On Thursday, Oct. 15, the animal rights activism group Anonymous for the Voiceless visited and held a demonstration on UW campus.
“We want to abolish all forms of animal exploitation, in farming and testing and all sorts of industries that exploit animals and use them in entertainment,” said Solomon Carpenter, the organizer of this demonstration and UW student.
Carpenter went on to describe the goals of this demonstration as “getting people that are being passively exploited into these animals to wake up to the realization that they need to do something about it, and that they can personally stop contributing to it, because it’s not necessary for us to do this to these animals anymore.”
The demonstration that took place outside UW’s COE Library was what they called a “cube of truth.” This demonstration featured four people in all black clothing as well as the well-known Guy Fawkes masks typically adopted by members of the Anonymous organization.
Standing back-to-back, these four demonstrators played footage of animal testing and exploitation while passersby could walk by and talk to other members of the group.
Another member of this group referred to as “Lucy” said, “we like to keep everyone anonymous so that everyone focuses on the message. Like we keep saying it’s just to keep raising awareness. That’s what the ‘voiceless’ means because the animals can’t stick up for themselves. We are speaking up for them the same way we’d want to be spoken up for.”
Carpenter was the only UW student present in this demonstration, as many other members of the group had traveled from Colorado including Denver and the surrounding area.
“(Our message) is relevant to the University of Wyoming because it is full of young people that come from animal agriculture backgrounds. A lot of people are engaged in animal agriculture classes. Of course, we don’t believe this should exist. We are just trying to reach people that may think that they want a career in exploiting animals and selling their flesh to people and let them know that there’s actually a different way to do it,” Carpenter said.
Lexi Mayo, a UW marketing major with a small-farm background, has had extensive experience in relation to animals. “With my background, I have been raised to have nothing but respect for animals and the role they play in society.”
To Mayo, there is a clear difference between small farming operations and the large, industry-grade, operations that are often to blame for unethical practices.
“Industrial farming where animals are just viewed as products and, more often than not, are crammed into small places. Industrial farming has a lot of room to grow when it comes to treating animals ethically and just,” Mayo said.
While Mayo believes animal testing is unethical, she also believes there is a fine line between animal testing and consumption of products.
“I feel like I can justify why people eat meat but I can’t justify why people would use animals to test things on. That’s just torturing the animal whereas when it comes to slaughtering animals for meat, there are laws in place to prevent needless suffering,” Mayo said.
