Award-winning undercover investigator Lindsay Oliver joins Jasmin and Mariann to discuss her groundbreaking work inside a national primate research center and her new memoir, Marshmallows Are Their Favorite: Undercover at a Primate Lab. Over a two-decade career spanning more than 100 investigations across factory farms, research labs, zoos, and circuses, Lindsay shares what it’s really like to go undercover in facilities where animals are used for experimentation — the psychological toll on investigators, the surprising emotional lives of the monkeys she came to know, and the complicated reality of the lab workers who care for them but feel trapped inside a system they can’t question.

• Inside a primate research lab: Lindsay describes what she witnessed working undercover at a facility confining over 5,000 monkeys — from the routine procedures like blood draws and TB testing to the devastating effects of lifelong solitary cage confinement on intelligent, emotional beings.
• The workers’ story: A major focus of the book and the conversation is the lab workers themselves — people who often took jobs as animal caretakers without fully understanding the reality of animal testing, and who experience moral injury, trauma, and fear of speaking out while working inside a system that discourages dissent.
• Justify — supporting lab workers: Lindsay explains why she founded Justify, an organization that provides a safe space for current and former lab workers to process their experiences, share their stories, and bridge the gap between the scientific community and animal advocacy movement.
• Animals International US and Toxicity.inc: Lindsay discusses her role as executive director of Animals International US, including the recent Toxicity.inc whistleblower exposé revealing what goes on inside UK labs owned by a US company — and why animal testing is a global problem, not someone else’s problem.
• Reasons for optimism: Lindsay shares why she feels more hopeful than ever about the movement to end animal research, citing shifts at the FDA, NIH investments in non-animal science, and a growing willingness within government agencies to question the status quo — plus what listeners can do to help, starting with leading with empathy instead of judgment.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Lindsay Oliver is an award-winning undercover investigator and the author of the new book, Marshmallows Are Their Favorite: Undercover at a Primate Lab. Over the past two decades, she has personally conducted or overseen more than 100 investigations inside research labs, animal agriculture, zoos, circuses, and other industries that exploit animals. She is the Executive Director of Animals International US and the founder and CEO of Justify.

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Thank you for listening to the Our Hen House podcast! If you enjoy our podcasts, believe in our mission to effectively mainstream the movement to end the exploitation of animals, find community and solace in our shows and resources, and would like to show your support for vegan indie media, please make a donation today. Contributions of any amount are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcatcher, and don’t forget to leave a 5-star review!

Check out Our Hen House’s other podcasts: The Animal Law Podcast, The Teaching Jasmin How to Cook Vegan Podcast, and the Antiracism in Animal Advocacy Audio Series.

Follow us on social media! You can find Our Hen House on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, or Bluesky.

The Our Hen House theme song is written and performed by Michael Harren.

In this episode of The Hen Report, Jasmin and Mariann sit down with Gretchen Primack and Ella Magers to debrief the historic March to Abolish Animal Testing (MAAT) — a 207-mile trek from Albany to Marshall Bioresources, the country’s largest breeder of dogs for animal experimentation. The organizers share what it took to mobilize over 1,000 people in just three and a half months, how they made animal activism accessible to everyday animal lovers, the media breakthroughs, including New York Times and CBS National coverage, and what comes next as the movement prepares for MAAT 2.0.

• Inside the March to Abolish Animal Testing: How Gretchen Primack and Ella Magers organized a 207-mile march from Albany to Marshall Bioresources in North Rose, NY — a facility holding over 42,000 animals, including 16,000 dogs, mostly beagles, bred for experimentation
• Building an accessible activist movement: How the march empowered everyday people to show up on their own terms — whether for a few hours or the full route — with community care infrastructure like daily route guides, WhatsApp groups, evening events with live speakers and vegan food, and partnerships with local shelters and rescues
• Media breakthroughs for the anti-animal-testing movement: Coverage from The New York Times and CBS National, the flaws in the NYT reporting (including undercounting marchers by hundreds), and why mainstream press attention marks a turning point for the movement
• The “Until Every Cage Is Empty” tattoo story: How a free afternoon during the march led to a group of marchers getting matching tattoos at the country’s oldest vegan tattoo shop in Syracuse, and how Jasmin and Mariann got inked the same week
• What’s next — MAAT 2.0 and beyond: The COMPACT Act, introduced during the march, momentum building for future actions, and how listeners can get involved or support the movement through Our Hen House’s flock membership

RESOURCES

• • • • • March to Abolish Animal Testing

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Thank you for listening to the Our Hen House podcast! If you enjoy our podcasts, believe in our mission to effectively mainstream the movement to end the exploitation of animals, find community and solace in our shows and resources, and would like to show your support for vegan indie media, please make a donation today.

Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcatcher, and don’t forget to leave a 5-star review!

Check out Our Hen House’s other podcasts: The Animal Law Podcast, The Teaching Jasmin How to Cook Vegan Podcast, and the Antiracism in Animal Advocacy Audio Series.

Follow us on social media! You can find Our Hen House on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or Bluesky.

The Our Hen House theme song is written and performed by Michael Harren.

Marshall BioResources is big mad about Our Hen House, the Animal Agriculture Alliance thinks animal activists are secretly swimming in a billion dollars, and a UK newspaper is very upset that PETA has the audacity to care about sheep. Meanwhile, a Smithfield plant worker becomes the fourth death on the job, a rancher writes a whole essay pretending climate change isn’t why the beef herd is shrinking, and scientists are scrambling to prove animal testing can never end. Plus, Republicans are quietly making animal rights a winning political issue while Democrats are apparently too busy to notice.

• Marshall BioResources vs. Our Hen House: The animal testing company left a comment accusing the show of “dangerous disinformation” and name-dropped the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act to sound scary — which, as Mariann notes, conveniently ignores the statute’s own First Amendment protection clause.
• The “Billion-Dollar Activist Network” myth: The Animal Agriculture Alliance tallied up every penny donated to every animal cause ever and arrived at $1.07 billion, which sounds amazing until you realize most of it is money that no grassroots activist has ever seen.
• New Scientist says animal testing “cannot and will not” end: The scientific establishment is getting nervous that governments are actually talking about phasing it out, so they’re recycling the argument that curiosity justifies cruelty — an argument that would also, technically, justify experimenting on humans.
• Fourth worker death at Smithfield: Management told employees to just keep working after a colleague was killed on the job, prompting a walkout. Slaughterhouses see roughly two amputations per week in the U.S., because the danger isn’t limited to the animals.
• Animal rights as the last bipartisan issue: A Current Affairs discussion explores how Republicans are claiming animal rights as their own while Democrats haven’t caught up, making this arguably the only issue in Washington where both sides could actually agree — if anyone bothered to try.

 

 

We are thrilled to expand the accessibility of our podcast by offering written transcripts of the interviews! Click here to read this episode's interview.

_____________________________________________

Thank you for listening to the Our Hen House podcast! If you enjoy our podcasts, believe in our mission to effectively mainstream the movement to end the exploitation of animals, find community and solace in our shows and resources, and would like to show your support for vegan indie media, please make a donation today. 

Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcatcher, and don’t forget to leave a 5-star review!

Check out Our Hen House’s other podcasts: The Animal Law Podcast, The Teaching Jasmin How to Cook Vegan Podcast, and the Antiracism in Animal Advocacy Audio Series.

Follow us on social media! You can find Our Hen House on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, or Bluesky.

The Our Hen House theme song is written and performed by Michael Harren.

In this episode of The Animal Law Podcast, Mariann Sullivan speaks with Eric Glitzenstein, Director of Litigation at the Center for Biological Diversity, about what he calls the most extreme attack on the Endangered Species Act in its history. They break down two unprecedented actions by the Trump administration: the elimination of the long-standing regulatory definition of “harm” that protected endangered species’ habitat from destruction, and the invocation of the so-called “God Squad” — a cabinet-level committee that can exempt entire industries from the ESA — to shield all oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico from endangered species protections. Both moves target the core mechanisms of the law and could hasten the extinction of species like the Rice’s whale, of which only about 50 remain.

In this episode, we cover:

• The rescission of the “harm” definition — how the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service eliminated decades of regulatory protection for habitat, adopting Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion from the 1995 Sweet Home case and using the Loper Bright decision as justification
• The God Squad’s first invocation in 40 years — how Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth declared a “national security” exemption for all Gulf of Mexico oil and gas activities, based not on any actual operational curtailment but on the mere prospect of future citizen lawsuits
• The legal challenges underway — five cases challenging the harm definition rescission across federal courts, plus the Center for Biological Diversity’s suit over the God Squad’s rubber-stamp exemption, including a key jurisdictional fight over whether cases belong in district court or the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
• How the two actions intersect — the shell game of claiming habitat is protected under other ESA provisions while simultaneously gutting those same provisions through national security exemptions
• What concerned citizens can do — how to educate yourself, raise public awareness during an election year, advocate for state and local protections as federal safeguards erode, and support the organizations fighting these rollbacks in court

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Eric Glitzenstein is the Director of Litigation at the Center for Biological Diversity, a national conservation organization dedicated to preventing human-caused extinctions and protecting life on Earth. The Center has more than 80 attorneys nationwide who litigate in federal and state courts on a wide variety of wildlife protection and other issues. Mr. Glitzenstein oversees and coordinates the Center’s litigation of cases brought under the Endangered Species Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, and many other statutes on which the Center’s attorneys rely to further the protection of wildlife and imperiled ecosystems. Prior to working with the Center, Eric was the co-founder (with Katherine Meyer) and Managing Partner of the D.C.-based firm Meyer & Glitzenstein, one of the nation’s leading public-interest law firms. On behalf of both national and grassroots non-profit organizations, the firm specialized in the protection of wildlife and captive animals, environmental and natural resource conservation, and open government cases, among other issues. In addition to managing the firm and mentoring the firm’s new attorneys, Mr. Glitzenstein was lead counsel in many wildlife cases in federal courts throughout the country, including in various U.S. Courts of Appeals and in the U.S. Supreme Court.

We are thrilled to expand the accessibility of our podcast by offering written transcripts of the interviews! Click here to read this episode's interview.

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on Apple Podcasts, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fifteenth glorious year!

 In this episode of The Hen Report from Our Hen House, hosts Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan unpack the growing differences in approaches within the animal protection movement between some large organizations and some grassroots activists. They examine how some major groups are currently framing their “end factory farming” missions — often without naming a clear end state or using the word “vegan” — and whether big-donor funding is quietly steering the movement’s strategy. The conversation also covers inspiring grassroots actions, from a 207-mile march targeting Marshall Bioresources to vegan advocacy reaching over a million viewers on YouTube.

• Inside the “two movements” of animal protection: Why the gap between approaches of top-down organizations and grassroots activists may be wider than ever — and whether that’s a problem or an opportunity.
• “End factory farming” — A closer look at how groups like The Humane League, Mercy For Animals, Compassion in World Farming, and Farm Forward state (or elide) their ultimate goals, and why the word “vegan” is often missing.
• Follow the money: How a small number of funders may be shaping the movement’s theory of change, and what that means for activists who don’t fit the big-tent agenda.
• Grassroots wins worth celebrating: Mariel’s appearance on The Financial Diet sparks real dietary change among viewers, a 207-mile march demands a criminal investigation of Marshall Bioresources, and Florida activists use the bear hunt lottery system to save lives.
• Tools and events for activists: Alison Argo’s new film Forever Home (streaming Sept 26–Oct 3), Vegan Creator Con’s new training challenge, and a study showing how social support makes reducing meat consumption easier.

RESOURCES

• • • • • Marshall BioResources Faces Call for Criminal Investigation
        • Vegan Creator Con NEW CHALLENGE LAUNCHING!
        • Hunters and activists vie for permits for controversial Florida black bear hunt
        • Study Reveals That Social Support Could Make Eating Less Meat Easier
        • Forever Home film
        • Rally at the Gates
        • March to Abolish Animal Testing
  •  We are thrilled to expand the accessibility of our podcast by offering written transcripts of the interviews! Click here to read this episode's interview.

_____________________________________________

Thank you for listening to the Our Hen House podcast! If you enjoy our podcasts, believe in our mission to effectively mainstream the movement to end the exploitation of animals, find community and solace in our shows and resources, and would like to show your support for vegan indie media, please make a donation today.

Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcatcher, and don’t forget to leave a 5-star review!

Check out Our Hen House’s other podcasts: The Animal Law Podcast, The Teaching Jasmin How to Cook Vegan Podcast, and the Antiracism in Animal Advocacy Audio Series.

Follow us on social media! You can find Our Hen House on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or Bluesky.

The Our Hen House theme song is written and performed by Michael Harren.

This week, Mariann Sullivan is in a mood — and who can blame her? A fashion industry executive body-slams PETA protesters at a runway show, and The New York Post wants you to feel bad about a foie gras ban. The FAA is investigating the drone pilots who keep catching ranchers in the act of abusing animals. Plus: screwworm makes a comeback, anthrax shows back up in South Dakota, the UK Countryside Alliance thinks gambling affordability checks are the greatest threat to the countryside, and a lifelong livestock “advocate” develops a red meat allergy and wants you to feel terrible about it.

• CFDA chief Steven Kolb physically attacks PETA protesters at a COS runway show over wool — turns out being vegetarian and anti-fur doesn’t automatically make you the good guy when someone points out the cruelty you’re still funding.
• New York Post editorial demands NYC lift its foie gras ban, arguing that breeding more ducks and geese to force-feed them is somehow doing the birds a favor.
• FAA investigates drone pilot Joseph Allman for filming animal abuse at California cattle ranches, while simultaneously proposing rules to ban drone flights over agricultural facilities — because the truth is bad for business.
• Disease watch: Screwworm resurfaces in New Mexico as cattle trade resumes, and South Dakota reports its first anthrax case of the year in a cow-calf herd.
• Alpha-gal syndrome strikes a Missouri “livestock advocate” who can no longer eat the red meat she spent her life raising — the Pork Business network is devastated, the rest of us are not

 

We are thrilled to expand the accessibility of our podcast by offering written transcripts of the interviews! Click here to read this episode's interview.

_____________________________________________

Thank you for listening to the Our Hen House podcast! If you enjoy our podcasts, believe in our mission to effectively mainstream the movement to end the exploitation of animals, find community and solace in our shows and resources, and would like to show your support for vegan indie media, please make a donation today. 

Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcatcher, and don’t forget to leave a 5-star review!

Check out Our Hen House’s other podcasts: The Animal Law Podcast, The Teaching Jasmin How to Cook Vegan Podcast, and the Antiracism in Animal Advocacy Audio Series.

Follow us on social media! You can find Our Hen House on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, or Bluesky.

The Our Hen House theme song is written and performed by Michael Harren.

Marie Gibbons, co-founder and CEO of VeriBark, joins Our Hen House to explain how her AI-powered app analyzes over 130 dog body signals and vocalizations to help pet parents understand what their dogs are really communicating. The conversation digs into the science behind animal body language, the ethics of using AI in animal advocacy, and VeriBark’s ambitious roadmap to expand beyond dogs into cats and, eventually, farmed animals like chickens and pigs, with the goal of building empathy that could reshape how people think about the animals they eat.

• How VeriBark’s AI interprets dog behavior using body signals, vocalizations, and a peer-reviewed ethogram
• Why breed-specific morphology (like a Whippet’s tail position) can throw off behavioral interpretation
• The accuracy limits of AI-driven animal communication tools (currently 70–90%)
• VeriBark’s plans to expand into CatChat and farmed animal communication tools
• The ethical risks of AI “welfare washing” in animal agriculture — and how VeriBark aims to guard against misuse

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Marie Gibbons’s life’s mission is to use science and technology to help animals. She spent more than two decades working in veterinary medicine and cultivated meat research, developing technologies to reduce reliance on factory farming and improve the lives of billions of animals. She’s the co-founder and CEO of VeriBark, using artificial intelligence to help people better understand what their dogs are communicating through body language and vocalizations, with the end goal of expanding this technology to farm animals and wildlife, helping humans build more empathy and compassion for all animals through a deeper understanding of how they communicate.

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Thank you for listening to the Our Hen House podcast! If you enjoy our podcasts, believe in our mission to effectively mainstream the movement to end the exploitation of animals, find community and solace in our shows and resources, and would like to show your support for vegan indie media, please make a donation today. Contributions of any amount are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcatcher, and don’t forget to leave a 5-star review!

Check out Our Hen House’s other podcasts: The Animal Law Podcast, The Teaching Jasmin How to Cook Vegan Podcast, and the Antiracism in Animal Advocacy Audio Series.

Follow us on social media! You can find Our Hen House on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, or Bluesky.

The Our Hen House theme song is written and performed by Michael Harren.

This week on The Hen Report, we talk with poet and activist Gretchen Primack and Sexy Fit Vegan founder Ella Magers about the March to Abolish Animal Testing — a 207-mile trek across upstate New York from Albany to Marshall BioResources, the country’s largest breeder of dogs, cats, ferrets, and pigs for animal experimentation. They dig into the logistics of supporting dozens of marchers, the emotional and physical sacrifices involved, and why this grassroots movement could be a turning point for ending animal testing for good.

• The March to Abolish Animal Testing: A 207-mile, two-week march from Albany, NY to Marshall BioResources protesting animal testing on dogs, cats, ferrets, and pigs
• Marshall BioResources exposed: New whistleblower evidence reveals conditions at the facility, home to over 16,000 beagles and 45,000+ animals bred for experimentation
• Grassroots organizing in action: How a 3-month-old idea became a fully logistics-supported march with food teams, team captains, and nightly community events
• A public, arrest-free protest strategy: Why the march is intentionally 100% law abiding and focused on public pressure and legislative change rather than civil disobedience
• Get involved: How listeners can join the walk, attend the September 26th finale at Marshall BioResources, organize solidarity walks, or follow along via @MarchforAnimals and Unchained TV

RESOURCES

• • • • • March to Abolish Animal Testing
  •  We are thrilled to expand the accessibility of our podcast by offering written transcripts of the interviews! Click here to read this episode's interview.

_____________________________________________

Thank you for listening to the Our Hen House podcast! If you enjoy our podcasts, believe in our mission to effectively mainstream the movement to end the exploitation of animals, find community and solace in our shows and resources, and would like to show your support for vegan indie media, please make a donation today.

Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcatcher, and don’t forget to leave a 5-star review!

Check out Our Hen House’s other podcasts: The Animal Law Podcast, The Teaching Jasmin How to Cook Vegan Podcast, and the Antiracism in Animal Advocacy Audio Series.

Follow us on social media! You can find Our Hen House on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or Bluesky.

The Our Hen House theme song is written and performed by Michael Harren.

Rising Anxieties digs into the pork lobby’s freshly inflated “$1.07 billion animal rights conspiracy” report , the Gallup poll agribusiness loves to misquote, and a meat-trade columnist practically begging Big Beef to invent lab-grown protein before someone beats them to it.

• The $1.07 billion “animal rights” funding illusion 
• Prop 12 fallout and the 2026 Farm Bill — why California’s cage-free law still has the meat industry rewriting its enemies list
• Gallup polls don’t tell the whole story — the public trust numbers agribusiness loves to cite, and the animal-vs-plant-ag split they leave out
• Greyhound racing “freedom” panic — West Virginia’s last two dog tracks become a surprising Farm Bill flashpoint
• Big Meat’s own trade press says the quiet part loud — a jaw-dropping call for cultivated meat investment, straight from a pork-and-beef insider

 

We are thrilled to expand the accessibility of our podcast by offering written transcripts of the interviews! Click here to read this episode's interview.

_____________________________________________

Thank you for listening to the Our Hen House podcast! If you enjoy our podcasts, believe in our mission to effectively mainstream the movement to end the exploitation of animals, find community and solace in our shows and resources, and would like to show your support for vegan indie media, please make a donation today. 

Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcatcher, and don’t forget to leave a 5-star review!

Check out Our Hen House’s other podcasts: The Animal Law Podcast, The Teaching Jasmin How to Cook Vegan Podcast, and the Antiracism in Animal Advocacy Audio Series.

Follow us on social media! You can find Our Hen House on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, or Bluesky.

The Our Hen House theme song is written and performed by Michael Harren.

In this Our Hen House interview, Mariann Sullivan sits down with Simone Scampoli, executive director of Capra Libera Tutti animal sanctuary near Rome, Italy, to explore how sanctuaries function as spaces of transformation. Simone shares the sanctuary’s origin story, its evolving relationship with a once-exploited mountain landscape, and the philosophy of consent and animal agency that shapes every visitor interaction — offering a powerful vision for how sanctuaries can reshape society’s relationship with animals.

• How Capra Libera Tutti began when a sheep farmer’s transformation led him to found a sanctuary near Rome in 2015
• Why sanctuaries serve as “movement infrastructure” — living spaces where multispecies community and animal agency become lived practice
• How the sanctuary reclaimed a mountain from the animal farming industry to give wildlife and rescued animals a natural habitat
• The role of consent and body language in teaching visitors, students, and schoolchildren to ethically interact with sanctuary animals
• How storytelling — both animal and human — helps educate the public and inspire the next generation of animal advocates

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Simone Scampoli is Vice President and Executive Director of Capra Libera Tutti. For years, he has worked to turn animal liberation activism into tangible change capable of engaging individuals, communities, and institutions. His approach brings together education, organizing, and strategy, drawing on the daily experience of Capra Libera Tutti: a place where animals’ stories expand the collective imagination and open up new possibilities for social and cultural transformation.

 

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Thank you for listening to the Our Hen House podcast! If you enjoy our podcasts, believe in our mission to effectively mainstream the movement to end the exploitation of animals, find community and solace in our shows and resources, and would like to show your support for vegan indie media, please make a donation today. Contributions of any amount are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcatcher, and don’t forget to leave a 5-star review!

Check out Our Hen House’s other podcasts: The Animal Law Podcast, The Teaching Jasmin How to Cook Vegan Podcast, and the Antiracism in Animal Advocacy Audio Series.

Follow us on social media! You can find Our Hen House on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, or Bluesky.

The Our Hen House theme song is written and performed by Michael Harren.

On this episode of The Hen Report, Mariann talks with recent University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate Ryan Blum about his solo, year-in-the-making undercover investigation into the campus’s Meat Science and Animal Biologics Discovery building, where he captured rare footage of pigs being stunned using CO2 gas chambers. Ryan breaks down how the process works, why it directly contradicts the university’s own claims that it’s “calm” and “humane,” and what he’s now doing — including a new on-campus awareness campaign — to push for the facility’s closure.

• A UW-Madison graduate secretly investigated his own university’s slaughterhouse, capturing rare footage of pigs being gassed with CO2 in an underground chamber
• The footage directly contradicts UW-Madison professors’ public claims that CO2 stunning is a “calm, relaxing, and humane” process
• CO2 concentrations used are so high (85-90%) that pigs visibly panic, gasping and reacting in pain before losing consciousness
• The investigator has since joined Allied Scholars for Animal Protection (ASAP) and launched a campus-wide poster and social media campaign to expose the facility

RESOURCES

• • • • • Ryan Blum’s Investigation
        • Allied Scholars for Animal Protection
        • March to Abolish Animal Testing
  •  We are thrilled to expand the accessibility of our podcast by offering written transcripts of the interviews! Click here to read this episode's interview.

_____________________________________________

Thank you for listening to the Our Hen House podcast! If you enjoy our podcasts, believe in our mission to effectively mainstream the movement to end the exploitation of animals, find community and solace in our shows and resources, and would like to show your support for vegan indie media, please make a donation today.

Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcatcher, and don’t forget to leave a 5-star review!

Check out Our Hen House’s other podcasts: The Animal Law Podcast, The Teaching Jasmin How to Cook Vegan Podcast, and the Antiracism in Animal Advocacy Audio Series.

Follow us on social media! You can find Our Hen House on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or Bluesky.

The Our Hen House theme song is written and performed by Michael Harren.