Filling the Ark: Animal Welfare in Disasters

Animals on Factory Farms / 49

were trapped in their mangled cages within twelve damaged sheds.
The automated feed, water, and waste disposal mechanisms were
destroyed. Although many birds were killed, tens of thousands of
others had no chance to escape death from starvation, thirst, and
exposure. The owners of the farm would not provide the funds or
the labor to rescue the birds, nor would they initially allow rescuers
to do so. Buckeye Egg Farms was already notorious for environmen-
tal and safety violations.^19 Allowing rescuers in would allow outsid-
ers to see the appalling conditions in which the chickens lived.
The day after the tornado, Cayce Mell and Jason Tracy, of the
OohMahNee Farm, a sanctuary in western Pennsylvania, went to
Buckeye Farms to rescue the birds. OohMahNee could house sev-
eral hundred chickens. However, thousands could easily be saved
from the wreckage. Mell called on other animal rescue organiza-
tions. Lorri Bauston, then of Farm Sanctuary, committed to taking
twelve hundred birds, bringing the numbers potentially rescued
to two thousand. The Humane Society provided a grant to help
defray the costs of rescue and issued a press report that brought
media attention to the horrors at the Buckeye facility. Other sanc-
tuaries and rescue groups, such as Animal Place, committed to tak-
ing birds and sent volunteers to the site. Citing “safety concerns,”
Buckeye’s owner would not allow rescuers to take any birds, even
though many birds could easily have been rescued without risk.
After three days of pleading, he agreed to allow rescuers to take
birds. But he would not allow them to handle the birds or touch the
cages. As Lorri Bauston recalls,

There was no serious commitment on the owner’s part to get

the animals out of cages. And Buckeye would not allow ani-

mal activists to do the job either. Pretty much the only thing

we activists could do was to provide vehicles and transpor-

tation for rescued birds. Attempts to rescue the birds our-

selves was met by stiff resistance from Buckeye. Every time

we tried to grab birds from the cages, security would come

after us. By the fourth day, security ringed the facility and

kept all activists away.^20