ELLIE HANSEN, HOST:

 So I’ve always wondered how someone becomes an undercover investigator. To bear witness to the most horrible treatment of animals imaginable and hold it together without losing it seems like an impossibly hard task. And yet people who love animals deeply are able to do this, such as yourself. So what can you tell us about qualities a PETA undercover investigator must have, and also why their work is so crucial to preventing animal cruelty.

 DAN PADEN, GUEST:

 Great questions, thank you. Qualities that they need. Certainly, obviously, brave, courageous. They are going into places that, by definition, there’s every suspicion, if not prior awareness, that they’re going to see terrible things done to animals. That they’re going to see unabated suffering every day. That they’re going to see violent cruelty in many cases. And that somehow they’re going to stand there and document it without intervening, which I think is the initial understandable response of anyone who cares about animals to try to stop the harm from being done right then and there. They have to be incredibly flexible. The job entails going all over the US and oftentimes even abroad, could be for a day, it could be for seven months, and gutting it out and putting aside essentially all other aspects of your life in order to bear witness and to see what’s being done to animals. And that goes to, I think, why we think this work is important. Sadly, the reality is, is that… billions of animals are suffering every day on this planet, not just in the US, but everywhere, in laboratories, in the breeding mills that supply laboratories, but also in other settings, of course, as well, in other industries that use animals. And they say a picture is worth a thousand words, but clearly, then, a video recording of an animal and what’s being done to them and their plight is worth so much more. And… all of us who do this work and all of us who have compassion for animals and these plights and any situations came to that awareness and that acknowledgement by looking into the eyes of someone who’s in that position and looking into an animal and having their suffering resonate with us. And that’s what these undercover investigators are really largely doing is revealing to people who, through no fault of their own, are unaware of the reality for animals, revealing to them just how these individuals, not just billions of animals, but every one of them an individual, is suffering and also empowering all of us to make decisions that can make the world a less bad place for those individual animals.

 HANSEN:

 I’m guessing there is a story in your own life which led you to this type of work with PETA. So where did you personally begin this journey of helping animals through undercover investigations?

 PADEN:

 So I did a graduate degree in philosophy and theology and I was raised Catholic and still am Catholic and I was very interested in animal protection and animal welfare, but from a very academic perspective, a very… kind of high-brow approach to things. So I’d been vegetarian and vegan for years and I was very concerned about animals but I wasn’t actively working for them. And I happened to read a biography about St. Francis of Assisi just after I finished school. And I read about his outreach towards humans but… humans who were oppressed, humans who had really no one looking out for them and who were the downtrodden and really the least among that society. And it dawned on me that, you know, in 20th and 21st century America, there are certainly a lot of victims, there are certainly a lot of people and individuals of all species and all types who are losing and who are suffering, but really non-human animals, and including those in laboratories and in that industry are prominent among that class. And so that’s what drove me to come to work for PETA. And I spent a few years doing various other jobs at PETA. And one of those entailed going to crashes of pig trucks that were taking these animals to slaughter. And it was there that I learned the power of capturing on video just what animals endure and how having proof, having videographic proof of what people do to animals and how those animals suffer as a result makes all the difference in the world when it comes to going to law enforcement or pushing a company to do better for animals. And that’s what really prompted me to, to dive into this particular work.

 HANSEN:

 But as much as you’re able, can you describe what a typical day at the office is for you today?

 PADEN:

 Yeah, sure. I’d be happy to. So I generally work hand in hand with our undercover investigators. We have any number of individuals who are out working in labs, working in animal mills and circuses and factory farms and slaughterhouses. Each day that they work, they write a detailed first-person report of everything that they’ve seen, that they’ve done, that they’ve smelled, that they’ve heard that day. And they also upload all the video and photographs that they might have captured. So my day is going through those written reports and looking at all that video and looking at all those photographs bit by bit, second by second, transcribing every single word in some cases and building it and putting it together and seeing how it fits against the law and where there’s violations, whether it’s local or state or federal law, and then really trying to piece it together so that we can go to the agencies that have the authority and the responsibility to make things better for those animals and pushing them to do that. Oftentimes, unfortunately, those agencies are recalcitrant and… not excited, not enthusiastic to go do their jobs, but we push. And then also trying to put this out to the public, to consumers and to media so that generally speaking, public awareness is raised about what we found and also, as I said earlier, empowering people, you know, through their purchasing decisions through writing letters to Congress or the state legislators, how they can affect change for these animals.

 HANSEN:

 So your job to me sounds impossibly hard. It really does. And I’m wondering mentally and spiritually, how do you cope with what you see day after day? From where do you draw your inner strength?

 PADEN:

 Um, I have to say first and foremost, I really draw it from the people who are undercover. Um, you know, I, I most days have the luxury of sitting at a desk. I can listen to classical music, I can have a cup of coffee at my side, and I can painstakingly go through the evidence and see the big picture and piece it together. But my friends, my colleagues are the ones who are standing there in a laboratory or in a breeding mill listening to 500 beagles scream at the top of their lungs, watching a supervisor cut into an unanesthetized dog’s leg to remove a growth, and those people are holding it together and they’re standing there and documenting that. So, the least I can do is to be with them, so to speak, from a distance and ensure that what they’re documenting is going to see the light of day and is going to affect change. I’ve had the privilege of doing this for about 21 years and in that time I’ve seen incredible victories and things that I never thought could possibly happen, happen for animals because someone gutted it out in a farm or a lab or a mill for a few months and got the evidence that a company wanted hidden from the government and from the public and from their own customers. And so I have a tremendous amount of faith in the power of these investigations. Um, and so even there’s, you know, when there’s days where you see something particularly heinous, particularly graphic, particularly violent, um, that really sets you back and gives you pause and can be just frankly downright depressing, there’s a bigger picture there and I, and I know that in a matter of weeks or months, that animal suffering, that terrible day will not be for naught because we’ll bring it to the attention of people who can affect change and do that. Of course, I talked about my faith and I have a rosary on my desk and it comes in handy from time to time, obviously.

 HANSEN:

 I’d like to talk about one of your recent high profile cases, Envigo. You played an instrumental part in saving the lives of over 4,000 beagles from Envigo in the summer of 2022. But I believe your work started way before that as PETA went undercover into Envigo in 2021, I believe, and documented somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 pages of animal welfare violations. Can you describe your journey with Envigo and how the cruelty you witnessed there ultimately led to their closure and this historic dog rescue?

 PADEN:

 Yeah, so one of our incredible investigators got hired at Envigo’s Beagle Breeding Factory, which was in Cumberland, Virginia, just outside Richmond. She started working there in April, 2021, as you said, and she spent seven months there, and she finished in early November, 2021. And I had the privilege and the honor of… looking at her video, looking at her log notes, looking at her photographs every single day for seven straight months. And we just pieced it together bit by bit. It’s a sprawling facility. I think it was something like 300 acres. The population there typically was around 5,000 beagles. The buildings were… essentially looked like old poultry or pig factory farms, football field in length and cinder blocks and metal roofs. And of course that just bounced the dogs barks around ceaselessly. But we never stay in a facility with an investigator any longer than we think we really have to, you know, we want to get in and out as quickly as we can to document whatever violations and problems there may be and then get as quickly as we can to. In that case USDA, but in other cases, local law enforcement, so that we can try to bring about change. And so it took a long time. There were so many problems there and there were so many animals there. But once we had really done our diligence, we went to USDA in October and met with them and gave them evidence and that initiated round of inspections, very serious, detailed, multi-day inspections from teams of veterinarians and other USDA personnel that documented a total of I think 73 violations of the Animal Welfare Act in a 10-month period. And the USDA, you know, the inspectors were going in and writing these damning reports and finding critical and direct violations of the law up and down, and USDA leadership was just sitting on it. And in fact, as we later found out through public records, they were actually telling their inspection team to water down the reports and to dial back all this data. And someone at the Department of Justice, the US Department of Justice, saw these violations and saw USDAs in action and decided, thank God, to take things into their own hands. And that’s when they filed a civil suit against in Envigo in May 2022 and that led to two and a half months of arguments in court in Roanoke, Virginia. And ultimately, Envigo said, they threw in the towel. They said, that’s it, we’re gonna close the facility. And they came to an agreement with the Department of Justice to allow the remaining dogs, which was around 4,000, to be liberated and released for adoption. And that’s something that the Humane Society of the United States coordinated and undertook.

 HANSEN:

 Regarding these Envigo Beagles, you were quoted for ABC News Virginia in June of 2022 as saying, My hope is that all of those animals are made available for adoption. Not a single one more is sent off to a laboratory. At the time of that interview, you were not sure of the verdict, if the 4,000 beagles would be released or not. Well, your hope came true. And now all of those beagles are in loving homes, one of them in my loving home. So how does that make you feel? Can you describe your personal feelings as you were awaiting the verdict and then your reaction to the final outcome?

 PADEN:

 I have goosebumps when you read that question and I have a little bit of moisture in the corners of my eyes to think about it. Envigo tried so hard for weeks when they were in court to fool the Department of Justice and to fool Norman Moon, the federal judge who was presiding over this case, they did so many things. They tried to sell animals to fulfill contracts that they had executed months before. They made all these distinctions between their corporate entities, and which Envigo company had executed which document, and therefore they should be able to sell things and sell animals. And they just, they were relentless and the Department of Justice and the judge thankfully saw through all of it and called them out on it and wouldn’t accept any of it. But it was very difficult for weeks on end, because you could sense that we were really on the cusp, that those dogs were on the cusp of history and of getting a life, a chance at life that they always deserved and that Envigo never wanted for them. You know, Envigo only saw them as a thousand dollars ahead, and that’s it. And so when it finally came to be, frankly, it was hard to believe because we’d been working on the case for 15 months at that point. And to think that, you know, one individual, let alone 4,000 of them, were out and that the place was closing and that not only were we saving those 4,000 or helping save them, but that never again would a dog be bred in that compound was beyond words. I think of all the things that we’ve accomplished in my time here, I think that’s the second biggest thing I’ve ever seen happen. The only other one that maybe holds a candle to it was a seizure of 26,000 animals in Texas in 2009. But you know, and then to see all of them, I’ve gotten to meet about 30 of these dogs myself and to see them go through the process and it’s not an easy one as you know better than anybody, to finally learn how to be dogs and to learn how to trust humanity and to learn how to walk on grass and what a bed is and what a toy is and what a couch is, and what it feels like to have someone put their hand on you because they care about you and they respect you and not because they’re looking to shove something down your throat or spray you with a cold, wet hose because they’re in a rush. It’s high on the list, if not the most rewarding thing that I’ve been a part of in 21 years here.

 HANSEN:

 Maybe you just answered a little bit of this question, but do you ever get to reap the benefits of all the animals you helped rescue? Like you just said, you got to meet at least 30 of these in Envigo Beagles. So you do get a chance to meet some of the animals you’ve saved. And is there an animal, a particular animal or a rescue that is particularly memorable to you?

 PADEN:

 Yeah, yeah. Another one that really stays with me years later is we did an investigation of a chinchilla mill in Minnesota back in 2020. It’s called Moulton Chinchilla Mill. It was operated by a man named Dan Moulton, and he raised the animals for sale for experimentation. Chinchillas are largely used for experiments on their ears, because some scientists believe that their hearing and that their ear structure approximates that of ours, of humanity. So this is a facility that had approximately 700 chinchillas and we pushed law enforcement, we pushed USDA very hard on this. And ultimately, he ended up being shut down. He ended up letting all of his animals go. And he’s no longer in business, thankfully. But we were able to get two particular chinchillas out who had been very seriously injured and been denied veterinary care. One had one of her front paws trapped in the wire grating underneath her that she lived on, that she was kept on, and she unfortunately had to chew her arm in order to free herself from that plight. So she had a very horribly mangled forearm. And then the other animal we got out of there, had overgrown teeth. There was no dental care for these animals and they didn’t provide them with toys or chewing blocks. And so these incisors would just grow relentlessly. And we were able to get the two of them out and invest thousands of dollars in veterinary care costs into them and give them a chance to heal. And I had the joy and pleasure of caring for them for several months while they did that, and then was able to see them get into an adoptive home in Massachusetts. And so, so many of our cases, like with the beagles, the number is astounding. It’s hard sometimes to see the individuals, but they’re always there and you only need that reminder of meeting a few of them like those chinchillas or like those beagles to remember that no matter how high the number is, every one of them is distinct and has an amazing personality and frankly is and has all the potential in the world to be a great companion to someone if they’re just given you know that chance and some patience probably.

 HANSEN:

 So this is a tough question. People often say that they can’t watch graphic undercover videos involving animal abuse. They say it hurts too much to look. What would you say to those people?

 PADEN:

 Um, it hurts more for the animals who are depicted on that footage. And really it’s their pain that has to come first and foremost and has to be understood and respected. I think I try to draw a distinction between people whose lifestyle choices are still supporting that pain it’s offering and those who have moved away from choices that support it. So I think if we’re talking about people who you know, are not buying products tested on animals and are already writing to their congresspeople, you know, saying, you know, we need better legislation, you know, to minimize and eliminate testing on animals, and they don’t want to watch a video about what’s going on in the laboratories, I understand. I’m not necessarily sympathetic, but. they’ve taken responsibility for doing what they can do, you know, to mitigate that suffering.

 For those people who are still making personal choices with their own dollars to support that suffering, I think that, you know, we as consumers of any kind really owe it to ourselves and owe it to those that our choices impact to be conscious, to be aware of just what we’re supporting. And the reality is that laboratories and companies don’t want taxpayers and don’t want consumers to see how animals suffer and die behind closed doors because they know that it’s gonna shock the conscience and heart of most people out there. So I think… You know, it takes three minutes of our time to watch one of these videos generally, if not even less. And, you know, that’s all it takes in many cases to effect a lifelong change in us that has profound impacts for thousands, if not more animals for the rest of our life. And so I just encourage people to… put aside those hard feelings just for a few minutes, because I think on the other end of watching that video, yes, it’s challenging, but you’re a more conscious and aware person and you’re better equipped really to lead a life that’s consistent with your values.

 HANSEN:

 I have a personal story to share on that question. The first time I learned about dogs in laboratories was an undercover video on Facebook. And I don’t remember who had released that undercover video, but it had beagles in it. And that’s the first time I had seen that. And it affected me so much that I started adopting beagles from research laboratories. I’m on my third. I wrote a book about dogs in research laboratories. couple years ago and I started this podcast all because of an undercover video. That’s how much of an impact that it had on me. It changed me as a person, changed my whole life, you know, and hopefully I’m making a difference because of that one video that I watched. So that’s my story.

 PADEN:

 It has exponential consequences. I mean, like you said, it transformed what you do and so it just mushrooms and your impact grows upon that original video. So you just, you never know. I mean, I read one book 21 years ago and here we are. So it’s, you know, I mean, don’t be afraid to watch the video because you think you’re gonna have to quit your job and go do something else. But by the way, you might end up doing that and that’s a good thing for animals. So…

 HANSEN:

 So if someone wants to become an undercover investigator with PETA, what would you tell them?

 PADEN:

 Please apply. Our website is peta.org/jobs. That’s where everything is listed under recovery investigator. We take applications for 365 days a year, and I’m certain that we always will. Um, it is a very difficult job, but it’s probably the most rewarding one out there, frankly. Um, and please come give it a shot. Sadly, there’s no shortage of suffering to expose, but that’s a huge priority for our President Ingrid Newkirk and PETA, and we’re always looking for more partners in that work.