In this riveting interview, NYK host Kathryn, and Save Movement founder, Anita Krajnc, discuss how and why Krajnc started Toronto Pig Save, and how it has grown into the massive and extraordinarily successful global Save Movement it is today. Listen as Krajnc describes the transformative power of animal vigils at both the political and personal levels, and addresses the critical and much overlooked connection between animal agriculture and climate change.  About eighty percent of the land for agriculture is used for animal agriculture.

Kathryn underscores the philosophy behind Krajnc’s movement, pointing out that despite being viewed by many as a radical activist, Krajnc holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Toronto and has served as adjunct professor at Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario. Hers is a philosophy grounded in a well-established and long-standing social movement history that is heavily influenced by such famous and revered figures as Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi. Krajnc describes how their respective strategies of civil rights “momentum organizations,” and how the importance of engaging in advocacy and the focus on system change, motivated and compelled her to develop this world movement.

In 2015, Krajnc was charged with criminal mischief for giving water to pigs outside of a slaughterhouse, but her charge was eventually dismissed. Ingrid Newkirk, founder and president of PETA, called it a “landmark case.”  Since then, hundreds of Pig Save, and other Save groups have started around the world. Krajnc’s courageous and compassionate stance has attracted much international support from the public, including celebrities such as Joaquin Phoenix who made it a point to call attention to the atrocity of slaughtering animals for food during his recent Oscars acceptance speech.

Kathryn asks Krajnc about her source of inspiration for starting Toronto Pig Save. The answer: her dog that she had rescued: Mr Bean. She describes her morning walks with Mr. Bean, living near a slaughterhouse in Toronto,  observing animal transport trucks with pigs inside, including her heartbreaking promise to one individual that she was powerless to save.

Next, Kathryn turns the discussion to the transformative power of vigils. Krajnc stresses the political impact of vigils as they increase visibility of an industry that wants to hide the systematic use of extreme violence from the public. Kathryn, gets personal, sharing her recent first experience of bearing witness at a Pig Save vigil in Burlington and how despite having worked in advocacy for many years, was profoundly affected by it.

“It’s not natural to have these industrial killing facilities — that’s why this industry tries to hide it, and so, right from the start, we felt that if everyone saw what we saw, if everyone went up to the trucks and looked in the eyes of these terrified chickens, turkeys, lambs, calves and mother cows, I think that they would not want to participate in this evil of killing them.” – Anita Krajnc

The conversation then shifts to address the scale of the factory farming industry: Krajnc reveals that about 70 billion animals are farmed for food around the world, and that this number does not even include fish. Kathryn shines the spotlight on the startling contrast between the mind-boggling numbers of farm animals that are artificially brought into the world and the drastically ever-shrinking numbers of wild animal  populations.

“Essentially, we are eradicating the world of all the natural animals and re-populating the planet, on this crazy scale, with animals for us to use . . . and when you think of it that way, it’s very clear why the climate crisis is what it is, and why agricultural issues are at the center of it.” – Kathryn Sussman

The take away from this interview: learn why animal agriculture is killing our planet, and how compassion and love-based movements like the Save Movement serve to create a global community that embraces the diversity and well-being of all living creatures – human and animals.

Now you know!

Listen as NYK host, Kathryn, and Ingrid Newkirk – British animal rights activist and the president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the world’s largest animal rights organization – reflect on the history and future of  veganism, discuss the scale of animals killed for food and products, and speak passionately about the intelligence, sentience and complex behaviours of animals. 

Over the last few decades, Newkirk’s contribution to improving animal welfare and protection has been nothing short of remarkable, and has been an inspiration to animal lovers the world over. Newkirk has spoken out on animal rights issues fearlessly, victoriously leading the charge to, among other achievements, end the auto industry’s use of animals in crash tests, securing the first felony convictions of factory farm workers, convincing businesses to stop practices such as near-drowning of test animals, and just recently convincing over one hundred airports to ban the use of glue traps.  Newkirk is the subject of the HBO documentary  I am an Animal, and is the recipient of numerous awards including the Peter Singer Prize for Strategies to Reduce the Suffering of Animals (2016), the Ahimsa Award (2014) and the Shining World Compassion Award (2007). Her latest book,  Animalkind is now available online and in stores, in multiple languages. 

Listen as Kathryn and Newkirk reflect on how veganism has entered the mainstream in recent years, making headway not only in the food industry, but as an all-inclusive lifestyle. Newkirk describes the progress that has been achieved since the early days of soymilk in powder form to the present where there are seemingly countless delicious nut milk products readily available in stores, and addresses how this availability has now started to extend to industries beyond that of food, including fashion, furniture, hardware and car interiors. 

Newkirk explains the cruelty involved in farming sheep for wool, even in those places that appear to be idyllic. Kathryn points out that life in the English countryside is not representative of the living conditions of the vast majority of sheep bred for the wool industry. Newkirk elucidates this reality by describing what her investigative teams have uncovered: abusive  conditions and mistreatment due to the fast-paced nature of the industry driven to produce, above all, slating animal welfare far below the need to make a profit.

Next, Kathryn questions Newkirk about PETA’s choice to use sensational campaigns to get their messages across to the public. Newkirk explains that such campaigns are by design: a necessary tactic and effective political strategy that has successfully exposed crucial issues of animal abuse to the general public and has resulted in an immeasurable reduction in animal suffering on a global scale. PETA’s campaigns deliberately serve to disrupt and shake the very foundations of industries and governments that continue to turn a blind eye to unethical treatment of animals. In fact, Newkirk points out, it is the result of such tactics that led to PETA’s groundbreaking accomplishment of ending the use of animals in crash tests in the car industry. 

Next, Kathryn shifts the conversation to the current problem of the industry’s mass use of leather in vehicle interiors. Newkirk opens our eyes to the fact that it can take up to eight cows to create a single leather interior. There is, however, lots of good news, as she describes how many car companies are now listening to consumers’ demands for vegan alternatives to leather and providing stellar products to their customers.

Kathryn then turns the discussion to the subject of Newkirk’s book Animalkind, and points out that in it, Newkirk gets at the heart of the problem of speciesism: discrimination based on species membership. She expresses her view that it really doesn’t make sense to judge animals by a set of arbitrary criteria determined by us to be most valuable. After calling into question the ethics behind this concept of speciesism, Kathryn and Newkirk move into a discussion about the incredible abilities of various species used in the hide, wool and feather industries.

“They’re just all extraordinary in so many ways, it’s just we’re not looking. Even with our dogs at home, it’s always sit, stay, come, fetch the ball back to me, hurry along on your walk, you know, eat your food when I say so… They’re whole. They’re complete. They’re thinking, they’re feeling, they’re emotional beings. They are not accoutrements to our life. They’re not just shoes and burgers that we haven’t killed yet. They’re other individuals, other tribes, other people like us.” Ingrid Newkirk

Now you know!

Listen as Joshua Katcher, New York fashion designer, entrepreneur, author and educator, speaks openly about the truth behind how animals are bred, farmed, trapped and slaughtered for their skin, fur and hair, and elucidates for us why making ethical fashion choices matters.

Katcher, named one of the Top 20 Most Influential Vegans of 2019 by Veg News Magazine, is founder of both The Discerning Brute the world’s first men’s vegan lifestyle website and Brave GentleMan, the first vegan lifestyle menswear brand in the world. He has not only taught at both Parsons and LIM college in New York, but is also a leading lecturer on vegan fashion around the world. Katcher has lobbied in the United States for sustainable and ethical fashion and is on the  Advisory Board for The New Fashion Initiative. In 2019, he published Fashion Animals, the first book dedicated to understanding how and why animals are exploited by the fashion industry.

In this fascinating and eye-opening interview, Katcher shares his story of how and why he started The Discerning Brute and Brave GentleMan, and why it is crucial that each of us becomes aware of the chain of events behind our purchases, and starts to take our purchasing power seriously.

Katcher and Kathryn discuss how veganism, the renunciation of animal products from our lives, is a position and action that is about much more than just food choices: it is an ethical statement about how we want to live in the world in order to take care of, and protect, animals, the planet, and our own bodies. While cutting-edge science now recognizes the complex, sentient and emotional lives of non-human animals, they continue to be exploited, used and abused on a mind-boggling scale not only for food, but for household items, fashion items, car-interiors, the list goes on. This treatment of living beings as nothing more than commodities to be used by us, is not only antiquated but egregious in nature. 

Katcher educates us on how the fashion industry and the design industry have a tremendous global impact on billions of animals annually, and millions of workers as well as on our ecosystem. He makes us think about the systems hidden behind the products we purchase, and emphasizes that it is the systems themselves, not only our personal choices, that we need to be aware of, think about, and change. Kathryn and he discuss just how difficult it is to do the right things when it comes to our consumer choices, and how easy it is to do the wrong things. This is in no small part due to the plethora of cheap products, but it is also due to lack of labeling, labeling schemes, and misleading claims by companies.

“We are so disconnected from the way things are made and supply chains and that is a really, really big problem, and what that results in is something called aesthetic irrationality, where, because a product looks good or tastes good, that goodness, in and of itself becomes the justification . . .” – Joshua Katcher

Katcher points out that when a product is cheap, there is a reason, and it is often a dark one. Listen as he debunks some of the myths we subscribe to regarding fashion, and helps us to understand why we need to challenge social norms surrounding not only food, but also what we put on our bodies. Contrary to popular belief that fashion is silly, or that we need to be passive consumers, Katcher makes us see that fashion is actually a place from which we have tremendous consumer power, and as such, power to make a political statement, and power to change the world.

Now you know!