In August 2017, I received a phone call that changed my life. “Wayne, there are FBI agents here,” the voice said. “They’re searching for Lily.” 

For years, DxE had been openly rescuing animals and daring the industry or government to prosecute us for rescuing dying animals from factory farms. We knew repression was going to come. What we didn’t know is that it would start with a multi-state hunt for a piglet named Lily that would end in an FBI raid at a sanctuary in Colorado. 

Shaleen Shan is the owner of the sanctuary in question, Luvin Arms in Erie Colorado. And until now, Shaleen has not told his story publicly. Shaleen, you see, is not a rule breaker. And when a small armada of FBI agents descended on his sanctuary that day, he faced a choice that could change his life – and the course of the animal rights movement. Stay silent and cooperate with the government, to ensure the safety of his sanctuary, his business, and even his family. Or speak out and face the full power of the largest pig farming corporation in the world – Smithfield Foods – and its government allies. 

I would have understood taking the former choice. Shaleen is a business owner, a husband and father, and a nonprofit director; he didn’t sign up for direct action or legal repression. But Shaleen did something that, increasingly, people across the world are realizing they have the power to do. He spoke out. And because he fought back and spoke out – resisting the agents’ violent efforts to “collect DNA” from Lily and her sister, then speaking to a legendary journalist to blow the whistle on what happened – millions of people were exposed to not just the corrupt influence of corporate power on our government, but on the plight of pigs like Lily. 

This is a podcast I’ve wanted to do for years. And as we end one pig trial, it’s time for us to tell the story of the next one. And in the fight against Smithfield, which sought unprecedented racketeering charges against me in May 2018, Shaleen’s story will be crucial.

The FBI’s Hunt for Two Missing Piglets Reveals the Federal Cover-Up of Barbaric Factory Farms - Glenn Greenwald

Luvin Arms Sanctuary in Colorado

Music by Moby: Everything That Rises