Investigations
Long-form summaries of the most consequential undercover footage and regulatory findings inside industrial animal agriculture — sourced from Mercy For Animals, L214, Animal Equality, Open Cages, Direct Action Everywhere and government inspectors.
Why this matters
Every major welfare reform in the last fifty years — gestation crate bans, battery cage bans, fur-farming prohibitions, the EU recognition of cephalopod sentience, the end of chick maceration in France and Germany — has been driven by investigative footage that the industry spent decades insisting did not exist or was not representative.
The six investigations below are our editorial summaries of the most important reporting, with primary sources linked. They are not the worst of what has been documented. They are simply the most representative.
The reporting
Pigs · United States · 2024
Despite a public 2007 pledge to phase them out, undercover footage from multiple Smithfield-owned and contract facilities continues to document mother pigs confined in metal stalls so narrow they cannot turn around.
Read the full investigationChickens · EU & US · 2023
Investigations find broiler chickens packed at densities that meet or exceed legal maximums.
Read the full investigationDairy · Global · 2024
Newborn dairy calves are removed from their mothers within 24 hours of birth.
Read the full investigationEggs · Global · 2023
Male chicks are gassed or macerated on the day they hatch because they cannot lay eggs.
Read the full investigationFish · Scotland, Norway, Chile · 2024
Parasites and disease now kill a quarter of all farmed salmon before harvest.
Read the full investigationSlaughterhouses · US & EU · 2023
Modern slaughterhouses process up to 175 chickens per minute.
Read the full investigation