MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Today, animal activists are celebrating what they are calling their first global sanctuary day. The effort to save farm animals from abuse began 40 years ago with the creation of a shelter called the Farm Sanctuary. Now hundreds of those rescue farms exist around the world. Illinois Public Media's Abigail Bottar visited one and has this report.
ABIGAIL BOTTAR, BYLINE: The Farm Micro Sanctuary in Indiana is one of more than a dozen farm animal shelters in the Midwest. Jessica Wallace, who has a degree in equine sciences, bought the four-acre property to have a home for her horse. She says now her mission is to provide a safe haven for at-risk animals, especially those that are older and disabled. Currently, Wallace cares for about 40 animals at the sanctuary, including two horses, chickens and goats.
JESSICA WALLACE: About the time that I got involved with the goats was when I went vegan, and I started learning more about what happens to chickens and what happens to goats and what happens, well, to any of it.
BOTTAR: Wallace officially launched the Farm Micro Sanctuary five years ago. One of the goats at the shelter is 15 years old and is receiving extra care.
WALLACE: Lucas is our original goat. He has a wealth of problems. He's our - he's - actually, we consider him hospice care.
BOTTAR: Wallace says she saved more than 100 animals since she became involved in the sanctuary movement. Some came from hoarding situations or factory farms, large-scale industrial facilities that raise thousands of animals in confined indoor settings. Wallace says some were simply abandoned, like Quincy, the sanctuary's lone quail.
WALLACE: Somebody had moved out of the house, and the water department in that town actually found him. They had left this flock in their garage, and he was the only survivor.
BOTTAR: The Farm Sanctuary movement began in the 1980s. That's when Gene Baur opened what was considered the first shelter for farm animals in the United States.
GENE BAUR: We were a small, all-volunteer organization, and we had very little funding, and the way we funded the organization was by selling vegan hot dogs out of our Volkswagen van at Grateful Dead shows.
BOTTAR: The advent of rescue groups created a political tug of war between animal activists and agribusiness, which focuses on scaling up the number of livestock for food. Baur says early on, his group worked to show the negative impact of factory farming by investigating what was happening at stockyards and in farming operations.
BAUR: We would find living animals literally thrown in trash cans or left on piles of dead animals. So we started rescuing them, and that's how our sanctuaries began.
BOTTAR: Since that time, at least 15 states have banned different forms of extreme confinement for farm animals, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. There's been pushback from agribusiness giants and other farming groups who say the actions of activist groups affect farmers' and ranchers' ability to provide safe and affordable animal products.
Even so, just last month, a federal judge dismissed the Department of Justice's challenge to a California law, which set minimum space requirements for farm animals and prohibited the sale of eggs and meat from animals confined in ways that didn't meet the standard. The Trump administration had argued the law placed too much of a burden on farmers and raised egg prices for consumers. The judge said the DOJ lacked standing to bring the case.
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BOTTAR: Back at the Farm Micro Sanctuary, Wallace is holding a volunteer event to help people make the connection between animals and the food on their plate.
WALLACE: So many people, especially people who live in the city and aren't around it, don't - like, don't make that connection.
BOTTAR: She's hoping visitors can fully realize why farm animals deserve compassionate care instead of ending up as food during this global sanctuary day. For NPR News, I'm Abigail Bottar in Larwill, Indiana. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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