Rescuing Ladybugs. Jennifer Skiff
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when I realized I could use my camera for change. Until that time, I’d been searching for “my story.” That’s what photojournalists do: We search for stories. But more so, we look for something that is ours, something we can return to, something we care deeply about. I realized that no one was photographing animals the way I did, the way I could.
After this revelation, I started turning my camera toward animals as much as I could. I call these “the invisibles.” They are the animals who are right in front of us, and yet we fail to see or really consider them. A project began to take shape. I knew I wanted my animal work to be called We Animals. It would be a reminder that we are all animals — different but with so much unexplored commonality. My goal was to take photos that bridged the gap, that brought us closer to the experiences of our animal kin, in hopes that maybe we’d learn to treat them better, to respect them, to not abuse them or see them as objects, as “other.”
I became really driven by this project because I saw that very few photographers were documenting “the invisibles.” While it’s perfectly fine to photograph cats and dogs or the charismatic megafauna on the cover of National Geographic, who was looking at the billions of animals we keep in factory farms, fur farms, labs, and the small cages of roadside zoos? So many of these animals are totally out of sight. That’s part of why we sort of go along on our merry way, eating them, wearing them, using cosmetics that are tested on them. We don’t see, we don’t know. I resolved to lift the blinders by taking pictures. By going to the places no one gets to see, such as pig farms in Spain, mink farms in Sweden, sheep sale yards in Australia, and slaughterhouses in Tanzania and Canada.
My work devastates me. Seeing hens crammed into cages so small they can’t turn around, standing on their dead cage mates to alleviate the pain in their feet from standing on wire flooring. The pigs unable to turn around in gestation crates. The foxes in fur farms gnawing at the bars until their gums are raw and infected, trying to find a way out. I wanted to save all these animals, but I couldn’t. I’ve met hundreds of thousands of them now. The best way I could help them was by making their lives and their suffering known. I’ve learned that perseverance is an important part of what we all do in life, especially when it comes to creating social change.
After years in the field on all seven continents — okay, I didn’t land on Antarctica, but I bobbed around it on a Sea Shepherd boat for three months! — this work has opened my eyes to the immense suffering of animals. When you’re faced with it — with thousands of animals crammed into one stinky, urine-saturated barn — and you look into their eyes and they look into yours, the suffering becomes real. It’s tangible, and it’s worse than any horror movie. I get to leave, but they can’t. And this is all because there are so many of us — and so many of us wanting cheap meat without thinking about where it comes from.
Like us, nonhuman animals experience all sorts of complex emotions, from jealousy to fear to silliness. Lots of animals have a fun sense of humor. But I’ve witnessed them locked up all over the world, and their eyes look at you full of questions. That’s the thing about these animals: They have all the questions and we have all the answers. They seem to ask, What are you doing to me? Are you going to hurt me? Are you going to take away my babies? What’s next? Some animals are despondent. Others remain wild, or brave, and try to fight against their confines. I’m not sure which makes me sadder.
Yet I have hope. It’s an exciting time to be an animal rights photojournalist. The work — mine and others’ — is being published, discussed, and recognized. Finally, people are starting to look, and see, and change.
Jo-Anne McArthur is an award-winning photojournalist, author, and humane educator. Her incredible work has been used in investigations, campaigns, protests, and academic pursuits around the world. It has contributed to the shuttering of animal-breeding facilities and has been used to create animal-protection laws. She offers the free use of her images to animal welfare organizations.
Jo-Anne is the author of We Animals, a book based on her life’s work, and a second book, Captive. Jo-Anne’s other initiative is the Unbound project, where she highlights women on the front lines of animal advocacy. Photographs for the We Animals project have been shot in more than fifty countries and have contributed to more than two hundred global campaigns to end the suffering of billions of animals.
Have you ever rescued a ladybug?
No, but I do remember saving a dragonfly who was drowning in a lake. He spent a half hour on my hand, drying himself off.
Name three things that make you happy.
Animals. Learning. Loving.
What one book, documentary, or speech has had a profound effect on you?
There are many animal documentaries that I’d recommend, starting with Blackfish, Sharkwater, The Ghosts in Our Machine, The Last Animals, Carnage: Swallowing the Past, and the wonderful books by Marc Bekoff, Carl Safina, Peter Singer, Lori Gruen, and so many others.
Regarding your food choices, how do you describe yourself?
A joyful vegan.
If you had one message to deliver to others, what would it be?
Every choice we make matters and affects the lives of others. The status quo keeps us on this mindless path, unawakened to what’s happening behind closed doors. The kinder choices, those that take into account the lives of others, are always the right choices, and those choices will always feel good.
We’re so lucky to exist on this improbable, living earth but for one tiny moment in time. We strive for happiness and for lives of purpose and meaning. We seek comfort and peace and freedom from harm. In that, we differ little from the other lucky animals who inhabit this beautiful place. If we can all make kindness and compassion a priority in our day-to-day lives, and if we can treat all others the way we hope to be treated — with kindness and care and respect — we’d be one big collective step closer to a world where we can all live free from harm.
If you had one wish that was guaranteed to come true, what would it be?
All forms of animal exploitation would end today.
What advice do you have for people who say that they want to help animals in need but are too debilitated by what they witness?
Animal abuse is an absolute emergency for billions of innocent victims, and each of us can step up to help end it. We can end it by not buying and consuming their bodies. It’s a way of curbing, not only animal cruelty, but climate change, pollution, and the global food shortage. If we’re hurt, debilitated, or paralyzed by what we witness, we can just change what we eat.
I met and became friends with one of the “most influential women in cable television” in 1989, in New York City, before she reached that level of recognition. Carole Tomko and I had been hired by Cable News Network (CNN) cofounder Reese Schonfeld and former CNN vice president Ted Kavanau to help run a nightly national news program called Crimewatch Tonight. Carole was the production unit manager, and I was the assistant managing editor, big roles for two girls in their twenties. When the show ended, I went to CNN and Carole went to the Discovery Channel, where she began changing the world.
Carole was a multitasker the likes of whom I’d never seen before, and her work ethic undoubtedly helped her rise at the company. I remember a sleepover at her home in Bethesda, Maryland. It was 9 PM, and while I sat in her kitchen, catching up over a glass of Chardonnay, she simultaneously screened a TV show and responded to emails. Over the years, I proudly watched my friend hold positions as president and general manager of several networks and divisions at Discovery Communications.
In 1997, shortly after the launch of Animal Planet, Carole became