Dear Human,
I’m writing to you as a mother. Right now, I can hear desperate screams of my peers coming from the building in front of me. The stench of death fills the air. I know what’s coming–it’s too late for me. But maybe not for my children…
I am a mother pig in the pork industry, and I want to share part of my story. I hope you’ll read it.
I want to start with the first time that I gave birth. The moment I was old enough, I was forcibly impregnated by human workers. Immediately after, they shoved me into a cage so small I couldn’t even turn around. I tried to resist the whole way, but every movement out of line was punished. I had no idea what was going on, or why any of this was happening to me. Nor did I know that I would remain trapped by those cold metal bars, unable to turn around, for months.
When they finally opened that cell, I felt a glimpse of freedom, only to be forced right into another one; the one I gave birth in.
My babies were my only joy in life, and I loved them like any mother would. I wanted so desperately to give them proper care, but the cage kept me from doing so. Some of them didn’t make it through infancy; they lay cold and still on the floor, beside me and the living piglets. Maybe if I could’ve given them adequate care, they would’ve all survived.
The ones who did survive were taken from me once they stopped nursing. I never saw them again. You can’t imagine the suffering that losing my babies caused me. But it wasn’t the last time. Soon after they were taken, the whole process started over. It happened over and over again, too many times to count.
Now I’m here, crammed into a moving cage with others like me, at what seems to be our final resting place. My only fear is that my children are here too. Or maybe they’re out there somewhere, trapped in the same way I’ve been my entire life. I don’t know which is worse.
I’m writing this out of hope–hope that some humans care about us pigs and what we’re forced to endure. The only chance my children have is that some humans see us for who we are and can empathize with our suffering.
I hope this letter reaches a human with that empathy. If that’s you, you must find a way to help pigs like me. I’ll be long gone by the time you read this, but there are countless others who still have a chance.
For my children,