Mercy For Animals has conducted over 60 investigations on the ground in four countries. But did you know about our six drone investigations? That’s right. Thanks to Mark Devries, MFA’s certified drone pilot (and the director and star of this documentary ), we’ve used high-tech drones to expose just how dangerously vast and insidious factory farms are.





While documenting the horrific abuse that goes on inside the windowless sheds of factory farms is important, with drones we’re able to capture the scale of these facilities, which is often difficult to comprehend.





In a piece for EcoWatch , Mark Devries, MFA’s special projects and drone investigations manager, writes:

The animal agriculture industry spends millions on deceptive advertising to persuade consumers that farmed animals roam freely on bucolic pastures. But I've been piloting drones over animal agriculture facilities for several years, and the video I've captured tells a far different story.

In November 2016, Mark and MFA released the first drone investigation of an enormous industrial cattle feedlot. The footage shows large manure pits with a stench that traveled miles. It also shows cows in muddy pens with no access to trees or grass.





See for yourself.









Early last year, we released a second drone investigation revealing what a dairy farm actually looks like . Spoiler: You’ll see no green pastures with trees, only massive muddy pens crammed with cows living in their own waste.





Watch.









Then we headed to a pig factory farm . We found a series of windowless metal buildings packed with pigs. Sadly, the only time these animals saw sunlight was on their walk to the transport trucks where they’d be loaded and then shipped to the slaughterhouse.





The drone also captured footage of giant manure pits , often larger than several football fields. Nearby our drone exposed “dead piles,” or pits of trash and dead pigs.





Sounds awful, right?













See for yourself.









Our drone investigations are giving people a bird’s-eye view of just how dangerous and cruel factory farming is. Pigs, cows, and chickens are treated like unfeeling objects , and their short lives are marked by unimaginable cruelties: intensive confinement, agonizing mutilations, and violent deaths.



