S3E6: Lily and Lizzie

Amanda Bunten-Wahlberg considers the Lily and Lizzie, two pigs who were rescued from Smithfield farms and subsequently caught in the middle of a biosecurity drama. This content was originally aired in Season 5 of The Animal Turn Podcast.

 Featured: 

• Animal Farm Activism with Camille Labchuk on The Animal Turn.
• Luvin Arms Sanctuary
• The Whole Hog: Exploring the Extraordinary Potential of Pigsby Lyall Watson.
• Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus domesticus by Lori Marino and Christina M Colvin.  
• Baby Pig Saved from Factory Farm is so Spoiled Now by Claire Elizabeth Alberts 
• Activists Acquitted in Trial for Taking Piglets from Smithfield Foods by Marina Bolotnikova 
• The Smithfield Piglet Case: Factory Farms and Civil Disobedience by Rachel Robison-Greene 

Credits:

• Claudia Hirtenfelder, producer and host 
• Amanda Bunten-Walberg, co-host
• Christiaan Mentz, sound editor and producer 
• Rebecca Shen, content producer and designer (logo and episode artwork)
• Gordon Clarke, bed music composer
• Learn more about the team here. 

 
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• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/TheAnimalTurn 
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• Buzzsprout: https://theanimalturn.buzzsprout.com/ 

Sponsor:

Thank you to the sponsors of the fifth season of The Animal Turn podcast, “Animals and Biosecurity,” where this animal highlight was originally aired 27 October 2022. They are: Animals in Phi

A.P.P.L.E
Animals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.

Biosecurities Research Collective
The Biosecurities and Urban Governance Research brings together scholars interested in biosecurity.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:36 Biosecurity Rhetoric
• 3:34 Lily, Lizzie, and Gregarious Pigs
• 11:00 Discussion
• 12:20 Credits

Transcript

00:00 - Introduction 

• Welcome to Season 3 of The Animal Highlight, extracted from Season 5 of The Animal Turn Podcast (focused on Animals and Biosecurity). 
• We are focused on the animals that are caught up in biosecurity dramas. 
• My co-host this season is Amanda Bunten-Walberg who at the time of the recording was a PhD candidate at Queen’s University interested in questions related more-than-human ethics especially in contagion contexts, using bats and COVID19 as her focus.  
• Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law, and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) and the Biosecurities and Urban Governance Research Collective sponsored the season of The Animal Turn where this content was extracted from. 
• This season had several technical and sound issues.
• This episode considers Lily and Lizzie, two pigs.  

01:36 –Biosecurity Rhetoric

• Two pigs at the center of a biosecurity drama that was discussed with Camille Labchuk on The Animal Turn Podcast 
• Two animal activists put on trial and eventually acquitted for recusing two piglets from Smithfield Foods in Utah – Lily and Lizzie. 
• Biosecurity discourse often employed to justify ag-gag laws. Activists push back against this use of biosecurity and that animal agriculture is itself a biosecurity threat. 
• The Smithfield Trial has massive implications but it can be easy to lose sight of the individuals

03:54 – Lily, Lizzie and Gregarious Pigs

• Adult females kept in farrowing crates and activists came across a sick and think Lily who had a painful and bloody foot. 
• Lizzie was small and her face was smeared with blood from her mother’s shredded nipple.
• Pigs are gregarious animals who are profoundly social and experience a wide range of emotions. They are empathetic. So they are profoundly distressed in agricultural settings. 
• The have a sense of time and have incredible spatial memories and sensory abilities. 
• Lily and Lizzie survived and were brought to Luvin Arms Sanctuary. They are free from harm and exploitation. They root and play in massive pastures. 
• Lily is a little shy, but Lizzie is very rambunctious. The two are inseparable. 
• Felix, another pig at the sanctuary has a strong body with Lizzie. 
• The facilities they were saved from kill over a million pigs a year. 

11:00 – Discussion

• Bringing in the emotional component when thinking about disease. 
• Pigs do amazing things

12:20 - Credits

• Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law, and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) for sponsoring the podcast and the Biosecurities and Urban Governance Research Collective for sponsoring the season of The Animal Turn where this content was extracted from. 
• A big thank you to Amanda Bunten-Walberg for co-hosting this season of The Animal Highlight
• This episode was produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and edited by Christiaan Mentz. 
• The logo and episode artwork were created by Rebecca Shen. 
• Show notes compiled by Claudia Hirtenfelder
• Please rate and review wherever you listen.