We are traveling through northwestern Germany. Starting in the north of Hamburg, our team heads out to get a closer look at animal transports in this region. Traffic jams, locked gates at destinations, and people refusing to speak with us are part of the reality we face. And yet, despite all of this, we keep finding moments where we can look into the eyes of the animals and accompany them, if only briefly, on what is often their final journey.
The chickens Martin, Alexander, and Johannes are quiet. They doze as we see them during a short stop in the middle of the night at a petrol station near a slaughterhouse. They have only been alive for a few weeks before being loaded into crates, and now they meet our gaze for a moment. We are relieved that this time they seem to have a bit more space than usual and that their journey has not been too long. Still, it is difficult to walk away from them as they disappear behind the gates of a huge slaughterhouse. We see similar scenes when we accompany pig transports. Even when the animals are likely given the legally required space, Marianne, Lieselotte, and Marie barely have room to lie down. The scale of the slaughter facilities, and the sheer number of animals processed there, is overwhelming. It leaves us speechless again and again – a stark reflection of our society’s demand for profit and meat. All of what we observe goes into our documentation and helps us plan future missions. We cannot change the fate of Martin, Alexander, Johannes, Marianne, Lieselotte, and Marie. But moments like these remind us why we are out here in the first place. They are at the heart of Animals’ Angels’ mission: to be present for animals on their final journey, and to make sure they are seen.
