“I mean this is the crazy thing about it, in 35 years of doing animal protection investigations I didn't know this existed. It wasn't even a thing, because it sounds it sounds too crazy to actually believe - that you'd get blood from pregnant horses and then it helps productivity in pigs.” – Gemunu de Silva

 

Gemunu de Silva is the co-founder of Tracks Investigations.  He is a filmmaker and an activist who's been investigating and documenting animal rights abuses since the 1980s. Tracks has completed over 260 investigations. 35 animal rights and protection organizations have benefited from their work in 57 countries.

Gem has been on the podcast before -  - in fact, he's becoming a regular. This time is is here to talk about one of Tracks most recent investigations, horse blood farms in Iceland.

Yes, it's as horrific as it sounds:

Semi-wild pregnant horses are corralled into restraint boxes to have their blood taken, for the hormone, Pregnant Mare Serum Gonadotropin (PMSG).  

The PMSG is then converted into powder and shipped to factory farms in the US, UK, and EU.  It's used in pigs (mostly), to increase reproduction.

We do an astonishing number of terrible things to non-human animals all over the planet, but this one really shocked me. Not only is this industry incredibly cruel but it's also really creepy.  

Not many people know that this industry even exists. After Track's investigation was released in Iceland, much of the country went into an uproar. 

It was an absolute honor to have Gem back on the show to kick of Season 8!

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