humane Farming Association — and eventual courtroom drama
that followed are featured in the HBO documentary Death on a Factory Farm,
airing March 16. "Pete" refuses to reveal his real identity, saying only
that he has legally changed his name twice so he can continue to get hired
by unknowing slaughterhouses, farms and other facilities suspected of animal
abuse. TIME talked to "Pete" about his undercover work, what it does to his
personal life and the lengths he's gone to keep his cover intact. (See the
top 10 animal stories of 2008.)
Time - How did you get into this line of work?
Pete - My initial plan in life was to become a cop and then join the FBI.
But I started to learn that the worst things I've ever read about human
beings doing to each other — similar if not identical things happen to
animals on a mass scale. I felt that there were enough people in law
enforcement but there weren't enough people working in animal rights. In
2001 a private investigator trained me, and my first job on my own was
working at a dog kennel in Arkansas.
Time - How old are you?
Pete - I can't say. Sorry.
Time - Do you do this full-time?
Pete - I do this on a contract basis.
Time - How has doing this job shaped the kind of person you are?
Pete - This job has completely redefined who I am and has completely changed
my outlook on the world. It's a very depressing life and it's a very lonely
life. Most of the time, I'm pretending to be somebody that I'm not. Most of
my social interactions are under the pretext that I'm a different person and
that I'm trying to hide a certain part of myself.
Time - What kind of toll does that take on your mental health?
Pete - You're moving constantly and assuming other identities. At the end of
the day, you're not really left with very much. It is very difficult to
manage that type of lifestyle.
I've done things that I'm not proud of — things that I don't want to have to
admit, even in my field notes when I type them up at the end of the day. But
there needs to be payback for the animals. Either way, as much as it sucks,
I just feel like I have to keep going. But any dreams about who I was going
to be before I took this job are gone.
Time - Do you find it hard to have close personal relationships with people
because of your job? Are you in a relationship?
Pete - I'm not in a relationship. That's not to say that I don't want to be.
But I am a professional liar. That's what undercover work is. I'll meet
someone, and I'll say I have a job I don't talk about. And all of a sudden
I'm a really weird guy. The result is that I don't have much of a personal
life.
Time - Are there times when you have to abuse animals in order to fit in
with the people you're working with?
Pete - Constantly. There are certain organizations that have guidelines
investigators have to follow. But for me, if a supervisor tells me to do
something, I'm trying to show that facility has a protocol that they follow
that may or may not be against the law. As an undercover investigator, you
don't alter anything or plant anything. You show things exactly as they are.
(Read a Q&A with the head of the Humane Society about factory farming.)
Time - Are you vegetarian?
Pete - I'm vegan. Oh, yeah.
Time - Do you ever have sympathy for the people you're working with?
Pete - All the time. The vast majority of people I work with are very
polite, very considerate people. They just have absolutely no respect for
animals. But I blame the companies that own these facilities, not the
workers themselves.
Time - Are there any conditions under which you would think it's O.K. to
raise animals for food?
Pete - I do not believe animals are here for us to exploit, and I do not
believe that under any circumstances we should raise animals for food. That
said, I am very happy Proposition 2 passed in California and that it will
phase out extreme confinement of animals, including battery cages for hens.
Time - What's more effective for the animal-rights movement — the public
seeing the footage you take or legal action?
Pete - Changing the laws would probably be what I would prefer. If you have
the law being changed, it validates what the animal-rights movement is
about. It also validates these investigations. We're suddenly not a bunch of
unlicensed investigators running around for our own sake.
Time - You're unlicensed?
Pete - I'm an unlicensed investigator. That's how I'm able to get away with
doing what I do.
Time - What's the worst thing you've ever seen in your career?
Pete - On an egg farm, it's very, very normal to see live hens thrown in the
trash. If you spin them around to break their necks like they tell you to,
that doesn't always cause cervical dislocation. So they just kind of throw
them away live in the trash. You'll always come across birds that are barely
breathing, missing all their feathers, all bloody in the trash. You never
get completely desensitized to that.
Time - Have you ever walked away from an assignment because it's just too
hard to be there?
Pete - Never.
To see Death on a Factory Farm on HBO from March 2009, go here for information.
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