"Seeing the Pigs Keeps Us Going": Seven questions with Sky Dawson and Linda Cridge, Fort Wayne Animal Save

One of the thousands of individuals sent to slaughter in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on September 17, 2018.

What is Fort Wayne Animal Save and how did it start?
Sky: Fort Wayne Animal Save is a chapter within The Save Movement, a world-wide activism organization. We go out to our local slaughterhouses and document the thousands of faces we see inside the inbound “livestock” trucks in an attempt to get people to see an individual — a victim and not a commodity. In March of 2018, I had been watching a lot of vegan channels on YouTube and they inspired me to get involved with activism. I’d always felt like abstaining from cruelty wasn’t enough.; I felt the need to do something about it. I searched for ‘Save groups’ around me but then realized there really weren’t any  in Indiana. That is when I decided to start my own.

Linda: It was close to eight years ago when I read the book Skinny Bitch. That was the catalyst for change. My husband read it as well, and we began our journey into veganism along with our two children who were then nine and eleven years old. I quickly found the local vegetarian/vegan group on Facebook and soon after the group branched off and added an animal rights group called Indiana Animal Rights Alliance.

I wasn’t as active in the beginning. However, in the past 18 months or so opportunities for activism havey has exploded locally. I am now part of Anonymous for the Voiceless and I help manage both the Louisville Pig Save and the Fort Wayne Animal Save. I definitely have found my passion helping to end animal exploitation.

What kinds of things do you do? What do you hope to accomplish or what message do you hope to send to others?
Sky: We go to a Tyson slaughterhouse and the Indiana Packers slaughterhouse to bear witness to the pigs as they arrive. Our goal is to get their faces on camera and share them on social media to friends and family. It is easy for people to disconnect from where their “food” actually came from. It’s easy to forget that a sentient being died to be on your plate. When we post photos and videos of these pigs, our families and friends might see it and start to question their decisions. They might start to think about the victims and realize that the animal cruelty they’ve seen online before really isn’t as far away as they thought. I’ve had so many people who aren’t vegan tell me how heartbreaking our footage is. Our goal is to plant a seed in people’s minds to get them thinking and feeling compassion for the victims of this industry.

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What are the biggest challenges to what you do and hat keeps you going out every week?
Sky: Lately, the biggest challenge has been with the truck drivers and the police. I completely understand why the slaughterhouse workers and truckers hate us:; they feel like we’re protesting them and that our goal is to make them lose their jobs, which absolutely isn’t the casel. We have had a lot of issues with the truck drivers being extremely aggressive with us or just being completely reckless with their vehicles and putting themselves and the pigs in danger.

There have been multiple times that the drivers have gone through stop signs to avoid us. But at the last vigil, a driver went in the wrong lane and ended up knocking over traffic signs when he turned left. The vigil before that, a driver came out screaming at us with a hammer in his hand. Even more troubling is the fact that the police seem to side with the drivers. The cops I’ve spoken to have been incredibly friendly, but they always seem to be more understanding of the drivers — even the violent ones.

My co-organizer, Linda, has had bad experiences with one cop, who has given her two tickets in the past month for allegedly hanging on the trailers and putting her hands inside of them, neither of which was true. Despite all of this, seeing the pigs keeps us going out every week. We know their lives have been hellish and there’s really nothing we can do to help them. But we can share their story and show people that they can live in a way that doesn’t support this.

Have the incidences with the police affected your  thoughts on the legal abuses of power experienced by other groups?
Linda: Yes. I am much more disillusioned now about the system. I did not get the impression the police were really seeking the truth. I have not gotten that impression from the prosecutor, either. They should be concerned with our safety but it doesn’t  seem like they are. I will revisit once I have my court date.

Do you experience hope while you are doing the work you do? Do you have any daily practices that help you sustain your hope?
Sky: We normally get harassed by cars driving past us on the highway, but once in a while someone will stop and tell us we have their support. We’ve had a couple people stop and tell us they’re vegan, too. We also had an old man park his truck, get out, and come ask for a picture with us and all of our signs. He wasn’t vegan but he said he hates the Tyson slaughterhouse. His son works there and he thinks it’s terrible and cruel and he is encouraging his son to quit. Seeing positive reactions like this from the community really gives me hope for a less cruel future.

Is there a particular moment that stands out for you so far that you would like to share? 
Sky: Sometimes at the Tyson slaughterhouse the trucks will get backed up and some will have to park out in the street, on public property. My most memorable moment was when I brought my friend Maddie to a vigil and we got to spend about 5 minutes with the pigs in the trucks. Maddie had seen a lot of videos online regarding the cruelty that happens to the animals in the food industry and she was in the process of changing her lifestyle to be cruelty-free. I reached out to her in the hopes that attending a vigil would be impactful and reinforce her decision to go vegan.

When we walked up to the parked trucks, we got to see each individual animal in that truck, touch them, and talk to them. It made it so much more real than when the trucks would quickly pass us by and we would get 30 seconds of footage, mainly focusing on our cameras being on them the whole time. This time we didn’t have to worry about the truck moving or being unsuccessful in documenting their faces; we got to just stand there and truly see them. We were all shaking:; it was so intense and so emotional. Maddie was extremely impacted by this experience. I looked over at her and noticed she was crying. Getting to see each individual and knowing their exact fate is so heartbreaking.

What advice do you have for those who want to start a Save group in their own town?
Sky: Build a network of activists around you, especially experienced activists. There will be many times that legal questions or other new and unexpected questions will come up. For example, I had no idea where I was-or-wasn’t legally able to stand but after speaking with police and other activists I now have a much better understanding. Also, don’t be afraid to reach out and talk to the police. It is very useful to utilize them when trying to figure out what is legal and what isn’t. Even when we’ve dealt with cops that were being rude, they still completely respected our right to be out there protesting. Their only concern is the safety of everyone involved.

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For advice on how to start a ave group in your community, contact Sky Dawson and Linda Cridge at [email protected]. They can walk you through the steps or answer any questions you might have.