Welcome to The Vegan Report, my name is Ryan and today we are talking with four sanctuary owners from all around the world.
We have Diana Godrich, co-director of Champagne C Sanctuary North West, Gwendolyn Church from Friends of Philip,
Catherine Besh from Vietnam Animal Aid and Rescue, and Sully Hart from Franklin Farm Sanctuary.
Gwendolyn and Catherine, both of you are returning guests of the show.
Welcome back, listeners will find links to my interviews with you in the description below.
Diana, Sully, nice to meet you and welcome to the show.
And of course thank you all of you for being here.
As a nice breaker question, I know that most sanctuaries out there have a star resident,
so maybe if you could say a few words about who your star resident is, who's your favorite and why.
And let's start maybe with Sully.
I have so many favorites, it's hard to choose, but I think the real star would have to be Dora,
one of our cows here at the sanctuary and she just wins over all of the hearts.
She was what's called a bobby calf here in New Zealand, so a bobby calf to us is a cow that's in her first year of giving birth for the dairy industry,
will be forced to have a smaller baby to make the birth easier on her,
but that baby is then not really useful, quote unquote, to the industry, so they are routinely slaughtered.
And that's one of the many just disgusting things that happen in that industry in this country.
But yeah, to the tune of about two million a year, and Dora and her sister Moana were two of those bobby calves in the year that I moved to the sanctuary,
so that would have been 2019.
And she is just, she's a real people cow, you know, so she gravitates towards people.
She's so cuddly, she loves head scratches.
Anyone who will give her a bit of affection is her best friend, and I truly think she has changed so many hearts and minds around the dairy industry with everybody who's met her.
So yeah, I'd say she'd probably be a star here.
Thank you, Sally. Yes, we love Dora, a great teacher.
Diana, what about you?
Yeah, so we have 15 chimpanzees right now, one passed away last year, and I guess I'd have to say Burrito is the star of the sanctuary in a lot of ways because he is just the goofiest guy you'd ever meet.
He's 41, but he acts more like he's about 15.
And he's just so playful and just wants to have fun all the time.
He's just very goofy. He's been through a lot. He's kind of an example of how chimps have been used in the past.
So he was owned as a pet and he was used in the entertainment industry for a while, and then he spent most of his time in biomedical research before coming to the sanctuary.
But yeah, everyone who meets him in person is in love with him and then all of our fans across the world also.
So we have a blog that we post every day and it's hard not to post about Burrito because he's always just doing something silly and goofy and fun.
Yeah, the blog is amazing. I encourage people to visit the blog and I love hearing about Burrito.
So thank you, Diana. Gwendolyn, what about you?
Oh, excuse me. I think our current star is probably Strawberry. She is a teeny tiny betta fish who came to us several years ago from a pet store.
Kind of our typical story of she was in one of those awful little cups at the store.
In this case, she was being sold at one of the stores that sells bettas as babies where you can get like a teeny tiny baby fish.
I mean, she was like less than an inch long and she didn't have a tail.
So they let us take her home because of that.
And at this point, she is probably at least three and a half years old, which is quite old for a betta fish.
And she is in a tank in our kitchen, which is where Phillip used to live.
And she is just this like little shining light of happiness and curiosity every time you walk through.
She watches you and follows you along.
And the second she thinks that you have seen her and are looking at her for anything, she's over there hoping for snacks and attention and things.
So she's just a really sweet, amazing little fish.
That's amazing. Thank you, Gwendolyn.
Yeah, it's hard to say. I mean, like, again, they're all my favorite.
And I know I'm not saying that just because I think they're listening and they're like, Mommy's going to pick one.
She's a horrible person. But no, I would say I would say Julian probably is the one that gets the most attention because he's the biggest.
Julian is Master Julian. Actually, I've named him appropriately.
And he's a he's a large pig. He's about four, about 230 kilos, 400 ish pounds.
If you want to do the math, which I generally don't.
He's a he's a big boy. I've got him as a baby. And he was raised basically living in my bed until he couldn't jump on the bed anymore because he was too big.
And frankly, he farts a lot and is too hot to sleep with.
So, like, you know, eventually he he kind of had to be a pig.
And it's taken really, you know, it's been hard for him to sort of adjust to the idea that he is a pig versus like a cat or a chicken or a dog.
But he doesn't see himself as as a pig necessarily. And he hates other pigs.
So I would say he's just a little he's my baby's the boy.
He's like everybody's like boyfriends. You know, we all love him so much.
But the only issue we have is that he can pick you up.
I think that's like he's a he's a lovely guy. My baby, you bear.
I love him so much, but he can he can randomly just walk up to you, get between your legs and lift you into the sky.
And whether you're a six foot five man or or a child, this is what's going to happen.
So so I would say he's lovely and he's made, I think, a lot of vegans as well.
I think he's done a really good job of being an ambassador of his kind.
And we talk about him a lot and he gets a lot of, you know, attention.
But but ultimately, like I've had people that are like die hard meat eaters that come and like we hang out and I chit chat with them and whatever and just make them like hang out with him.
And like they kind of come away and they're like, gosh, I didn't really realize that he was like this.
And I've never, you know, I've never met a pig before.
And I'm like, yeah, you have you put a bunch of their dead bodies in your mouth.
You know, like this is what they are. This is who they are.
And this is who he is. And he's not your sausage. He's not your bacon.
So I would say that like the public enjoys Julian the most.
And he is my my real son.
But but yeah, everybody's my favorite.
So I guess, yeah, I don't like I said, it's like early morning for me.
And so I have a lot more energy to talk than anybody else.
But except for New Zealand. So, yeah, I feel like I just love all my babies.
Well, just a follow up question. Is it is it accurate to say that Julian is the oldest big in Vietnam right now?
Oh, yeah, definitely. For sure. For sure.
Nobody's lived that long. You know, we actually thought he was going to die this month.
We gave him the African swine fever vaccine recently was released in Vietnam.
It's only in Vietnam and the Philippines currently.
But we've had a huge outbreak since I really wanted to protect him.
And he but they don't test it on old animals.
They're all it's only tested on piglets and pigs under 100 kilos, which is double that.
But I had to take the risk and to go ahead and vaccinate him.
And he had a vaccine reaction and he got quite sick.
And we don't have that very care like we have no vets that know what to do with them.
So the fact that he is nine and a half years old is actually miraculous.
You know, previously we had an eleven and a half year old pig and we had to put her to sleep in January.
But it took us four months to get her euthanized to get a she had severe arthritis.
And we were trying to get a euthanasia protocol.
But we don't have the drugs that everybody else has and we don't have the vets that everybody else has.
And we have just no access to any of that.
And so it took our vets four months to be able to euthanize our eleven and a half year old pig.
So, yeah, having old pigs is hard. It's hard.
But we're doing the best we can with them. Yeah.
Yes, Sally. Oh, my gosh. I am so just my heart breaks for you losing your pig in January.
We had a ten year old pig here who also had to be put down in January.
And so I just feel that to my core.
But what I like add, even in New Zealand, which is a first world country and we have all of the vet care for domestic animals,
even here for farm animals, it was a process convincing the vets to euthanize a pig
because they just could not understand why I wouldn't just shoot her.
I was like, that is my child you're talking about. I'm not shooting her in the face.
I physically could not do it. And yeah, it took so much.
And still, even with experienced farm vets, it took so much more anesthetic than they were anticipating.
It was a traumatic experience. Yeah. Absolutely. No dramatic experience. Yes.
Oh, my gosh. Anything I can't even describe it. I can't describe it on the podcast.
I literally cannot tell you how it happened and have this to be publicly discussed.
I mean, like their first thought was to do was to slit her throat.
They literally gave me that option of like we give as much anesthetic as we can, whatever works.
And then we exsanguination and just slit her throat, slit her arteries. Yeah. That was literally their first plan.
Yeah. No, honestly, we did that. But it's traumatic.
It is. And anything with pigs, even getting them desexed, as you would know, is so traumatic because they are so clever.
And they just run away screaming.
So, I mean, you can just imagine what it's like for them in a normal farming environment.
But still far out there. It's alarming how not that different it is in a, you know,
what's meant to be one of the best case scenarios for farmed animals, countries in the world to a country like Vietnam.
Give it all of your veterinary medicine, all of your veterinary literature is based on production and slaughter.
That's it. Exactly. It's all about reproduction, producing meat, eggs or dairy and killing them.
And their literature ends, you know, for a pig, it ends at like two years.
That's it. You don't have senior pig medicine. No.
And then they say to you like, well, if we use the anesthetic, you won't be able to eat it.
I'm like, oh, no, no, no. She has a name.
Why would I eat her? I'm not. Yeah.
I have a list of humans that I'd sooner eat than any of my animals. Like, no, absolutely not.
People have no idea. No idea. The difference.
I think both of you are raising a really good point about, you know, the health care and the need to provide health care to animals in a sanctuary and how tough, how difficult that can be.
I want to turn to Diana and Gwendolyn because you don't have farm animals as residents.
You have fish for you, Gwendolyn and chimpanzees for you, Diana.
So how do you look for health care for chimpanzees and fish?
You know, I have two birds at home and it's the hardest thing, finding a veterinary for birds.
So I can't even imagine how tough it might be finding veterinary care for a chimpanzee and fish.
So let's start with you, Gwendolyn. How does that happen?
How did you find your veterinarian and how is it like to, you know, have to seek that kind of health care?
Yeah, it is a very unique situation.
When I first started rescuing fish, I honestly didn't think that fish pets were even a thing.
If you look online around aquatic animal care, everything that you find for like, quote unquote, pet species is around home treatment and using unregulated medications and things to treat fish at home just based off of what you find online.
And in the United States, you can buy all kinds of antibiotics and what not, excuse me, from pet stores and from fish stores, which is not great because you, of course, then are interacting with these medications.
You don't know exactly what they are or if they're even the right medication to use for the fish because you don't know exactly what's going on with the fish.
And it's a huge problem because many, many people will go that route because it's very cheap.
But in reality, there are aquatic vets. There are vets who treat fish exclusively and specifically.
And so we have an aquatic veterinarian. We work with Dr. Jesse Sanders from Aquatic Veterinary Services. She has a mobile aquatic vet service that covers all of California and Nevada.
So we're in Reno, Nevada. And so she comes over here to see us. She comes and she's absolutely incredible. And it's amazing with aquatic vets because the number of species that they're treating are huge.
You know, if you look at like a typical terrestrial vet, they might, for most vets, they might just see dogs and cats.
And our vet, she sees all of our bettas. She sees all of our little tropical fish, which we have like 15 different species of those guys. She sees all of our cold water species. We have six or eight species of cold water fish like goldfish.
She saw our bluegill who came in recently. She sees the whole range of fish. And if we had saltwater fish, she would see them too.
So there's, you know, a lot that goes into that with the different species and things that she sees.
But generally, unfortunately, it is hard to find aquatic vets, but it's becoming a more common specialty.
The American Veterinary Association, I think, I don't know the actual title of the organization, but they just released this year a board certification for aquatic vets. So our vet is one of the first board certified aquatic veterinarians, which is really exciting because, you know, it's that much more emphasis on it and recognition on aquatic vets.
And so we're really, really lucky with Dr. Sanders. I know that there are other aquatic vets kind of all over the United States.
I can't speak to things out loud about this, but I think that's a really good thing.
And I think that's a really good thing. And I think that's a really good thing.
I mean, so many fish have gone without proper care and treatment for a very long time. And so, yeah, we're really, really lucky with Dr. Sanders. I know that there are other aquatic vets kind of all over the United States.
I can't speak to things outside of the United States. I don't really know much, but I do know too that like our vet does consultations with non aquatic vets too.
If someone has a vet who they know and trust, they can work with that or that vet can work with like Dr. Sanders to see and treat a fish.
Because, of course, she can't see a fish that's not like in her state or a patient of hers, but she can consult with other veterinarians.
So I know that that's kind of a useful tool for people to if they don't have direct access to an aquatic vet.
Interesting. Thank you, Gwendolyn. Diana, what about you?
Yeah, so it's very hard to find chimpanzee vets.
It's not something that, I mean, it's not a specialty that exists really. So people who have experience with primate medicine in general, like smaller primates and monkeys tend to come from the laboratory industry.
So would have been working with primates that have been used to test human medicine and obviously not exactly the same goals and philosophy about care as a sanctuary.
And then there's zoo vets who generally have, you know, a little bit of primate experience, but not specialties in that.
So our veterinarian now, she was a equine vet for a while and then had a small animal practice.
And she's just interested and brave and really great at networking.
So she talks to zoo vets, she talks to lab vets, she talks to all the sanctuary veterinarians.
And it's interesting because we're seeing things in sanctuaries that, you know, there's not a lot of literature either on medicine for chimpanzees and different cases that come up.
So we're trying to get better in the sanctuary community about talking with each other because there are some things that, you know, we need to learn from each other.
And then there are some veterinarians who have practiced on more wild populations of great apes.
So, yeah, it's very hard. There's a need for more vets who work with sanctuary animals in general.
We actually do have three cows right now also, so totally relate to the other stories of, you know, around here cows are for meat and for dairy.
And we just lost our steer actually not too long ago. And he was just a real big guy because he was a dairy.
He's a Jersey. So he would have been killed probably, you know, less than a year old and because they're bred for production, they just get big really fast and their bodies really aren't made to age in the way that, you know, you would want them to in a sanctuary.
And then for chimpanzees, it's just a totally different situation. And they're so close to humans that a lot of veterinarians are hesitant about working with them because it's just so outside of their experience.
And I've I found that the veterinary field in general is moving more towards people who are really specializing in very specific things. And it's less of the kind of old school veterinarians who are just like going out in the field and taking care of cows and then taking care of, you know, wildlife that might come in.
It's really hard to find wildlife veterinarians too. Like if you have injured wildlife around here, you know, it's not James Herriot days anymore where you have people who are kind of skilled and have experience with different animals.
So I don't know what the future is for sanctuary primate medicine. I don't know.
But our veterinarian now is like talking to younger people who are in vet school now and trying to get them interested in it. It would be interesting to try to share veterinarians, I think, across sanctuaries to especially sanctuaries that are close to one another.
Yeah, a cat. Did you want to interject?
Yeah, I was gonna say, I mean, I think it's quite interesting, particularly with primates. And not like you said there is such a commonality with with humans in a lot of ways I rescued a stump-tailed macaque when I first moved to Vietnam, 12 years ago, I ran into kind of these similar problems where we farm macaques in Vietnam by the tens of thousands and then ship them to laboratories across the world.
So there are people, like you said, that are sort of specialized in a way in primate medicine, but they're based in like laboratory type stuff. And I would say that to be true for farmed animals. Farm animal medicine is based on, you know, what are they for?
Yeah, like it's all the veterinary mind and the veterinary literature and everything is based on what is this animal's use for us and how can we get the most out of them.
And what we're doing, I think, in general, with sanctuaries, all of us that work in sanctuaries of all kinds are facing the fact that we have got to completely alter the literature of the veterinary industry as a whole to create a system that is based on longevity and just general
health care, you know, instead of use. And I think it's going to take a really long time. And we also have to acknowledge that each of our animals in this process is an experiment. We are experimenting. I had a chicken, one of my roosters, I was talking about Buddy Boy before we started the podcast.
And he had his leg amputated, but he died under anesthesia because we don't have any, we didn't have any vets that were that were practiced and they all basically told me before the surgery, they're like, I have never anesthetized a bird.
Right. I've never done this. I've done a million amputations, never done anesthesia on a bird. So we're all kind of experimenting with our animals and he died, you know, he died under anesthesia as a result of this.
But he was an experiment and I had to go with it. And I think we all do and especially with fish. I mean, like I would say also, we're kind of Google vets, aren't we?
You know, we're all kind of Google vetting this to a degree. We have to talk to people around the world that we have to email and message and put on all these forms and all this stuff to get basic care, whereas if you've got a cat or a dog, you just rock up to a vet and probably you're going to get
okay-ish care, if not excellent care, nearly as good as humans, depending on where you are in the world. So we are like as sanctuaries, we are a bigger part of the veterinary industry than I think people recognize.
And we are in the forefront of something that is revolutionary for veterinary medicine, which is taking each individual animal and considering their health care and their longevity as their sole purpose of existence,
to live and be comfortable and to die with dignity. And that ultimately is going to be decades upon decades of this work. And we're going to watch a lot of really painful things in the process.
So that's my take on that.
Gwendolyn?
Yeah, I love what you're saying, Kat, about how sanctuaries are kind of pushing veterinary medicine and research forward because none of these animals really have had the focus on living for a long time.
Like we have four hens who live at our sanctuary as well. And we had to go through three different vets when we first adopted our hens before finally basically hitting the jackpot by finding an avian vet who almost exclusively treats parrots and really believed me when I said that these chickens are just as important to me as someone's parrot might be to them.
And so that's how we were able to find really good avian care is like not even through someone who specializes or focuses on chickens, but through someone who knows that many people care about birds.
And so that's how our chickens get their health care and it's amazing to see because our vet is so excited that we want to provide that care to our chickens because she's never encountered someone who would do that before.
Yeah, we're ultimately experiments. All of us. We're putting our babies are these things, these little babies that we love so much and we put so much care into and so much energy and effort and fundraising and all of this stuff.
And we're just being like, all right, work it out.
Work it out, talk to somebody get on the computer, get on the forums, do your research, every vet that we encounter has to be not only capable of doing that research, but willing.
And I find that to be just as hard as the research itself. When we have chickens like I like I hit a chicken. I didn't get a chicken. I was right. I was on a motorbike right behind somebody who hit a chicken on the road.
And they were, you know, this traumatic accident. I had a broken leg, whatever. And I was like, I've got to get an appointment guys. I gotta get an appointment. I gotta get an appointment. And they're like, well, we're, you know, we're full today or whatever.
It's not true if I had a puppy hit by hit by motorbike. Never. They're like, bring it in, we'll get it on the table in two minutes. Right. If it's a chicken, that chicken died, that chicken died because it was unable to get veterinary care because they are not willing to treat a chicken like they treat dogs and cats.
In fact, that same organization, which is which runs the vet clinic, which is super anti dog. They have barbecues at their fundraisers. They're putting the animals that I rescue on their, on their, on their grill.
The animals I rescue are on their grill and they're calling themselves a rescue. I rescue animals from a rescue.
I don't seem to get that I'm rescuing animals from my vets. You know, it's like, like, like I always tell people it's like I wouldn't go to a gynecologist that was a rapist I wouldn't go to I wouldn't send my children to I wouldn't get a pedophile to babysit my kids.
Right. Why do I have to take my animals to somebody who who doesn't consider them animals they consider them a snack.
You know, and that's veterinary medicine in general. And I think finding somebody willing to do that is incredible for fish, particularly we kill trillions of them.
Trillions and the rest of them are imprisoned. And they're they end up in a toilet. Yeah. How many how many vets are willing to really like acknowledge their, their care is being valid.
So yeah, we're all really in a crappy boat. And we're just like bailing it out. You know, we're in a sink and chip. But yeah, we're doing our best.
So I'm sorry to kind of jump in but I just with the vet thing one of the only other people I've ever seen cry over the loss of a fish was my vet.
And that was really amazing. Yeah. She really she had lost a coy patient and she had a video that she had made about it and she was like, very upset. She was so she was torn up.
She was crying. She's amazing. We're so lucky.
You're so lucky. Geez, hug that woman. Sorry.
So I was just gonna add to the chicken thing. A lot of what I do as you guys would know it's hard to rescue bigger animals in big numbers.
But with chickens here. I'm sure it's similar elsewhere in the world. Our farmers get them at six months old and for egg laying chickens they call them call murder them at 18 months old.
So that is where the majority of our rescues happen and we rescue sort of between four and 10,000 chickens a year from that industry.
So they are all going into vetted like pet only homes.
And to get around this lack of vet care. I mean, we do now very recently have New Zealand avian empire who are amazing.
So they are like, you know, that's all they do is birds, mostly chickens.
And they do like your vet Gwendolyn. They do consults to people everywhere in the country who actually care about their chickens because these are like family pets, which is how it should be.
But before that organization started, I started a community of adopters, which now I mean, we would have many, many, many hundreds of families with chickens that they've rescued from us over the last five years.
And we've all got Facebook groups so that people can ask these questions because no one realizes as sanctuary owners, because the vet care isn't always there.
We do have to be slightly more than first aid. Do you know what I mean?
Like it's we're triaging and we are trying to assess what's required.
And more and more as I've been doing this, I found that I'm telling the vets now like this is what's wrong.
We had a issue with a goat recently. My absolute oh my gosh, when you say who's the star of the sanctuary, he's no one else's favorite, but he's very much my favorite.
Don't tell the others. But he is my baby. He was one of the first animals I rescued. And oh my God, I love him to bits.
And then one day a few weeks ago, he just wasn't himself. And trying to explain to the vets when they're like, well, what's wrong?
I was like, no, but he's he's not himself. And he could go downhill really fast because goats do.
And I think he needs, you know, like these are the things it's not. He's not anemic. He hasn't got a worm burden. He hasn't got this.
He hasn't got that. He could have a urinary tract infection. He could have this.
I think we need to start him on antibiotics and a mineral boost.
And luckily, my vet trusts me enough that they came and just did what I said and he came right immediately.
But you could see, you know, he was like, really? This guy seems kind of fine.
I'm like, no, no, he's not fine because he's usually bolshy as anything and stroppy and pushing everyone around in the herd.
He's king of the pack. And that day he was reserved. He was pulling himself away from everyone.
It was a personality change. And, you know, that's the sort of thing that I think a community of of sanctuary founders and of adopters
and of people who see animals as the individual souls, as worthy of life as each of us that they are.
That's where we can start to guide veterinary care and also just public perception of animals roles on this earth.
Well, I want to push this further.
Diana, you started this conversation by talking about Burrito and you talked about how he was raised as a pet and then he continued his life in a lab.
He was, I think, sold to a lab. And I mean, the trauma, the how this must affect his mental health.
I don't know in what state you welcomed him.
And I wonder, you know, how do you deal with the mental health side of your residents?
You know, how do you treat that? How do you care for that?
And yeah, so go ahead. Yeah.
Well, burritos an interesting individual to talk about in that respect, because with chimpanzees, with any animal, if they are raised outside of what they should be, you know, he was not raised with a family.
So he didn't. He was taken away from his mom when he was young and he was put with a human family and chimpanzees are incredibly resilient and adaptable, which is why they're so they were so widely used in research because they could kind of survive anything.
And which isn't the case for for all animals.
So he didn't grow up with the culture of being a chimpanzee. He grew up with the culture of being a human at first and then used in entertainment and then kind of sitting in a cage.
So the he was in a group of seven total and came here in 2008 and where they were before was very small.
So he didn't really have even room to express himself fully as a male chimp. And when he got here, there's more room, there's more space.
And in the wild, the males are considered it's considered a patriarchy.
So males, although there's some research going on now that's looking at how the females are really kind of controlling things behind the scenes.
But on the surface, it looks like males are in charge of groups and burrito just didn't have the social skills to be able to take that role.
And there's a very strong female in his group who just was born to be the boss of everybody.
So she is. And he took a different role in the group.
But particularly chimps that are raised in human homes in whatever capacity, if they're used in entertainment or as pets, even for short periods of time, it just messes with their culture.
And then chimpanzees have this instinctual territoriality.
And so then when you try to put them with other chimps, it doesn't always work out because they just don't know what to do socially.
And it's heartbreaking because they want to be social. They want to be with each other.
They just don't have the skills to navigate all those relationships. And that's definitely burrito.
And so it's good that he is was able to be in the group that he's in and he's able to be social.
I know some other male chimps in particular who it just is very, very hard.
And so they might only be able to live with like one or two other chimps, which isn't ideal.
And then for him, I mean, he's pretty happy-go-lucky guy overall.
So he doesn't have some of the more mental, emotional issues that some other chimps that we care for have.
There's a lot of like stereotypies that you see with captive chimps. So they'll do kind of weird things like attack their own hand.
Or there's a lot of rocking, like kind of self-soothing behaviors. And even if they develop those behaviors in a suboptimal environment,
like a laboratory, even when they get to sanctuary, it's just so ingrained in how they cope with things that they'll continue those stereotypical behaviors.
So we, you know, a lot of it is just time and just like letting them be who they are and monitoring them and giving them space.
So burritos group has been here for 16 years now, almost 16 years, and we're still seeing like personalities change and grow and chimps doing things that they'd never done before.
It just takes a lot of time and building up trust, I think, with their environment and their caregivers and the group that they're living with and giving them a lot of choices and a lot, a lot of mental stimulation.
That's the most challenging thing with chimps because they just they need to keep active mentally.
And for some like severe cases, we definitely have used behavioral medications that humans use, like anti-anxiety medications.
And we tend to think of it as short-term use for most most chimps.
We're just starting one of our chimps on on an anti-anxiety medication now, hoping that it'll he's just like not quite fitting in with the social group and we're hoping that it'll help him.
It's hard, though, because you they can't tell you what they're experiencing.
They can't tell you what side effects they're having necessarily.
And so it's all just based on what we're observing.
So we're pretty careful about that, and we try to talk as a group, all the caregivers and decide those things as a group.
So it's not just one person who's who's deciding it.
And then, of course, our veterinarian does a ton of research and talks to lots of people.
Thank you, Diana.
Gwendolyn, what about you?
Because your your residents are fishes.
And that is a whole other level of complication.
I mean, I would say at least we are primates.
So there is a basis, you know, of communication or relationship with chimpanzees or other great apes, primates in general.
But with aquatic life, I mean, we have stories of like with dolphins and things like that.
But with a better how do you evaluate their mental state and how happy or sad they are and how do you treat that or care for them?
It's a it's a challenge for sure.
And in part, I think because of the number of species that we have.
So, you know, we have over twenty five species of fish, which in like a rescue environment, it's unusual, I would say, to be caring for that large of a variety of species.
So the things that I really try to focus on when when looking at an individual fish to try to see, like, is this individual happy is making sure that some of the basic needs of that species are met.
So that is, of course, for example, are quite solitary.
They can live in a community tank with no other bettas. They cannot live with bettas, but they can live with like other peaceful community species.
So we do have a better who is happiest in our community tank.
And one of our previous bettas actually, she passed last year, Sophie.
She was only happy in a community environment and she started to have some health issues. So I took her out of the community tank and she got like visibly depressed, wasn't interested in eating, wasn't interested in me, wasn't interested in anything.
And so when I put her back into the community, she immediately kind of perked back up. And luckily, we were able to treat her pretty quickly and then get her back in with her friends.
And so a lot of it is watching kind of the individual behavior and making sure that their their core needs are met. So like for our Corydora catfish, they're a bottom dwelling, very social species of little catfish.
So all of our Corydoras live in the same community tank, and we make sure that they have a kind of soft, sandy substrate because Corydoras naturally like to sift through the substrate to look for food.
And some of our larger species like goldfish who get quite big, a big component is making sure that they have the space that they need because they're very large and also that they have the social groups that they need because goldfish are incredibly social.
So it really is a kind of species, it's a balance of getting the species components correct of what each species needs and then the individual needs as well and looking for, you know, if a fish is acting lethargic or generally uninterested in things like eating or interacting with other fishes.
Most of the time those will be indicative of like a health issue more than a kind of an emotional thing, because I would say typically we've got it kind of dialed on what most of the individuals seem to want and have their groups kind of settled and figured out and things there.
So it is tricky and something that I spend a lot of time thinking about, especially because, you know, with fish tanks and things it's like, this is the most unnatural environment that they could ever possibly be living in.
And so, how do I make a glass box into an appealing place for a fish to live or to be happy? Like it's very hard.
I really try to focus on their behaviors, giving them the space that they need, giving them the companions that they need, and trying to do everything that we can to give them as natural of an environment as possible while also recognizing that they are a captive fish and that, you know, the things that we can give them are relatively limited in terms of what, you know, relative to what they would have in the wild.
Thank you, Gwendolyn. Now I want to turn to the farm sanctuaries. And I think the idea that food is sentient is very, you know, absurd in the minds of many people.
Let's maybe start with you, Solie. How do you treat the mental health of your residents?
I think it's so similar to what Gwendolyn and Diana have been saying is it's observation. It's just spending time with the animals that are in our care, really knowing them so that you can see when things aren't quite right.
And then sometimes it's obvious what's required. And sometimes, you know, you need to try a few different things and just keep observing and keep, yeah, trying to do the best. And like Gwendolyn said, I mean, all of these are unnatural environments for these animals and society has created this imperfect situation.
I think what stands out to me listening to everyone is it's all so similar. There are so many areas of grey and we're all just really trying to do the best with really not much precedent to, you know, keep these animals happy and healthy and thriving in these very artificial environments.
So for us, it's, you know, space. Our cows have most of the property to roam. We say we're at capacity now. There's two foster paddocks and if they're full, then I don't take any more.
I know the temptation, and I've seen sanctuary owners in New Zealand fall into this trap before and, you know, to the detriment of the animals is to keep saying yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, we'll take that. Yes, we'll take that.
And it's heartbreaking to say no. I know that it eats me up. It keeps me up at night saying no to these animals that need us.
But, you know, understanding your limits, understanding how much space is required for each animal and how much space you have available to give and just the social stuff.
So we've got, I'll give you an example, we've got this one little goat, oh my gosh, Wanda, and when she was surrendered to the sanctuary, she had been wandering around, hence the name, the town, local city.
And she'd only really come into contact with humans and so she was a real like human animal.
And the worry was that she wasn't going to learn how to be a goat. So I thought she also had some health issues that needed to be rehabilitated.
I put her into the pig paddock, which is right next to my house. So she was getting lots and lots of human interaction all the time, but also learning how to be an animal and be outside and and engage with the pigs.
But she bonded with the pigs, like completely and utterly bonded with the pigs.
And unfortunately now that I've got big pigs in there as well, she was just with a couple of little cooney coonies who are very sweet, gentle little souls.
And now I've got my big boys and cat, oh my goodness, my newest big pig Smudge sounds like, just like your big boy.
He was also raised in a house on a bed and yeah, he's coming around to the fact that he's a pig, but also very, yeah, very pushy.
So I've had to move Wanda out of the pig paddock and I just wish I could explain to her like this is for your safety.
These pigs are too big for you and I've caught them pushing her around a bit. It's not safer in there anymore.
It's safer for the pigs to be together, but not for the little, very little goat to be in there. So I've had to move her up to the goat paddock.
And then it's a case of bonding her with the other goats and being there with her and making that an easy transition and heaps of treats and heaps of cuddles and extra mental stimulation.
So yeah, it does sound like although they're all very different animals, we're all kind of facing the same challenges and the same common themes.
Catherine. Well, thank you, Sally. Catherine, you're the only sanctuary in Vietnam and farm sanctuary.
Yeah, we're the only rescue that doesn't eat animals. So how is it? Yeah. So sit on that for a second.
We're the only animal rescue that like actively promotes not consuming animals. So yeah, we are. I mean, I would say and that puts a lot of pressure on us. And, you know, Sally said something very important.
Capacity limits. And I think all of us can really very much relate to that. I mean, especially like Gwendolyn with 25 species. I mean, like that just like that. My brain hurts hearing that.
Like I just I can't even think. I've got four species at the moment. And then we got like bats and lizards and snakes and each one takes a whole nother level of research on.
I'm like it really consumes you and be able to take care of each individual. The mental health for each individual animal means that capacity limits are such an important part of sanctuary work.
And for us, Vietnam is very different from a lot of countries, particularly in the United States. I am American. I grew up in places where you could buy 100 acre farms or even eight acres would be nice, you know, or I don't know hectare.
I don't know that one. But anyway, I'm trying to use my convergence appropriately. But, but anyway, you have a large amounts of land. We can't. We can't.
The way that the Vietnam is set up is that everybody has much smaller plots of land that has their home on it. And then all the farming land is in between all of these things.
And because you can't see me on camera, but like it's like a square the way everything is set up. And so we don't have the ability to have individual property that's large enough to house a lot of animals.
And obviously, as the only farm sanctuary in Vietnam, we get a lot of requests. And, and of course, like she said, like, no, is the most heartbreaking answer that we have.
But my job is to ensure the mental health of each, each individual animal and each individual staff member that cares about animal and like all of these things that we have to care for.
Like our own tiny little mental hospital, because everybody's come from a difficult situation and we have to manage everybody's mental health in order to do that. You've got to see them.
You're going to really be able to be quiet and see them and to know them over a period of time. This is the reason we don't have volunteers. We have no short term.
I don't take anybody for under six months because there's no point because you're not going to be able to care for that animal's mental health because you're not going to know what their baseline is.
Who is this cat? Who is this chicken? Who is this pig? What does he need? What's he telling me? What does he what does he feel right now? Is he off today? Is she off? I don't know.
Like you aren't going to know that unless you're able to really sit with them and know them and play with them and watch them.
You know, we make sure all of our staff are always taking pictures as well. Because what do you have to do to take pictures? You got to sit still.
You got to sit around and you got to watch them. So it's really an observational exercise as much as it is a media need for fundraising.
Right. So so the mental health I think is really complicated because you're getting animals from such a variety of situations and you have a really small property to manage it all on.
And a lot of animals really aren't great with other animals. And when you have a small property like Julian hates pigs. Our other pig Lola, they hated each they hated each other.
She was number one, she couldn't get sterilized in Vietnam. And so she was just like she would come into heat every 25 days. And if you ever met a pig in heat, you'll know why we sterilize pigs.
They're absolutely terrifying. They will tear down your barn. They will they will bite your leg. They will like clump your stall doors like really sick shit.
So like Julian hated her hated her so much. He would look her in the eyes and pee while he was staring at her through the fence. And then he would poop and he'd be like, just so you know, this is what I think of you.
You know, so the idea of having a sanctuary and just crowding in a bunch of animals means that you're ultimately not able to take care of that each and each individual's mental health.
Julian doesn't want to be with other pigs. I don't have the option of getting more on the property that I have. And with the veterinary care we have, I would never do it again.
When he dies, that's the end of it, unfortunately, because of the fact that we lack the capacity within Vietnam to care for each individual's physical and mental health.
So, you know, ultimately sanctuary has to like if you are thinking of starting a sanctuary and I see this to all people are like I love animals. I want to start a sanctuary. If I if I met myself 11 years ago, I would have smacked myself in the face and been like
build a vet clinic, start there, build a veterinary university, go with that, build a vegan veterinary university and then we'll talk. But it's really hard because that mental health question is really, really vital to what we do every single day.
And you have to be the type of person you have to have the type of people working for you and with you that also are able to sit and understand each individual's needs for each species, for each animal.
It is hard. I would say it's one of the hardest parts of running a sanctuary is catering to individual needs. And that can only be done on I think a small enough scale or with a large enough staff property.
Solly.
I just thought what you said about volunteers is so fascinating and I also get a lot of people asking if they can come and volunteer for a few hours or for one day all the time. And I feel like such a monster and so I'm grateful when I'm like actually do you know what that's that to you.
That's a day out where you come and cuddle cute animals. To me that's a day that you've taken away from me doing my job.
I'm not working.
Yeah, no, exactly. You're like, you're not going to help me.
You're wasting my time.
And I feel so bad saying that to people I'm like come to an open day please come meet the animals I'd love to show you around. But actually, if you want to help come every Saturday, I have to work, you know, I don't get paid this isn't my full time job after work to pay the, you know, the mortgage on the
salary and do this full time outside of my work hours. Come when I'm at work and every week and spend time with these animals when I'm not here and get to know them and, you know, take, take a responsibility for one of the weekly chores of running this place for sure but
nobody ever wants to do that no one wants that commitment.
And, yeah, it's, and I think also, you know, when I started this I did reach out to a couple of sanctuary owners and I'm so grateful to have the most incredible mentor in the world.
Sean who runs the animal sanctuary here in New Zealand as well.
And she, she really made sure I went in with my eyes wide open, which was fantastic and we see the world in a very similar way which is great.
But yeah, it's.
It's going to be realistic. Yeah, I mean we need to be realistic about what each and like what it takes as a human to be the caretaker of all these animals, and what we owe each individual that we rescue rescue is not a day rescue is a lifetime.
It's not a commitment. These are children these are our family, these are, this is not it's basically like having a special needs child and a lot of ways they can't like a non verbal special needs child is basically the way I can best describe it, you know, because
you really have to be able to spend enough time with them. And if you, if you don't have that time you can't have a sanctuary.
It has to be your whole life basically and everything else needs to come second to that I mean I'm very lucky that my kids are so on board and they, you know, other kids people's kids play doctor or whatever, and my kids play animal rescue and they take
turns being the animal that needs rescuing and then they're like okay now pretend you've come to the shelter and you're going to rescue me and I think it's awesome. But, so we just do it as a family activity but yeah people don't realize the level of all and commitment,
you know, there's no holidays there's no break, there is. And you're everything you're the accountant you're the person looking after the animals you're the driver you're the social media.
Yeah, you're Google that. Don't forget Google that.
Everything. Oh my gosh, I'm so relate.
Gwendolyn.
I love to hear all of you talking about the capacity thing because that I mean, like, like you said cat I think that's the only way that you can really even ethically rescue animals as if it's with this mind to capacity and what is reasonable for you to take on
because any new animal coming in that's another individual who deserves just as much as everyone who's already here. And, you know, I think, I think my sanctuary is a bit different from you all and that we're, we're very small so we have no volunteers
like I do everything.
And my fiance helps me a huge amount and is amazing.
But I have very intentionally stayed small because I, I worry about, you know, I have. I don't know I worry about starting to rely on volunteers and taking that next step of becoming that much larger and making that commitment to to those other animals, especially when I don't,
I don't think anyone has an easy time fundraising and things like that. And I know, you know, it's never going to be easy.
And it's it's all of us trying to convince people that they should care about these animals and these species that they've maybe never cared about before.
And so just keeping in mind to like for for our situation it's like, I'm looking very realistically at like okay if I take in this fish that means I have. I don't know I have another tank that I'm taking care of for at least the next month for quarantine or if I take in, you know, we semi recently had a situation where I took in five bettas that someone had purchased from a pet store that was closing down and had all in the same tank and they were stressed out of their minds and doing terribly.
And I was like, okay, if I take in these five fish that means that's five more tanks that I'm taking care of. That means that's five more individuals that I'm responsible for.
And it sounds kind of goofy to say it out loud but like if I don't wake up and feed them like they're not going to eat, you know, if I don't take care of their tanks if I don't do these things none of it's going to happen.
And even with situations with volunteers it's like yeah if a volunteer comes for a day okay maybe you can task them with scooping some poop, and maybe that's a little bit helpful but mostly it just means that you're monitoring a new volunteer around the animals for a full day and that's a lot of work.
So it's all it's it's hard to balance.
But but so important to keep in mind.
So volunteers are somebody that you babysit and I think people don't take that into consideration that like if you short term people and I think it's interesting what you brought up that's really really important that I did when I first started the organization and I really want to touch on this
because I hope somebody who was thinking about having a sanctuary thinks about this. Like like I said I'm in Bangkok right now after ankle surgery and two herniated discs and I'm unable to do the physical labor and all of my doctors said you can't do this anymore.
Your job has to change. I never 11 years ago would have imagined that I couldn't be on site taking care of those animals every single day for the rest of my life.
That was never in my plan that physically. I mean admittedly I'm a marathon runner and an Ironman triathlete and probably I abuse my body a little more than the average person.
I'm in addition to working with animals. So like this probably was coming anyway but the idea is that we have this idea that like we're going to be the only one. And so when I talk about capacity like capacity limits it's not only about what can we physically put on on our property.
What can we like how many animals are we able to manage. But when I say we I mean not just me because something can happen. I remember my mom had breast cancer and I couldn't go home to take care of her.
I literally had nobody to take care of her because I had to take care of my animals. That's my mom. I'm she's the reason I exist and I couldn't help her. Right. And that was really really dark for me.
And that's what that was made really pretty much the turning point where I was like you know what screw this. I'm getting staff. And that was beginning of like me having long term people consistently staffed as much as possible.
And right now we're in a situation where I literally am flying home in six to five days now to live at my animal shelter because all of our staff are leaving at once all of the sudden and I haven't been able to recruit anybody.
So I'm on crutches with 35 animals. I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do. So like look it's not a perfect system but the idea is there to be able to cover anything that could happen.
You know one of my staff just fell in a parking lot yesterday and like knocks knocked herself really bad and she can't walk. I mean she's not in my shelter right now but the end but I've had staff that have you know broken their broken their arm or whatever couldn't do anything and then I had to take over.
It's like building the capacity of the organization means not only having the veterinarians having the space but also having the people so that anything that happens can happen.
And you are going to need a day off you are going to get burnt out your human.
And, and it really is hard to be mom to everybody all the time and to be the sole person responsible because, you know, I think we really have to talk about what human resources means in this world of sanctuary life and that we've got to, it's fine to be all in, but to acknowledge our humanity
and like our frailty that I never considered 11 years ago as a marathon runner like there was nothing frail about me like I'm this wild woman on motorcycles and Vietnam see the dogs with dog catchers and pulling knives on people.
You know like I was just as bad as and I'm not, I'm not I can barely, I can barely walk around my apartment. You know, so I would just encourage everybody to make sure that they've got people to take care of their animals in a situation when which life happens as much as possible as much as possible
because from somebody who used to think they were a superhero to being somebody who can, you know, walk 100 meters, it's like not where I planned on going. It happened so.
Not to mention burnout I'm sure Ryan will talk about that in a minute.
If he wants to pull out the compassion fatigue thing I'm going to raise my hand real fast.
I know we've done this before. Thank you Catherine for sharing for being this open about your experience I think it's important to humanize what you're doing because you know I guess for many of us in the vegan world or animal rights world.
We look at you as heroes.
Diana. Have you had to say no to volunteers to getting more residents.
You're the only one who hasn't yet spoken about, you know, limitations in your sanctuary.
Would you like to share your experience.
Sure. I'm definitely volunteers. Yeah, I think, you know, chips are pretty cool so people want to be around them, and it's not possible for people who aren't trained to do that, and it's.
It's hard for me to say no even to people who just want to visit we're not you know we're not open to the public and we have certain days where we invite donors out but they're still far away from the champs and trying to explain to people why that is and it's
because it's their home, you know, it's not like you would just like have people touring around to your house and coming into your space all the time either.
And, and, yeah, so we also don't take short term volunteers we have a relationship with the local university there's a primary behavior program and so we benefit from that and we can, because students can get credit for interning with us and so that's
been great. And then we have
our volunteer program which we're just trying to build back up because when coven hit, we were very concerned about how that might affect the chance and luckily no chimpanzees ever came down with covert 19, but we didn't know in the beginning how it was going to go and so we're
like no volunteers, it was only paid staff.
So we're just now building back our volunteer program to what it was but there's a lot of community people, and we require that people come at least once a month and that's for kind of basic stuff like being able to wash clothes and blankets and prepare
for the next step and stuff that doesn't really require anything that's directly care related, even for cleaning. That's like a next double next step up that requires a lot more training.
And to be able to pick up chimp poop, and to be just safe when you're that close to the chimps. Like we never, I don't, hopefully I don't have to say this but we never ever go in the cages in the enclosures with them.
But even just, I mean they're super smart and so they'll set people up, and you know if you're not careful around them and always aware of where you are and where all your body parts are and where all your tools are then that you can guarantee the chimps are
watching every move that you're making.
And then for, I forgot what the second part of your question was volunteers and oh just capacity in general so right now we're part of the North American primate sanctuary Alliance, and have been for a number of years and so there's a lot of other
chimpanzee sanctuaries and started with chimps sanctuaries we have one monkey sanctuary and we're hoping to expand, and it's, it's a great group that basically we just share ideas, but most chimpanzee sanctuaries are much larger than we are.
We have 15 chimps right now.
And some sanctuaries have over 300.
In the US.
And it's almost like they're running like many small sanctuaries on their property, if they're doing it right so it's just like a lot of staff and you know groups of as many as 20 chimps and in one group.
But it's a whole different, it's a whole different thing like we are definitely focused on very individualized care, like our staff report like the most minor scratches and wounds on chimpanzees that they might not even notice themselves.
But we are working with this group to just figure out what is needed for chimpanzees because it's, it's really an unprecedented moment in history right now in the US with chimps because they aren't being actively used in research.
There aren't very many left as pets, it's mostly illegal it's kind of state by state so there's still some states where you can own a chip as a pet, shockingly.
And then they're really being phased out of entertainment for a number of reasons too so.
We're to the point where maybe 15 years from now chimps just won't be used by humans in the US in the way that they were before.
There still will be some probably some in roadside zoos but even that there's been good advocacy that's targeted that and had gotten a lot of those places closed down and the chimps moved to sanctuaries.
So there's more chimpanzees in sanctuaries than in zoos even in the US.
So we just want to figure out, we want to talk to our fellow sanctuaries and figure out where we fit in, and we definitely don't want to fall into the taking on more than we can.
But we do have 110 acres right now, and have like land and potential capacity to care for more animals so if it seems like the chimps are going to be taken care of through other sanctuaries then we're going to rescue smaller primates which is a whole different
world because there's about 100,000 monkeys being used in biomedical research in the US alone.
So, and they're being captured in the wild, like in Vietnam, and being bred like crazy and they can still be euthanized when for basically any reason.
So it's just a very different philosophical problem really to think about where sanctuaries fit into that, because we don't want to be part of the whole system.
Well, since Kat got the ball rolling, let's talk about compassion fatigue.
Diana, you talked about the progress with chimpanzees, and then you talked about the other primates, and I was thinking, oh no.
I mean, how do we get out of this issue and the answer is, we don't, not before maybe a century.
So, I understand why someone could have, you know, compassion fatigue.
And I want to ask you, all of you, how do you deal with the sentiment that, you know, however big your impact is, there's still so much work to do.
Would you like to first answer this question, Diana, since?
Yeah, I mean, I think there's hope with because we work with chimps and we've seen it.
You know, I started in the late 90s working with chimpanzees, and at that time, there were about somewhere around 2000 to 2500 maybe in research.
And I never thought in my lifetime that we would get to the point where we're emptying labs and there's no chimps basically as pets and in entertainment.
So, it's remark, it was remarkably fast for chimpanzees in the US, like much quicker than I thought.
But such a small number, really, you know, compared to other animals, like all other animals that humans use and abuse.
And I think for us, a lot of the compassion fatigue comes in just because, you know, this was touched on.
But you just recognize that you're so limited in what you can provide for them.
And it's so outside of what they would what they deserve and what they would be experiencing as wild animals.
I mean, there's a lot of like days where you're just like, what are we doing?
You know, what does this even make sense that we're, you know, we're doing the best we can.
And it's still such a deficit for them. I mean, you know, that's the reality of it.
And you try to, you know, there's a whole thing now where there's the antidote to compassion fatigue is compassion satisfaction.
And that's those days when you really see happy animals and, you know, you feel like you're really making a difference for an individual.
But then, like you're saying, if you look at the very big picture of animal use, it's enormous. Right.
And so I think it helps to I mean, it helps hearing from other people who are on the same page and kind of thinking the same way.
And just those little things, just those like little moments of compassion satisfaction, I think are what's important for individuals who are working in this field.
Thank you, Soly. Yeah, I think exactly as you and Diane have both touched on the compassion fatigue comes into play so much when you think about the larger scale.
And I know for me with chicken rescues, you know, you go and some of our rescues are one or two.
One time it was three thousand chickens from in one sort of rescue over a couple of weekends.
And the adrenaline building up to that and the satisfaction of getting those chickens into great homes is wonderful.
And then the second you leave on the way home, you're just hit with the crushing weight of the other four million chickens in this country that we can't save because farmers won't work with us or there aren't enough homes or whatever the reason is.
And, yeah, as much as the satisfaction is there of of knowing that we're doing good work, it's just you're so aware that it will never ever be enough and it's never going to be.
Yeah, we're never going to make up for the poor actions of other humans, which is crushing.
And to answer your question of how do you deal with that for me, I know I when I first started, I would just let the feelings come and wash over me and I would be in a pit of despair for like a month or more.
And basically until I had a new rescue date and then I would put all my energy into OK, there's more animals to be saved.
So now now I'm OK and I can keep going for them.
Now I schedule it. So I schedule a week long mental breakdown.
I put on my diary, I'm going to have a mental breakdown this week. I'm going to cry and I'm going to be really sad and I'm going to just like wallow in it for a bit.
I get some face masks and some vegan ice cream and I sit in the bathroom and cry.
And then I pick myself up and I put my big girl pants on and I go, OK, well, now there's work to be done.
And how can I make sure that the rest of my life is devoted to making as much of a difference as I can?
Because there's obviously so many of us doing this. And and I think, you know, what what sets maybe well, you know, what makes a good sanctuary owner, I think, is that we we don't ever feel like we're doing enough and we don't ever feel like it's good enough.
And yeah, that sucks. It's a horrible feeling to live with.
But it's also what drives us to be better and to do better for the animals.
And you talk about us being seen as heroes in the vegan world. And honestly, I mean, I think that's very flattering and very sweet of you.
But that's not I'm not sure about you guys, but that's not how I feel. I don't feel like I'm some hero.
I just feel like, you know, I want my life to stand for something.
And I feel immensely grateful that I have the energy and the resources and the space to do this. And of course, that's what I should be doing.
Do you know what I mean? And yeah.
And that fire to keep improving and keep doing more and doing better for the animals.
I guess, yeah, that motivation outweighs the compassion fatigue, but I do schedule it because you're a burnout cat. So real. I thought that I would never burn out at the start.
And I've since matured and realized, no, I actually do need to schedule time to just be messy and have a breakdown.
And yeah, it's balance. Thank you, Sally Gwendolyn.
I think I'm going to steal that scheduled mental breakdown thing because that's genius.
Like, I'm 100% going to do that.
Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's really hard.
You know, I think that it's hard no matter what animals you're caring for, no matter how many animals you have in your care.
Even, you know, when I didn't have any other rescued animals other than my one dog, it was overwhelming to be like, wow, there's so many dogs that need help.
And I think I.
I know I really often find myself feeling overwhelmed, especially when I'm thinking of the scale of things, you know, we humans kill trillions of fish of all species every year.
And it's like an incomprehensible number of individuals to the point that we don't even talk about them as individuals.
We say trillions. But then when we talk about the number of fish that are pulled from the ocean, we talk about it in tons.
And that's horrifying.
Like, I know there's no other way to say it. It's it's absolutely overwhelming and terrifying.
And it's really hard to have individuals in my care who are so similar to those fishes who are being killed in that way and who are exploited and disregarded in the same way.
You know, I think with fish, I feel like we're a little bit at the point that I think maybe chickens were for the vegan movement, maybe about 20 or 30 years ago, where maybe I'm off on my timelines.
But, you know, it was kind of at some point there was a little bit of a reckoning in the vegan world where everyone was like, wow, chickens are the most abused and exploited terrestrial animals and they don't get any attention in animal rescue.
And then vegan conversations.
And I think we're, I think we're kind of ready to have that conversation about fishes now, where fishes are the most exploited and consumed animals in the world.
And, like, no one talks about them, you know, and it's and it's really hard to be looking at that reality and and recognizing that like, I have over 100 animals living in my house right now and that is not even a drop in the bucket for what happens every year and every day.
And so it's really, really easy to get very overwhelmed by that I definitely have plenty of days that I'm now going to start to schedule, where I just kind of break down, you know, and it's overwhelming and it's devastating.
And it's exhausting.
And the way that I handle that generally is I will, I mean turn to my personal support groups the people in my life who who understand what I'm dealing with, and who support me and the things that I deal with, you know, my, my fiance like I said is incredible.
One of my brothers is on the board of our nonprofit.
I talk to our board members I talked to my friends and things like that for support.
And often I'll just kind of go into the fish room where most of our tropical residents live and I'll just like sit on the floor in there and be surrounded by them and be just with them and know, you know, the difference that I have at least been able to make in their lives
and that feels really, really good.
It is that kind of compassion.
I can't remember what you said Diana but like the computer the success of the, the seeing the individuals that we've helped.
And so that that really makes a big difference.
And then sometimes if I'm totally honest I just kind of disconnect, a little bit.
I do all of the social media and things for our sanctuary and I will sometimes just have to kind of pull back from social media entirely because like of course, as the sanctuary we follow all of these other animal rescue groups all of these other amazing advocacy groups
all of these things.
And like oh my gosh it is so overwhelming sometimes to be on Instagram trying to figure out a happy little post to share about our residents. And then the next thing that I see is like a video of mass fishing I know all these different advocacy things and it gets overwhelming
so I do allow myself to kind of pull back in some of those areas to make sure that I can kind of sustain what we're doing and sustain myself and make this something that I'm able to do long term.
Sorry.
I think it's so important that you mentioned the social media thing because that I reckon that is one of the worst things to like best and worst to happen to animal rescue.
It is such a burden having to post on social media all the time but how else do we find hope, well for like the likes of us who are rehoming animals, how do you find the right home, how do you, you know, get the message out there, create fundraising opportunities, all of that.
But yeah it just adds another job, like a really big job too. I mean I look at these people who do it for a living and I thought hats off to you because I mean sketch writing a meaningful post and or a funny post or whatever to keep the audience engaged and keep people caring about animals
takes so much emotional energy. And yeah I mean it's awesome because we can reach an audience and we can have that effect and hopefully change some hearts and minds.
But yeah oh my gosh I wish, some days I just wish social media had never been invented, because yeah, it's, it is a blessing and a curse.
It really is. I will find myself, I'll put a whole post together and then I'll post it and I'm like I'm not looking at this again today. Like I'm so sorry to the wonderful people who comment and engage with the post because I'm like I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to respond tomorrow.
I'm so sorry I just can't. Like I, you know, I'll do my best.
It's awful, I barely ever respond to comments but I'm also always terrified because of the keyboard warriors, and you post something and it's like, I know this is best practice.
And then I'll occasionally, I had one guy who I posted a picture of my pig enclosure and my happy little pigs, I think it was a video of them snoring or something, it was just a cute little filler post.
This guy came up to me and he was like oh look at, there's no grass anywhere. It was in, they were in their wallow that they have created being pigs, it's like fully best practice for pigs.
He's like oh, you know, vegans get all up in arms when pigs are on farms but this is disgusting and no one's coming after you and I'm just, it hurts me so badly when people think that I would mistreat my animals.
And, and just have no understanding and then, you know, having to be professional and not bite back and be like, oh yeah, let's see your pig enclosure like buddy, you know, and be nice and kind and, you know, it's just, it is so stressful and overwhelming, I so feel you.
Kat, you are very active on social media, well Vietnam Animal Head and Rescue is. What is your experience of that?
Social media can suck it. I think that's like the nicest thing I can say about it. It's funny because they're talking about the keyboard warrior Sally and on the things they say and sometimes if I've had just enough coffee which you kind of have to if you do the work that I do in Vietnam,
and that stuff's like cocaine, like it just like you just have to say something back like you're just like so cracked down you're like, alright buddy, you want to go? Let's go, you know, and like, then it just kind of comes out and you're just and what I like to say to people is
sometimes it's just like alright say it to my face. Come on, get the plane ticket, come to my house. Let's hang out. I'll even take you to dinner. I'll take you to dinner. Let's have a coffee, glass of wine, whatever you need but I want you to say that shit to my face.
Yeah, and then I want you to do my job for a day. A day. Go for it. I want you to see the animals that we work with. I want you to understand how what we're faced with.
And then I want you to tell me what kind of a job we're doing and how we're always begging for money and so we must be financially mishandling things and what you know what whatever, bite me, you know, like the things that people will say is absolutely incredible and they have no idea what we're up against and they would never say that to our faces and you know it.
They wouldn't have the balls to come up against any of us that do this job, because we are a special type of personality that I think people don't really get. We are a type of personality, the directors of sanctuaries that are a type of people who are like, kind of the get shit done kind of crowd that a lot of humanity can't really relate to.
But people will say things to us and they're just like, all right, let's sit down. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. You know, and I just get really really aggressive but so I really just have to turn off and I completely agree with that whole, the whole idea of just like disconnecting
I mean like, like I can say for my most recent experience and I've never I've never done this, I've done this organization for 11 years. The best times of 11 years have been when I've been on long haul flights, because there's no Wi Fi. And when I've had when I've been unconscious during surgery.
Those are my favorite times, because all other times I'm connected to jackasses and and chaos and and constant crisis mode. So what happened was I went into surgery and I was on, I was like guys I'm going to be on like hardcore opiates for a little while
because I've got two giant screws holding two bones together my foot right now. So they're going to drug the shit out of me so like everything I'm going to say, you're going to either have to disregard or whatever so I'm just going to turn off. So for 12 whole days.
Well 24 hour periods right I don't think you understand what that is for me. Do you know how many long haul flights. That is, it was the longest time at 11 years that I haven't been in contact with my staff and the organization and social media and the nightmare that comes with it.
I didn't even recognize myself. I don't know who the hell that woman was. It was really nice though. It was really fun. And she was nice. And, and then I turned my phone back on, and like my entire body was like, like I was about to go into an MMA match, you know, like I was like,
All right, get on it. Let's go, you know, and then there was just like fights with the staff and all this stuff. I would say ultimately compassion fatigue is not something that's just about the amount of actual physical labor that actual the administrative garbage that we have to go through
in order to just have the money to exist. The amount of Google vetting we do and all of that I don't think compassion fatigue is necessarily just burnout related which is the same as if an accountant works 90 hours a week or a janitor works 90 hours a week, like I'm in like literal like
medical burnout at this point because of the number of hours a week, I work, compassion fatigue is a lot another level of things like that and what I would say is, it's because we're pissing into the wind. My one of my vegan vet friends who lives in Wales, she's Welsh and she has a whole bunch of sheep she rescue has a bunch of rescued sheep.
And she just feels like she taught me this phrase pissing into the wind. And I feel that that is our day to day life we piss into the wind, because ultimately what we're doing is like we are rescuing animals that everybody else thinks we're crazy for restrain.
I can rescue a cat and people think that I'm a hero, and then I rescue a chicken and everybody's like, man, she is off her damn rocker that woman is a batshit. No, I'm not. What's the difference between this cat and this chicken, you know, like there's absolutely no difference they just this one.
I mean there's a lot of differences, avian medicine is just like a whole other world of crazy. But, um, but yeah, I mean like there's so many people against us, I have no social support. I would consider running a farm sanctuary to be one of the most isolating jobs, not only physically
because in general you have to be in a more rural location and to be in a rural location you have to be surrounded by people that are harming animals, because everybody else around you has farms and they're all killing animals, right, they're all using animals they are not, and these are people you're going to meet at the feed store.
You know in the States you go to tractor supply and you get all your stuff your animals but ultimately you're surrounded by people who are buying the same products for animals that are going to kill, and you're going to try and keep those animals those same exact animals alive for the next 12 years.
Right, so everybody and you're going to be you're going to smile and be nice to them at the cash register you're going to you're going to chit chat about the weather and you're going to have to go about your life because we live in a non vegan world. Ultimately, the problem that I have with compassion fatigue and farm sanctuary life or rescue in general is that everybody around you is a potential person you're rescuing from.
You know we have 1% of the planet that is vegan. Yeah, it's a very small number of people, and I don't really know any vegans where I am except for the people I work for we only hire vegans and I know I'm going to get a lot of shit for that but like, and, but I can't, like I said I wouldn't have a pedophile babysit my kids
I don't have kids but let's theoretical as a hypothetical situation, but the idea is like, I don't want somebody looking at my, my animals and thinking these are edible and these are not. And so we only hire vegans but I don't have other vegan support in my life.
I'm in a country where we're the only farm sanctuary, none of my I have one vet that's vegan. And we just have to let we basically have therapy every time I see her we have we like schedule full hour instead of 15 minute exams, because they know that we're going to sit down on the
floor and chit chat. You know, we're just going to cry about things because we're like faced with what we are, but ultimately compassion fatigue is something so much deeper than that and how do we combat it.
I mean ultimately like having morphine and ankle surgery was pretty much like my best solution so far.
Putting screws in my, my foot seemed to do pretty, pretty good for me so far.
Yeah, turning my phone on has been has been a nightmare, you know, I would say, I would say yeah like for me in Vietnam, probably one of the most hard, the best things I've ever done. I mean it's not true everywhere you are in the world but like Vietnam has the best vegan
food on the entire planet.
Like, it's just, there's, I just can't compare it, travel a lot I'm just telling you, like, it's the best you can't beat it. Bangkok's really good Vietnam beats it hands down.
I, I go out to eat. And I try to remember that like, I cannot save all these animals I've had to say no eight times today. I've had this animal die and I never get to see them again I never get to kiss their little, their little beak ever again I never get to kiss their
little face but, but we just keep on keeping on, and I'm just going to put these noodles in my face and know that because I'm a vegan I'm not contributing.
I'm not a small but I also, I'm not harming them.
You know, and that I think is really sometimes all we got, and for a long time I was a benzo addict I would take Valium every night to sleep I had to try to get off that because it makes you lose your mind.
I was having hallucinations and like I just, but I couldn't survive this you know coffee, basically Valium and coffee have been the only thing that has gotten me to keep doing this job seven days a week for 11 years.
I have two giant screws in my foot. So, um, I don't have an answer. I don't have an answer but I think that we need to the discussion has to happen. And I think it really hasn't for a really long time I think we can talk about compassion fatigue and emergency room doctors, we can talk about it
and those systems exist extensively for those, for those people for those staff. So what do we have for farm sanctuary people I think, and for people that are working with species like fish for example, or laboratory animals and things like that for which the
the problem continues and will continue through our lifetimes. You know, this is, we're not going to see necessarily the end of it maybe for chips maybe maybe maybe but for the rest of us I think we got a long way to go, and we need to talk about this and this has to be built
into the farm sanctuary life and this has to build into sanctuaries in general. Yeah, sorry that was very long but again I had caffeine and none of you guys did. So, sorry.
I think that's such a, you know you say it's your phone, and it's the people, and that's such the biggest part of compassion fatigue, and I people it's not animals. Yeah, exactly and I think my family.
Yeah, I always say, as soon as you know my kids have grown and left home or when I finally really get the pip with the whole thing. I am disappearing into the forest I'm going to live in a year, and I'm going to have my goats and my pigs, and I'm just going to live in
a bush, and no one will ever see me again and I will just be with my animals and that is the key thing isn't it because I will still have my animals. They are not the problem. You know, but I will not be on my phone.
I will not have any connection to people, I will just be a fairy in the forest and live my life happy as anything growing my food and staying out of.
And I think, how can we not want that I think the question is how can we not how can we go through all this and not think my future, you know, like my 50s and above better be off grid because I am done with this, because, but ultimately I think the problem
is that, like to me I feel so deeply inside that like I have to be combating that large problem at the same time but how can I when I'm putting out fires at home, you know, like people always ask us can we can we help there you know oh I saw a, you know, an
a cage in min bin which is a nine hour train ride from us really we can't, we don't have a car you know we're all on motorbikes it's like, you know, we have to get a flight to Hanoi and then come down and then we couldn't transport it I mean like, and I'm like, what
do I need to put on my super cape and go like I'm barely able to manage my street. My street exactly. I had someone on my street are fucked how much sorry I'm completely like we're not PG anymore because I'm on this podcast.
I deeply apologize, Ryan, like I have completely destroyed your PG rating. I'm just like you know what we do for a living.
I'm sorry, cat. We have to be friends just as a side anyway you're fantastic. But also yeah I totally get I had someone asked me if I could get a trailer load of piglets like no number.
I'm like how many piglets are there. I don't know how many are boys how many are girls, I don't know, like do you know it costs about 500 New Zealand dollars to do six, each of those boys and that's best, even if they're all boys, like so you're asking me to have some
of those 1000 of dollars and drop everything this minute go and pick up this trailer.
Where am I putting these piglets, you know, I'm the bad guy. Yeah, my magical island. Yeah. Oh no no no I had the exact same situation with pigs they were there was there was a bunch of piglets there was a bunch of boys and girls this French guy, what he
was asking us to kill one of those pigs but the rest of them he didn't care about. But they had 17 of them and he was letting them all like live together so they were breeding, and then he wanted us he was like you've got to rescue them or at least this one pig
and I'm like my pig hates pigs. We literally would have to get another property so I'm shopping for properties at first I thought he was going to give them to me. And ultimately we would have to build a veterinary clinic and hire our own vets to even have these
pigs. Okay, so we're talking a minimum $75,000 to $100,000 project, bare minimum. Okay, that's just for the veterinary care and for the land. Right. And then we went and then he wanted us to buy the pace because he was like because I could get them I could just
sell them for me and I would make money to go back to France. And I was like, okay so before this was a rescue, and now this is a sale so we've already agreed to have a $75,000 project to start.
And now you want me to pay another $25,000 for animals that are well you have 17 now, but I guarantee you at least five of them are pregnant. Right, so we're about to have 70 pigs.
Right, and you want me to just pull it like just drop everything. I'm like we bear like I make $800 a month. Right, we're not exactly swimming in it. Right, we have a budget of like $100,000 a year which is super super low for what we do.
And like all of a sudden I've got to double it to take care of your pigs. Yeah, okay, let me do that. Yeah, let me jump. I'll jump on that. I'll jump on that and ultimately all the pigs had to go to slaughter because there was nothing we could do.
You know, and then I'm the bad guy.
I'm the bad guy.
Yeah, Gwendolyn. I gosh I relate so heavily to like everything that you guys are saying I can't even remember exactly why I raised my hand in the first place.
Because the second you talked about all the pigs and the like emotional blackmail that people will throw at you. Yes.
You know I have experienced so many times like people will send us an email and say, hey, can you take these fish and I'll say, okay what species how many how long have you had, give me any information please.
And then the response is like well if if you can't take them I'm going to flush them down the toilet. And I'm like, okay, you know that that is a choice you could make you could also not do that.
You can also not send those pigs to slaughter you could also take responsibility for the animals who you've brought into into either the world or into your life.
But it's it's exhausting to deal with, with all of that, that side of it. And I think that, like, conversations like these are so wonderful and I hope that everybody who you know here's this podcast hopefully it will be some people who are interested in
opening a sanctuary, because every single time I see someone reach out and say hey, I'm new to animal rescue I'm interested in opening a sanctuary what's your advice, everyone who runs sanctuaries always says, don't like don't do this.
And that's heartbreaking because we do need more sanctuaries we do need more rescue. But the fact that compassion fatigue is so you know widespread that there's so many challenges in this world, it makes it very hard for people because either people go in
with without a realistic idea of what they're getting into, which I think is the worst case scenario, or you know hopefully someone hears these kinds of conversations and maybe they will go volunteer at a local sanctuary first they'll get involved in
animal rescue in ways that don't require them to immediately take on the responsibility for for animals directly, and they'll get an idea of what what goes into this and they can decide realistically if it's something that's reasonable for them because it is, it is
very hard to do this kind of work. And it takes a lot and not wanting to, you know, deciding that running a sanctuary is too much for you is super valid and I think that, you know, people should be realistic about what they're willing to do what they're able to do.
And if running a sanctuary isn't the thing for you, then there's still so many other ways to advocate for and support animals. And one of the best ways to do that is to just volunteer at a sanctuary that already exists and get an idea of what you would really be getting into.
Thank you, Gwendolyn. I know we've we went way over time. And I truly appreciate your generosity in, you know, staying and doing this. But let's wrap things up. And with the final question, which is, you know, we talked a lot about the animals, and we touched on
the people who are abusing them. And I want to ask you, you know, since having, you know, started rescuing animals and managing a sanctuary, how did your view of our own species of humanity changed? What kind of insights did you get in who we are?
And let's start with Soli, because you need to leave Soli soon. So go ahead.
I think I mean, I think you see the best and the worst of humanity running a sanctuary. Our adopters are just the most incredible people and the volunteers who come, especially our large scale farm rescues. They're just wonderful. The vibe is impeccable.
But you also see the worst. And I think it's really hard. And as sanctuary founders, or people working with rescues, you have to really dig deep to focus on the good moments. I think it teaches you a lot about yourself. It's an amazing exercise in mindfulness.
But yeah, it's really, really hard not to focus on just how dire humanity has gotten. And, you know, just people's apparent lack of caring for anything outside of themselves. And I know that's unfair in a lot of ways.
Not everyone has the capacity. It's very privileged to be able to go to be able to look outside yourself and to be able to put energy into trying to help others, because it means that we have that to give and I know not everyone is that lucky.
So I don't want to minimize it. But yeah, it is privately an amount of frustration that I feel towards my fellow humans. I try not to like be too awful about it. But yeah, I am. It certainly hasn't made me more of a people person, put it that way.
Thank you so much. Honestly, thank you so much for and this has been such an wonderful experience and and to meet all of you as well. You're just incredible women.
Of course, thank you so much for your answers.
So, and for your good work.
So, Diana, what about you? And, you know, when I think about chimpanzee, I often think, you know, if we should have, you know, animal liberation and animal rights, it should start with great apes.
You know, they're in our evolutionary family.
And you're in, you know, constant interaction with them.
So what is your reflection on who we are, why we treat animals this way?
Have you learned anything about?
Have you answered those questions? Have you found any answers?
Well, gosh, I could go in so many different directions with this. I mean, chimpanzees themselves are not exactly kind all the time.
And I think that they in some ways reflect the best and the worst in primary behavior.
And so you can see them like flash to violence really quickly. But they also show all the same like deep caring and amazing altruism that humans are capable of as well.
They forgive much quicker than humans. I think that's one thing about them.
And I think it's because, you know, they rely on one another in a social system. And so you can like bite your friend's ear off and then in the next moment be grooming them and forgive them.
And that's something that humans do not tend to do so much.
But I mean, I think what I was vegetarian before I started working with chimps, but I became vegan when I started working with chimps because, you know, it's like it's easy to see.
It's easy to like expand your circle of compassion when you're looking at a being that is so similar to yourself and you're like, holy crap, like they have the same emotions that I have. They have their own personalities and their wants and their desires.
And it's just like everything that you experience as a being you can see in them.
But then you start thinking like, well, my dog also, you know, you and then you you think, well, why why would I stop at chimpanzees?
Why would I stop at dogs? And you start like, you know, just really thinking about other animals.
And so, like, I hope that there is a slippery slope when you start to like think of other other beings in that way that there's no end to that circle of compassion that.
And with humanity in general, I mean, I think things have gone really downhill in the last several years and everyone talking about social media, man, we decided to just stop comments on YouTube altogether because YouTube was like just so horrible and racist and awful.
And.
And it's not like it's like what you're saying, Kat, like people wouldn't say that to you in person. It's like this ability for people to just be anonymous, which is so dangerous, I think.
And so, but on the flip side, like our donors and supporters and volunteers and staff are just like so amazing and really probably keep me going more than anything else.
And it's I mean, it's just incredible that there are people there who understand what we're doing and support us and comment on blog posts and actually defend us on social media so we don't even have to step in because they they know intimately like exactly what we're doing and what we're all about.
So, I mean, it's tough. Humans are humans and I don't, I hope that things are going to move towards a more humane world, but I'm not totally convinced that that's the direction we're going.
Thank you, Diana.
Gwendolyn.
Gosh.
It's a very complicated question, right? Like, I think that what Sally said and what Diana said is so on point that you, you do see the best and the worst in in people.
When you are involved in animal rescue.
And I think that generally the most discouraging thing for me is.
Getting a very front row seat to how selective our compassion really will be.
You know, whether it's from the speciesist perspective of the way that you know that I talked about how fishes are so ignored even in the vegan world.
Or if it's just at the very basic level of the way that we treat our fellow humans, you know, and and seeing some of the horrifying ways that we treat each other.
And realizing, you know, that the way that we treat animals and the way that we treat each other is so linked and that people will kind of just pick and choose what they they care about and what they are going to speak out against.
And, you know, I think that for for me and the work that I want to do with animals, it's looking, you know, trying to come from the view of kind of a collective liberation front where it's that we need to treat each other right.
We need to treat animals right.
And seeing just the resistance to that really basic principle gets very, very discouraging.
But then at the same time, you know, the best people who I've met and the people who I have kept in my life intentionally are people who I've met through animal rescue too.
And so,
I think that, you know, I'm really on the same page as Diana where I really want to hope that we're moving in a more compassionate direction and I really want to hope that things are improving.
And I see a lot of signs that that's happening. And then at the same time, I see a lot of signs that it's not.
And so I guess, you know, in terms of the impact that being involved in animal rescue specifically has had on the way that I see humans,
you know, like Sally said, it probably hasn't made me more of a people person.
It's definitely made me more of an animal person.
You know, I see a lot of the best traits and things that I value and other people reflected very strongly in the animals who I get to interact with every day.
And that's a really wonderful component of it.
Thank you, Gwendolyn. Kat?
Yeah, I mean, I can piece together everything that you guys said and really like totally agree.
It's very difficult to be a people person and work in rescue in any capacity, whether that be whether you're a cat rescuer,
which has wide support throughout humanity in general.
I mean, much maybe not as much as dogs.
I think dog rescue is kind of like the pinnacle of of societal support and some wildlife, big cats and things like that.
And then as you go down the scale, you end up with Gwendolyn who is fighting a battle that we're all kind of like,
Jesus, my God, you've got a long way to go, because you're right.
What you had said previously about how fish are at a situation that chickens were a couple of decades ago where people, even vegans, woke up and they're like, oh, chickens.
Hi, gosh, we forgot about you.
And now we're like, oh, geez, fish.
And then you've got trillions of you are being murdered for no reason. And not only are they being murdered, they're being imprisoned. And that's really messed up, too.
Did you see how I said messed up instead of the effort? Did you see that right? That was good.
So I'm really I'm really working back to PG 13.
But then you've got basically like like I said about, you know, what Diana was saying about the circle of compassion.
Like as a vegan working with laboratory, ex laboratory animals, you're also dealing with people, everybody that you are are encountering in your life almost is working with.
You're dealing with people that use products that have been tested on laboratory animals and things like that.
So there's not a ton of people, even in places where those where our daily products that we use are widely available as vegan in certain parts of certain countries, for sure.
Or can be ordered in whatever now at this point.
I mean, like we still have so many people that are just like, well, I don't really care that much.
You know, there's a whole lot of people that just they don't really care about somebody falling on the street.
They don't really care about a war going on. They don't really care about, you know, they're just kind of really care.
And they are kind of like inside themselves.
And so and I think also even as a vegan, we have the impression that, oh, well, you know, like I said, we only hire vegans. Well, I've had really shitty vegans work for me.
I've had people that were just really not great humans that were still very abolitionist and very compassionate towards animals.
But like Sally was saying, we're not really people people.
So ultimately, working with other vegans in the space that we work in and rescue has its own problems as well, whether you're working with fish or chimps or cows.
You know, I think we're all sort of faced with that.
So and yeah, there is both the good and the bad side of humanity.
We see the best of us. See truly the best of us.
The people that really, really care and are fighting for collective liberation.
And then we see the people that are are against any kind of liberation for anybody.
And we see those horrors and we see them really up close.
So it is confusing. It's confusing.
And it makes us distrustful. I think more than anything, I think it makes it very difficult for me to walk into any sort of human interaction and and not wonder what's your thing.
You know, like, who are you hurting? Who are you harming? Because we all got something.
You know, so I think that has been really difficult.
And it does it does make me want to turn off a lot.
And that doesn't help this whole isolation problem, which leads to compassion, fatigue and whatever.
But yeah, I mean, I but yeah, like I like when I was saying, it's like we really need to we we need more sanctuaries.
But we have to be honest about what it does to us personally, the humans involved in it and how difficult or difficult it is to be able to care for those animals within that system, the sanctuary system.
And part of that is the understanding of humanity as being dark, really, really dark and also incredibly brilliant and caring and loving and kind and compassionate.
And all of these things that we can see in animals that sometimes just never see in people.
But it exists. And sometimes all those traits exist in one person.
And that also is hard. So yeah, I don't know. I don't have a good answer to that.
It's a really good question. But I it's all over the map for me.
Well, I see all of those beautiful traits in all of you truly.
Oh, I'm a shit show. Yeah, I'm a shit show. As long as you acknowledge that, like I am I am many traumatic experiences and amazing compassionate things, too.
So like, yeah, it is it is really hard, I think, to do to do our job.
But I think and but I think it's a it's a really important job to to do that and also to like to to expand that circle of compassion for other people that I think a lot of people have that seed.
You know, I think they don't know that it's in there, but it's our job through the evils of social media to be able to be like, hey, by the way, I know you feel this way about your cat.
But what about this fish? Yeah. Do you understand that biologically?
The differences are really not that far apart on that. They experience these things. And why are you putting them on your plate?
You know, and unfortunately, we have to interact with all of that. And that's our job. Our job is to make humanity better. But but I do.
Yeah, it is pissing into the wind on a daily basis. And I am scheduling a breakdown for today. Thank you very much, because I would say that interacting with other people that go through the same nightmare that I do, I think, has reminded me of my nightmare a little more.
Which, which for about six weeks has been a little more isolated after surgery. But now I remember. Thanks, guys. But let's all keep on keeping on. Yeah.
I'm sorry, Kat. Motivational speech for the day.
Well, you know, it was truly amazing hearing all of your answers. I learned so much. And I have this renewed respect for your work. And I think people that will listen to this episode will feel the same.
And so thank you so much. Thank you so much for having answered my questions and for having taken the time to, you know, have this group conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good questions.
Yeah, thank you for facilitating this. This is one of the coolest conversations I've had in a long time. So, very, very nice. Yeah, I really appreciate it. So great meeting you guys. Yeah, I get to meet you. Likewise. Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, this kind of thing needs to happen for for sanctuary people more just generally. I know it's a therapy session.
We need to hire Ryan to just coordinate like monthly sanctuary group, you know, chats to kind of just vent about things and so we can bring up our worst traumas. Thank you, Ryan.
It hurts you most today, ladies. Oh, well, gosh, let me tell you. Yeah, it's it's really worthwhile. I think it because like I said, I think more than anything, one of the hardest things about being in a sanctuary is I think the kind of that isolation.
Just even when you're surrounded by people, you're still isolated. Because what we do is really strange and not understood by the majority of humanity. And we are the freaks and the weirdos and in 20 years, we'll be slightly less freakish. But we got to wait it out. We got to wait it out. And we still have to interact with people around us. We have to be kind. And sometimes we have to scream at them. That's okay, too.
So well, I'm surprised this hasn't happened. Like a festival of all sanctuaries, like a big, you know, diverse. Yeah, but we're always taking care of our animals. Like you got to get staff so you can get away so that we can all go to our therapy sessions. So we can all sit around and bitch.
Well, I mean, I volunteer, you know, offline and off recording if you want to organize something, I would be more than happy to host it. You guys may not know this, but like Ryan and I had like four hours talking about what we were talking about fund fundraising, and we're supposed to and it just went off, went off of the rails. And I feel like I should have charged him like psychiatrist.
It was like four hours. Like he really means it when he says that. Like if he'll talk to you, if he says he'll talk to you, he's not kidding. Yeah.
Well, once again, thank you so much, Diana, Gwendolyn, Catherine and Sali. Thank you.
Thank you everyone for listening. I kindly invite you to share this podcast with the vegans, you know, let's encourage more people to take action. Again, thank you so much for caring, and I will see you next Tuesday for a new episode.
Thank you.