Speaker 1: It's Maria's MutS and Stuff.
Speaker 2: What a great idea on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Maria's Mutts and Stuff and with me.
Speaker 4: You know, it's always one of my favorites when somebody
Speaker 4: is a return guest, and he's also one of my
Speaker 4: favorite people. It is undercover animal investigator Pete Paxton.
Speaker 3: So Pete, welcome back.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: It is a real honor to be here.
Speaker 4: Please, you are, like I said, all these years, big
Speaker 4: fan of yours. You know that once we got connected,
Speaker 4: and you always fill me in on stuff that really
Speaker 4: makes my head spin. But it's just very, very important
Speaker 4: in the animal rights animal welfare field. For anybody who's
Speaker 4: listening to this podcast, obviously they're into it just like
Speaker 4: we are. But you're the real deal, and you know
Speaker 4: your thumb is on the pulse of it, So tell
Speaker 4: me what's been going on.
Speaker 3: Also, by the fact, by the way, I looked it
Speaker 3: up because I was.
Speaker 4: Trying to remember the last time we spoke, and it
Speaker 4: was actually not too long ago.
Speaker 3: It was this year. It was I believe in February.
Speaker 3: We had a chat. Okay, yeah, with that was so tell.
Speaker 2: Me things move so fast. So yes, Okay, we got
Speaker 2: something new, okay, And and and that's the thing is
Speaker 2: like it is, it's difficult in the animal rights space
Speaker 2: now to present something that is new to people because
Speaker 2: it seems like we know everything. But what we did
Speaker 2: on this is that my group Seed, Kaelin and I
Speaker 2: Run we uncovered something that we all thought we knew about.
Speaker 2: Turns out it's not at all what we thought. And
Speaker 2: it is livestock auctions, which so yes, livestock auctions are
Speaker 2: a much bigger people. So so, first of all, for
Speaker 2: your listeners who had don't know anything about that. And
Speaker 2: if you're thinking of an auction and you're imagining some
Speaker 2: guy in a cowboy hat sitting up on a podium
Speaker 2: and just like rambling really fast to sell animals, boom,
Speaker 2: you nailed it. That's exactly what it is, right, and
Speaker 2: it is there's about there's about a thousand of them,
Speaker 2: over a thousand.
Speaker 3: Over a thousand auctions auction.
Speaker 2: Over a thousand stock auctions, okay, all over the US. Okay,
Speaker 2: and you're a big deal in rural America. And you
Speaker 2: might not think it, but they are connected to to.
Speaker 3: If you eat okay, like if.
Speaker 2: You eat beef and it's to a lecture degree, it
Speaker 2: would be. And I can discuss this to alextra grief
Speaker 2: poultry and pork. But if you eat beef or or
Speaker 2: lamb or goat, odds are that animal went through an
Speaker 2: auction at some point.
Speaker 3: Really and okay, so let me just interrupt you.
Speaker 4: So most people like I don't know because I don't
Speaker 4: eat meat, but but I still pay attention to it.
Speaker 4: So most people assume that the steak they're buying in
Speaker 4: the supermarket came from a cattle farm or something like
Speaker 4: a beef farm in the Midwest.
Speaker 3: Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And it and it did. But so here's here's
Speaker 2: the thing. Is that is that eighty percent of cattle
Speaker 2: producers rely on auctions and get their cattle to market.
Speaker 2: In fact, there's been more sheep sales sheep and lamb
Speaker 2: sales in auctions than there are sheep and lambs because
Speaker 2: most of them get sold more than once.
Speaker 3: Oh my, okay, so how does that happen? Explain that
Speaker 3: to me.
Speaker 2: So here we go. We got a real brief history lessons. Okay, right,
Speaker 2: is that is that a long time ago you had
Speaker 2: a bunch of cows, right and and and way back
Speaker 2: when we used to. We primarily used cattle like their
Speaker 2: highs fat their tower, right, Okay, but we start but
Speaker 2: once we had railroads and you could move stuff really easily,
Speaker 2: we were the beef industry was picking up, and we're like,
Speaker 2: you know what, we can fatten these cattle up up,
Speaker 2: we can eat them, and we now have a way
Speaker 2: to get them to market. So like if you can
Speaker 2: go on Google Maps and you just just randomly go
Speaker 2: somewhere in the US and put in livestock auction odds
Speaker 2: are the auction that comes up, you're gonna see a
Speaker 2: railroad going by it. Because the animals literally were put
Speaker 2: onto train cars to get them to a slaughterhouse. Okay,
Speaker 2: then yeah, n K eighteen wheelers, right, And so the
Speaker 2: thing is it's never changed. It's like you have. Auctions
Speaker 2: are places. We typically think of auctions as places where
Speaker 2: it's like the small independent, rural family farm sells their animals,
Speaker 2: and they do, and then we think other small independent
Speaker 2: farms like I'm gonna buy this one cow or kill.
Speaker 2: On the JBS website they say that a one year
Speaker 2: that they bought from over thirty one thousand, one hundred
Speaker 2: family owned farms. Auctions are how they can make that claim. Wow,
Speaker 2: It's like it's not just small places buying JBS, car
Speaker 2: deal cabinets, beef factors, all the big names. And so
Speaker 2: you have like you have like people who have factory
Speaker 2: full on factory farms that are selling, and then you
Speaker 2: have people that they just got you goats, right. I
Speaker 2: remember I remember seeing some a guy come here and
Speaker 2: say his son was really upset, but he goats because
Speaker 2: they were pets that he raised, or they have just
Speaker 2: a couple of cows, or one woman she brought in
Speaker 2: this goat with a with on a leash collar, and
Speaker 2: she took the leash off and she kissed that goat
Speaker 2: on and scare the animals depends on an auction. I'll
Speaker 2: explain that.
Speaker 3: Okay, wait, wait, let me just tell you.
Speaker 4: You cut out for sex, So tell me I And
Speaker 4: so I got that she brought the goat, she took
Speaker 4: the leash off, and watch she kissed the goat on
Speaker 4: the head and then she brought it in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she kissed the goat on the head and then
Speaker 2: she gave me the goat. And normally you have to
Speaker 2: scare animals to a pin, right, right, And I can't
Speaker 2: explain that this goat followed me into a pin. It's
Speaker 2: was like a pet. But once that goat was done
Speaker 2: going through auction, that gun was that goat was running
Speaker 2: just like all of the others. So even the loved ones,
Speaker 2: even the like even the small independent family farm, and
Speaker 2: they actually care about their animals, those animals are not
Speaker 2: exempted from cruelty, and livestock auctions are the reason why.
Speaker 2: So the way it works is that in the in
Speaker 2: the commercial animal space where people are making off animals,
Speaker 2: the rule of thumb is the less interaction with the animals,
Speaker 2: the more neglect there's gonna be bink broiler farm, egg farm. Right.
Speaker 2: The more you've been interaction, the more violence and at
Speaker 2: auctions you have constant you interactions. So what I did
Speaker 2: is I went under cover seventeen livestock auctions across the US.
Speaker 2: I worked undercover at fifteen of them. And this was
Speaker 2: in ten states. This is Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: New York, California, Florida, and Louisian, Okay. And that the
Speaker 2: video is on. We have a site it's our seed
Speaker 2: Livestock Auctions dot org. If you put if you google
Speaker 2: seed livestock auctions.
Speaker 4: Then you'll see it come up, right, and that's s
Speaker 4: E A D. I should also let people know in
Speaker 4: case they're not sure, SEED stands for Strategies for Ethical
Speaker 4: and Environmental Development. So that's I just want to get
Speaker 4: that off there, right, so when they're wondering how it's spelled,
Speaker 4: it's like, that's what it represents, and it's s E
Speaker 4: ED Okay, sorry, yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh no, you're good. Yeah, thank you, thank you so
Speaker 2: and and you can see online what we got and
Speaker 2: it's bad. I mean it's if Vox did a story
Speaker 2: they came out with the exclusive. It it hit Apple
Speaker 2: News top stories and uh you know, so you can
Speaker 2: you know, a major news network. This is not your
Speaker 2: stuff saying.
Speaker 3: This, you know right right right.
Speaker 2: It was really horrendous stuff. And what and what you
Speaker 2: see is that it's not just like like the workers
Speaker 2: are extreme. It's this crazy pace you have to work
Speaker 2: sometimes with dangerous animals because he's animal scared at him.
Speaker 3: Of course, of course animals are smart.
Speaker 2: They yeah, insact, there's the animals are so overworked and scared.
Speaker 2: I saw healthy calves like you know, like three six
Speaker 2: months old, just fall down and just die.
Speaker 3: Oh god, oh, like a heart attack or something or
Speaker 3: a stroke. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: The dehydration street and and and so you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's it's it's a very dangerous, tough environment and people
Speaker 2: have an insane pace to work at and they quickly
Speaker 2: resort to violence. And so you know, you have you
Speaker 2: have on the one side, you have that, and on
Speaker 2: the other side you have these other kinds of auctions
Speaker 2: that more resemble wet markets. And it's like it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, chickens and turkeys and ducks and rabbits being
Speaker 2: sold alongside goats and hogs. And it's an environment that
Speaker 2: is so ripe for zoonotic disease that there's a study
Speaker 2: that Harvard and NYU recently did where about zoonotic disease
Speaker 2: outbreaks and an entire section of it is dedicated to
Speaker 2: live stock auctions.
Speaker 3: Wow wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that is that is basically where we're at.
Speaker 2: Is that is that we did this very thorough investigation
Speaker 2: to show Look, it's not one bad actor, it's across
Speaker 2: the whole country. It's all of them. And this end
Speaker 2: you know, if you eat meat, odds are you know
Speaker 2: a livestock auction was involved.
Speaker 3: Wow? Wow? Okay, So I have a couple of questions
Speaker 3: for you.
Speaker 4: So for those so, now, wet markets, for those who
Speaker 4: are like, wait what that was a very well we
Speaker 4: all thought or think that that's where COVID came from, right,
Speaker 4: it was the wet markets in China way back. Explain
Speaker 4: what a wet market is now, you said chicken turkeys,
Speaker 4: are they alive or.
Speaker 3: No, they're alive. They're alive at wet markets.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, So wet markets typically that you have live
Speaker 2: animals that are sold. Sometimes you butcher them on site.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, and so and this is this is.
Speaker 2: A major US you know you have this. You know,
Speaker 2: I've seen them in Chicago and LA and New York.
Speaker 2: You know, it's that a lot of people think like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's something somewhere else, right, and they associated with COVID
Speaker 2: like yeah, yeah, it's like man, you know, it's here, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's yeah, it's it's here. Yeah, it's and you know,
Speaker 2: and there's all kinds of like and it doesn't it's
Speaker 2: not just like it's not just like it's some kind
Speaker 2: of you know, you know, weird animals.
Speaker 3: It's stuff that people eat.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: So now, absolutely, and you know you're everyone, And not
Speaker 4: to be funny, but you're we're hearing this from the
Speaker 4: who's mouth meaning you because you're undercover, right, so you
Speaker 4: saw this with your own eyes and shot videos And
Speaker 4: so how is that? I mean, because I know we've
Speaker 4: talked about it before. How how are you not recognized?
Speaker 4: And I know these are you know, it's a big,
Speaker 4: huge country. Like how do you get yourself into these
Speaker 4: situations with not giving without giving up too much information?
Speaker 4: But how do you get in so that people believe
Speaker 4: that you want to be a worker in one of
Speaker 4: these live auctions?
Speaker 2: Right? So still for for e listeners that don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, my job is doing surveillance and undercover right,
Speaker 2: commercial animal facilities? Right? And and for this I understand, like,
Speaker 2: I like, it would be so cool to make myself
Speaker 2: sound like I'm James Bond on this, But it was
Speaker 2: really easy.
Speaker 3: Okay, really, I can't imagine. I can't imagine.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, almost any place I would show up
Speaker 2: to the day before or the day of and I
Speaker 2: would be like, hey, do you need someone I'm not
Speaker 2: drunk right now, and they'd be like, please work for us, right,
Speaker 2: because so many people were drunk while while doing this
Speaker 2: I mean there were there were there were people that
Speaker 2: were like they were I saw I saw like more
Speaker 2: than once. I saw a drunk, drunk guy with a
Speaker 2: kid who was under ten years old getting their kid
Speaker 2: to chase after and animals or to like try to
Speaker 2: stand out of the way as a dangerous bull was charging.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean it's you know, the wild West
Speaker 2: is like there's nothing that terms, nothing to explain what
Speaker 2: these places are like. Yeah, and so you know, it's, uh,
Speaker 2: it was it was easy as long as they like,
Speaker 2: you know, some of them, it's all over the place.
Speaker 2: Some of them had had people who had been around
Speaker 2: livestock their whole lives, and they wanted people who knew
Speaker 2: what they're doing. But again, fifty to fifty shops, they're
Speaker 2: going to be drunk while they're doing it. Wow, some
Speaker 2: of them it was like a bunch of high school kids.
Speaker 2: A lot of them were also drunk. Right. But the
Speaker 2: thing is is that it's like they wanted someone in
Speaker 2: either environment who knew what they're doing, so they might
Speaker 2: at first watch me and it's this is gonna sound silly,
Speaker 2: but they want to make sure I know how to
Speaker 2: boom around animals, right, and that I know how to
Speaker 2: open and close gates. Okay, that's it's actually it is
Speaker 2: very simple. But if you've never done it, you can
Speaker 2: tell immediately someone has no idea, what the hell of course?
Speaker 2: And sure, yeah, and I've worked under covered enough ranches
Speaker 2: and farms and slaughterhouses.
Speaker 3: Like sure, yeah, you know that's not silly at all.
Speaker 3: That's I mean. I couldn't go in and do it.
Speaker 4: I'd be like, h yeah, I've never did this before,
Speaker 4: and they'd be like, yes, we know, go you know
Speaker 4: so I mean, yeah, it's not silly at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so and so, you know, that's that's all
Speaker 2: that they needed. And then once people could see that
Speaker 2: I did, in fact know what I was doing, you know,
Speaker 2: that kind of that helped because at some places it
Speaker 2: was at some places they were so rigid and tight
Speaker 2: about you stand here, don't she move, And at other
Speaker 2: places it was it was more like I know what
Speaker 2: I'm doing, and they can tell I know what I'm doing,
Speaker 2: and that enabled me to move from spot to spot.
Speaker 2: If I saw a problem elsewhere, I'd be like, I
Speaker 2: know how to take care of this, and then I
Speaker 2: could just kind of get over there and film what
Speaker 2: needed film. No one questioned it because right, yeah, Pete
Speaker 2: knows what he's doing.
Speaker 3: We believe it, you know, right right right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And uh, and so it was easy. It was
Speaker 2: you know, some places they didn't need someone that but
Speaker 2: it was very easy to get hired. Right.
Speaker 4: Okay, So all of the videos and the photos and
Speaker 4: everything that you shot, now, the people, the places that
Speaker 4: you shot it, I mean, do they have uh and
Speaker 4: this might be a stupid question, but do they have
Speaker 4: employees who actually search website social media, like not focus groups,
Speaker 4: but groups that might be onto them or they don't
Speaker 4: care because they're so arrogant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they you know, the I do, and I
Speaker 2: kind of I went out of my way to hit
Speaker 2: I hit big and small targets because I wanted to
Speaker 2: show this is all of the place. But I made
Speaker 2: sure I was hitting targets that I thought weren't going
Speaker 2: to be onto me. Got it, Yeah, And but that
Speaker 2: was I mean, there was a lot sure to pick from.
Speaker 2: But I mean, yeah, you know, there were there were
Speaker 2: people that were there were people that were scrolling on
Speaker 2: social media on their phones while working, and that resulted
Speaker 2: more than one animals running by them and not in
Speaker 2: the correct pen and creating a lot of problems.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But but the thing is is that if you
Speaker 2: go online and you look at this case, you if
Speaker 2: you ever wonder like like how much is this you know,
Speaker 2: stuff the animal right back to the city. It's true.
Speaker 2: What is it like if you want to see a
Speaker 2: slice out of rural American life where everyone everyone comes together,
Speaker 2: because like these livestock auctions, it's almost like a church
Speaker 2: for them, right, everyone comes together. It's a social time.
Speaker 2: People that live on farms in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 2: Once a week they got this chance to come together,
Speaker 2: and then some of them dress up for it.
Speaker 3: Right, It's really.
Speaker 2: Wow. It's like if you combine the movie Deliverance with
Speaker 2: an episode of Real Housewives, get right, and you will
Speaker 2: see it like you will see yeah, you will see
Speaker 2: like like you know, all these kinds of people of
Speaker 2: all ages and what their behavior is. And then one
Speaker 2: thing we did on the website was that normally when
Speaker 2: there's a case, a lot of animal rights groups do
Speaker 2: a thing where it's that that you want to get
Speaker 2: someone's attention. So you take one animal and you're like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm gonna try to humanize this one animal.
Speaker 2: So that you can not just see this as a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of birds, but like one chicken out of
Speaker 2: the flock. And this is Lucy and this is her story.
Speaker 2: But what we did was we decided we're gonna try
Speaker 2: and humanize the workers. And I took three employees and
Speaker 2: I gave them ail busines. And these three employees committed
Speaker 2: abusive acts, acts that when you see them, you're going
Speaker 2: to be like, I'm pissed off. I want that person
Speaker 2: to going to jail. But I tell you on the
Speaker 2: website what was happening that day. I tell you there's
Speaker 2: no excuse for what they did, but I tell you
Speaker 2: exactly why they did what they did, so that you
Speaker 2: can sit back, take a breath and say, Okay, I
Speaker 2: can see how a good person can do a bad thing.
Speaker 3: Sure, it's almost like it's almost like peer pressure for them.
Speaker 2: Correct, Oh very much. So, yeah, peer pressure. You know,
Speaker 2: you're stressed, you're dehydrated, someone screaming at you. You know, sure,
Speaker 2: you get brutal to get the job done.
Speaker 4: Right, and it's a job, so you know, people need jobs,
Speaker 4: so it kind of makes you feel you're right, like
Speaker 4: not like, oh, arrest these people, but you kind of
Speaker 4: have empathy for them because they're just trying to make
Speaker 4: a do their job, but at the expense and you know,
Speaker 4: and being and brutalizing animals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they got they got this rare thing. Live
Speaker 2: stack auctions have a very unique thing I've never seen
Speaker 2: in any other kind of job, which is like imagine,
Speaker 2: okay for anyone who does it, now I can back
Speaker 2: up here is it? What to do at the auction
Speaker 2: is you have people that they come in and they
Speaker 2: bring their animals, and you have trailers coming in, right
Speaker 2: and these trailers might literally have one animal, one sheep,
Speaker 2: one goat, one cow or a hog or or you know,
Speaker 2: someone might have like so many animals crammed into the trailer.
Speaker 2: I've seen this that you yank the doors open and
Speaker 2: animals literally come spilling out, and some of them have
Speaker 2: trampled each other to death. It's like it is, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean everything in between right right then, you know,
Speaker 2: the animals are going through the auction, and then the
Speaker 2: public is going through and you have people that you
Speaker 2: have small time buyers and they're walking through and they're
Speaker 2: looking at the pens like, oh I want to I
Speaker 2: want to try and buy, you know, that pig. I
Speaker 2: want to buy that goat. And then you have big
Speaker 2: time buyers, people the places like JBS and car You'll
Speaker 2: send out and they're looking and they're like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna buy all this stuff right right, and they're all watching,
Speaker 2: and then everybody comes through and they picks up their animals.
Speaker 2: So it's like, while you're working at the auction, literally
Speaker 2: half the town is there, sure their kids watching you, right,
Speaker 2: And it does not deter the abuse. In fact, some
Speaker 2: of the customers become involved in the abuse. You'll see
Speaker 2: that in the footage that we have. Yeah, it's and
Speaker 2: so it's this weird thing where it's like, imagine that
Speaker 2: pure pressure. Imagine it's like your family is like, we're
Speaker 2: so proud of you, Maria that you're gonna go work
Speaker 2: at the auction, your first job you're in high school.
Speaker 2: We're so proud you're gonna you've been helping us here
Speaker 2: at the farm, but you're gonna go out there and
Speaker 2: do a good job. And then your neighbors are watching
Speaker 2: you and they're like, Maria, hurry the hell up, just throw.
Speaker 4: That goat, right, And so you do it because everybody's
Speaker 4: watching and you have the pressure and you're trying to
Speaker 4: do a job, but at the expense of the animal.
Speaker 1: Ugh.
Speaker 5: And so that's something that was unique about this case
Speaker 5: was getting to say you get to like really see
Speaker 5: not just oh, there's a crime against animals and that's bad.
Speaker 2: You get to see the the you know how on
Speaker 2: a cultural level. It takes place, right and you know it.
Speaker 2: It's what's what's difficult about it is it leaves you
Speaker 2: without much space other than promoting a plant based diet. Right,
Speaker 2: have a solution because you're talking about culture.
Speaker 3: Right right, because I was, Yeah, I was just going
Speaker 3: to ask you.
Speaker 4: So by you know, going undercover and exposing the cruelty
Speaker 4: and everything else, the goal is to get people to
Speaker 4: not eat so much meat because then these livestock auctions
Speaker 4: wouldn't be necessary.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly because you have things that are like you
Speaker 2: have you have laws and you have regulations. And now
Speaker 2: for this next part, I don't I don't want to
Speaker 2: try and be too graphic, but I might have to
Speaker 2: describe some Okay, Okay, so I'm gonna try it. I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna I'm not gonna be too graphic that okay, Okay,
Speaker 2: all right, don't worry listeners. Okay, yeah, I'll just sorry.
Speaker 3: I mean to laugh when you say that, but you
Speaker 3: just make me laugh now, No, no, don't worry, listeners, vomit.
Speaker 2: You're not gonna cry. You're not gonna cry.
Speaker 3: Now, I'm gonna cry. Listen to you, but go ahead.
Speaker 2: Okay. Well, I'll just say that there was like at
Speaker 2: one place people abused from downed animals, I'll just say that, okay,
Speaker 2: And they did it and in front of signs that said,
Speaker 2: you know, USDA regulations prohibit downed animals being unloaded at
Speaker 2: the facility, and I got a shot of that while
Speaker 2: I filmed a downed animal being beaten and unloaded. And
Speaker 2: that same the same place as Empire, Lifestock and Fort
Speaker 2: in New York. They host events at Corno University that
Speaker 2: for the beat Quality Assurance Program, and that program is
Speaker 2: designed to have standards that prohibits abuse such as beating
Speaker 2: animals of solid objects, which they did, shocking down animals
Speaker 2: which they did, you know, trying to move down in
Speaker 2: which they did. So it's like that doesn't do anything.
Speaker 2: Now when it comes to the laws, there's laws on
Speaker 2: the books everywhere. But some of the abuse that I saw,
Speaker 2: which I I won't describe. You'd have to go on
Speaker 2: the website because I don't want to make I don't
Speaker 2: want to know people too much, right right, Yeah, but
Speaker 2: some of the abuse that I saw that was reported
Speaker 2: to law enforcement, it's like what some people got away
Speaker 2: with that they weren't prosecuted for. It leaves it has
Speaker 2: left me, after twenty three years of doing this job, thinking,
Speaker 2: I guess I don't even know what animal cruelty is anymore.
Speaker 3: Oh, you know, it's awful like that if if that's
Speaker 3: legal that, but it's possibly.
Speaker 2: Illy, right, and so you know, it's like you see
Speaker 2: this and you're like, okay, we're up against the entire culture,
Speaker 2: and this is an element that you know, even if
Speaker 2: someone's like I take care of my animals, you probably
Speaker 2: sell them to auction where they're abused. And the knee
Speaker 2: jerk reaction from the public right is going to be like, well,
Speaker 2: it packs a law. There's already laws, you know, have regulations,
Speaker 2: there's already regulations. You know, there's already third parties, right.
Speaker 3: Like it doesn't matter. It seems like it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: And like the fact that you said that all this
Speaker 4: was happening, you know, in front of a sign that
Speaker 4: says USDA like who cares? Basically, yeah, like those are ineffective.
Speaker 4: It's ineffective to have something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And so you know this, this is why,
Speaker 2: uh you know, animal rights groups were always trying to say, hey,
Speaker 2: if you can eat less meat, you're really going to
Speaker 2: be helping out the animals. And it's it's the truth.
Speaker 2: It's it's because I feel like we're in this age
Speaker 2: now where if it's like apathy is a virtue, right,
Speaker 2: or we're like, ah, you know what, I don't I
Speaker 2: can't get everything I want from this candidate, So I'm
Speaker 2: going to make a statement by.
Speaker 3: Not voting right.
Speaker 4: Right, It's like you're not making a statement doing the opposite.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, I hear.
Speaker 2: That, yeah, or or or people that are like, you
Speaker 2: know what, I'm I don't want to have to have
Speaker 2: responsibility for this. The corporations are the ones who should
Speaker 2: take responsibility. So therefore I'm not going to do anything
Speaker 2: right right, And it's it's apathy disguised as virtue. It
Speaker 2: sucks that we are the ones who have to take
Speaker 2: it upon ourselves to do the right thing. But I
Speaker 2: just want to remind people that like these animals, they're defenseless,
Speaker 2: they're voiceless, and there's nothing that they can do. And
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, you don't. You don't have to hate
Speaker 2: the people involved with this. You don't have to hate
Speaker 2: the culture that engages in this. You still have the
Speaker 2: powers stop it.
Speaker 4: Correct, correct, And I know that's yeah, no, that's your message.
Speaker 4: And honestly, and you know, for those because there are
Speaker 4: always people and I get it.
Speaker 3: Who just I mean, I have friends and I'm sure
Speaker 3: you do.
Speaker 4: Two peete who cannot wrap their head around never eating
Speaker 4: meat again like a plant based all the time. I
Speaker 4: just I cannot do it. Okay, it's not maybe you can't.
Speaker 4: But even if you eat less meat, I don't think
Speaker 4: and I just think as humans, it's not necessary to
Speaker 4: have meat three times a day, seven days a week.
Speaker 4: I don't think that's healthy for us, right, But there
Speaker 4: are people who find that in their diet. So I
Speaker 4: mean my thought is always to say, Okay, well, I
Speaker 4: don't expect you to do because for a person like that,
Speaker 4: it's extreme for them to go one hundred percent plant based.
Speaker 4: But if they can cut out some of the meat,
Speaker 4: that will actually help this industry to not exist as
Speaker 4: much and graduate, you know, gradually.
Speaker 3: Does is that correct? Like does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you know, yeah, it's it's it's going to
Speaker 2: take time for these things to change because it's a
Speaker 2: cultural thing, right And but yeah, you're right. I mean
Speaker 2: we all have the power, right, you know, to do something.
Speaker 2: And no, yeah, don't don't don't get frustrated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't get frustrated.
Speaker 4: And I think and I talked about this recently with
Speaker 4: another guest, I mean, I think compared to like plant
Speaker 4: based options from years and years ago, it's a very
Speaker 4: it's a big difference than it was. So it's there
Speaker 4: are more options for people who maybe have considered it,
Speaker 4: or you know, people as they age and especially you
Speaker 4: know Americans gain weight and are unhealthy, and I know
Speaker 4: plenty as they get into their older ages older age
Speaker 4: without being specific in the age, but you know, over fifty,
Speaker 4: and it's like okay, either go you know, you are
Speaker 4: a heart attack waiting to happen, or change your diet.
Speaker 4: And that's part of eating less meat is change your
Speaker 4: diet because one hundred percent of the cases when you
Speaker 4: hear about that, people change their diet. And that is
Speaker 4: definitely eating less meat their health changes and they get
Speaker 4: healthier and they're not a step away.
Speaker 3: From a heart attack anymore.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 3: It's kind of simple.
Speaker 4: And it's not being on medications your whole life either,
Speaker 4: because that's not healthy as well. So yeah, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't think we're talking about stuff that's really impossible.
Speaker 4: It's just it does sound extreme, but it's really not
Speaker 4: because we all really need to you know, we're given
Speaker 4: one body. You need to take care of it, and
Speaker 4: we all hope to live as long as we can.
Speaker 4: But you know, eating meat three times a day, seven
Speaker 4: days a week, it's not going to get you to
Speaker 4: the ripe old age that your grandpa lived to.
Speaker 3: I don't think, yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's and the amount of stuff
Speaker 2: that's out there now is like there's some really good stuff.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness. Absolutely, it's it's easy easy now.
Speaker 2: Where it can be tough is in if you if
Speaker 2: you're out in just rural areas that that can be
Speaker 2: that can be kind of tough. Sure, Fortunately Burger King
Speaker 2: has got the impossible whopper going on, that's right.
Speaker 1: But but besides that, you know, I mean, especially.
Speaker 2: In major urban areas, it's very very simple. But I
Speaker 2: mean that you know that that goes that goes back
Speaker 2: to culture as well. I mean if I can't, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's, you know, we have to recognize
Speaker 2: that there's people in rural America that like they they
Speaker 2: they see you know. It's it's kind of like, you know, we,
Speaker 2: especially in this day and age, we you know, politically culturally,
Speaker 2: we see each other as a threat, right, and we
Speaker 2: got to call each other out when there's problems and
Speaker 2: say we got to make changes. And I believe moving
Speaker 2: to a plant based diet is necessary, saving the environment,
Speaker 2: helping animals. You know, we just and we don't have
Speaker 2: to like hate each other in the process correct of
Speaker 2: doing it.
Speaker 4: Correct because we're all you know, we always say we
Speaker 4: all belied the same color. We're all exactly alike inside.
Speaker 4: So like get over yourself absolutely, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's like it's really simple, just get over it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's really very simple. You know, if
Speaker 4: I cut you or I cut someone else, we're all
Speaker 4: going to bleed the same, you know.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Well this is this is like I mean, it's it's
Speaker 4: this heavy duty stuff beat and you always come back
Speaker 4: with stuff like this. But I think it's really important
Speaker 4: because we all need our eyes to be open to things,
Speaker 4: because too many people also like to just put their
Speaker 4: head in the sand and not see what reality is. So,
Speaker 4: you know, thanks to people like you going undercover in
Speaker 4: these like heinous conditions and situations to bring to light
Speaker 4: for us.
Speaker 2: So you know, kudos to you, and if if I
Speaker 2: appreciate that, and if people like if you go to
Speaker 2: see livestock auctions dot org, like I say, you'll see
Speaker 2: it's not it's not just like a horrible video of
Speaker 2: a bunch of cruelty, right, like you'll see. We have
Speaker 2: we have different paths. We have like we have like
Speaker 2: what are livestock auctions? We explain it. We have a
Speaker 2: reasons for Abuse tub and that explains why exactly good
Speaker 2: people do bad things. We have stories of these other workers.
Speaker 2: And then uh, you know, we also have we have
Speaker 2: the evidence tab where this the evidence tab is the
Speaker 2: one tab. But I'm gonna tell you I worked hard
Speaker 2: on it.
Speaker 3: Evidence.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's the one that's got the stuff. If you're like,
Speaker 2: you know what, I don't know. I think this guy
Speaker 2: P is exaggerating well to the evidence yeah, that's that's
Speaker 2: the one where we have additional videos. But if you
Speaker 2: think we only chose the worst of for the main vid,
Speaker 2: the rest of it's right there, right yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: All right, well okay, So seed livestock Auctions dot org.
Speaker 4: So if they need more information, if they want to
Speaker 4: see the evidence because they don't believe what we're talking about,
Speaker 4: so have Yeah.
Speaker 2: Just we also have stuff on there that would be
Speaker 2: like as a reference if someone's like, hey, I do
Speaker 2: not want to see those videos, but where the hell
Speaker 2: are you getting this infol We have links to everything
Speaker 2: that Harvard and why you study.
Speaker 3: Oh that's great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this information about like eighty percent of cattle producers
Speaker 2: send their cattle to market. Like where did they get
Speaker 2: that from? Links to it, alost to it.
Speaker 4: Okay, So it's all there, okay. And also, I mean
Speaker 4: you guys are a nonprofit, correct.
Speaker 2: We are a nonprofit and the other half of our
Speaker 2: work is working with litigators to sue factory farms that
Speaker 2: pollute waterways. People can donate and the money goes to
Speaker 2: finding animal coolly and protecting the environment.
Speaker 3: Right, which I remember when you you were on earlier
Speaker 3: this year.
Speaker 4: So okay, So yeah, So for those who are listening
Speaker 4: and you want to do something and you go.
Speaker 3: For those who say, well, first of all for those who.
Speaker 4: They are called to action, would be just please you know,
Speaker 4: as we get into a new year, try to eat
Speaker 4: less meat because it would be best. It's best for
Speaker 4: the environment, it's best for your health. You know, you
Speaker 4: don't have to go cold turkey, no offense or not
Speaker 4: to be funny using the turkey, but you know, if
Speaker 4: you could do a gradual that would be a big
Speaker 4: help on both for your own life and for the environment.
Speaker 4: But as well as you know, Pete does all this
Speaker 4: amazing work that we need people to do and survives
Speaker 4: by donations at Seed Livestock Auctions dot org. This, I
Speaker 4: know is a was a big thing that you just
Speaker 4: you know, underwent what's next for you because I know
Speaker 4: you always have something going on.
Speaker 2: Oh, we have a lot of it. So we do
Speaker 2: have several places Seeds involved with it, UH and UH
Speaker 2: and suing for polluting the environment. As far as anything else,
Speaker 2: all I can say is we have things underway.
Speaker 3: Okay, I can't I can't give you can't no, I
Speaker 3: know you can never And I get that, all right,
Speaker 3: I get it.
Speaker 2: But and yeah, as far as any anyone at any
Speaker 2: targets out there that are nervous, Hey, if you're not
Speaker 2: breaking the law, you've got nothing to worry about the law.
Speaker 3: So I love it. I love it. It's awesome. No,
Speaker 3: it's true.
Speaker 4: And I know when your next thing, when you're ready
Speaker 4: to do it and disclose it, we'll be talking again
Speaker 4: here on Marias MutS and stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, Pete Paxton, thank you so much as always
Speaker 4: for doing all that you do. Uh, you know, I
Speaker 4: love that we've become friends and you're always willing to
Speaker 4: share your experiences because you definitely you definitely you know.
Speaker 4: It's almost like when somebody is watching a scary movie
Speaker 4: and you have your eyes closed really tight. And what
Speaker 4: I love about you is you force people's eyes to
Speaker 4: be open and we need that, you know. Yeah, Pete Paxston,
Speaker 4: We're gonna definitely talk again. Thanks for all you do.
Speaker 4: Keep keep fighting the good fight.
Speaker 1: Likewise, thank you,