Now this material shouldn’t remain stashed away on our website. We want somebody to use this material to create a short, interesting, ingenious video. Therefore, we are looking for people with the necessary skills, experience and motivation to help us.

In principle, we are wide open as to how the video clips are made – but these two videos at the end of this story will give you an example on how the clip could be put together.

Please spread this call via email, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, forums or other places to help us to find the right people who are able and willing to support us.

Anyone who thinks they could contribute to such a project can get involved by emailing: michael.hartl@pig-vision.com

The project is suitable for projects at university, too!

Following videos will show technical standard and direction which the clip should go in:

Other posts that might be interesting:

• The future of pig-vision is unknown. (0)
• An interview with the Albert Schweitzer Foundation (0)
• Film: pig-vision, an introduction (0)

Now then, in this comparison of videos, we want to give you a retrospective overview about the life of the observed pigs. For that purpose we are going to show here the most important stations of both lives with a small fraction of the developed videos.

And for completion there are still 10 pictures which are chosen by chance and which were originated in those seven months. (Every time if you visit this page, different pictures will be shown.)

Jetzt alle pig-vision-Bilder ansehen

Other posts that might be interesting:

• Slaughtering of X15 (0)
• X15′s last walk (1)
• X15 and his brothers and sisters shortly before slaughtering (0)

X15 is one of two pig-brothers, who we are keeping an eye on since their birth in June 2009. We documented their lives by taking pictures and video-taping. Two lives, which could not be more different from each other. X11, whose name by now is Jackpot, experienced for only the first 3 weeks of his life, what nowadays is usual for feeding pigs until they are almost grown up: slatted floor, no possibility to go outside, no straw, no digging, no mug-raking. After 3 weeks, Jackpot was brought to an animal shelter, where he is leading a happy life so far. There is everything, a pig needs by nature.

On the contrary, X15 lived through everything, which befalls a pig within the context of industrial production of pork. As it happened to him, it happens to more than 98% of 5,3 million of pigs, who are bred, fattened and killed every year in Austria. The last seven months X15 was spending in a hall with slatted floor. There his only activities are: eating, drinking and sleeping. And from this hall X15 today is chasen outside, packed onto a truck, driven to the slaughter house and killed there.

When we arrive at the pig fattening, we shortly say hello to the owner of the factory, the assisting veterinarian and the butcher, who in this case will be driving the truck by himself to the slaughterhouse. We get on hygienic wear. After all, we want to enter the hall but by doing that should not endanger any pigs by introducing any germs. The employees themselves get on no hygienic wear, when they come with us into the stable. Pigs would be immune against their germs, they explain to us.

Since four months X15 lives in the same cave, where he is fattened. He does not know what´s happening and so he doesnt run directly to the truck outside, but has to be chasen. He stops at other caves and through the grates he smells his fellow sufferer; they have, in contrast, to outstay X15. But there is no time for such curiosity. The employees chase the pig further on. They use a plate, which is about as wide as the corridor between the caves. They permanently tap on the lower back of X15 with their hands. He goes on. When he arrives outside, the bright sun and the fresh air irritate him; he is afraid of the loading platform of the truck – he jerks to a halt. First, there is no use of push and pressing – but with enough force X15 is taken onto the clinger.

The truck is locked and the drive to the slaughterhouse begins.

No doubt, these people use every pig in a way they think is advantageous for themselves. No matter whether the pig runs onto the truck by choice, or whether they have to assist him/her gently or forcibly: it seems, as if every pig or another creature has an intended purpose from birth on.

Half an hour later we arrive at the slaughterhouse. It´s a small enterprise on the country side. A room, where slaughter takes place, which is used only once or twice a week. Thus, X15 is prevented at least from the hecticness and noisiness of a big establishment. The butchers prepare the slaughtering room and afterwards they go to get X15.

But X15 has something different in mind. When they open the truck, X15 is dealing with a small heap of straw, which he found in the clinger. For the first time of his life he sees, smells and tastes straw. He doesnt want to leave it. Again and again he catches some of it; turns around another time and again, puts his mouth into the straw.

But also this time the butchers are stronger. A rope is knotted around the upper jaw of the pig. By the same permanent pressure against his sides and from behind as before, when entering the truck, he now is forced to leave.

The closer we get to the place, where periodically pigs have to die from human hand, the more X15 struggles. He resists to enter the room. We don´t know, whether it´s fear of the unknown or whether he suspects something already; we just can see his panic sight and the foam, which runs out of his mouth. He jerks to a halt, but two men are stronger than a pig, which is not even an adult yet. Almost still a child – totally alone against two grown-up men.

They do their utmost to push X15 in the middle of the slaughter room. His head is getting fixed. A man hunkers over him and attaches the captive-bolt pistol on his forehead. A last terrified sight, rapid breathing and struggling of his legs on the floor. But resistance is to no purpose. Loudly the bang echoes from the walls. The shot gives, that X15 literally is hurtling to the floor. His legs struggle. Immediately a chain is put around one leg and he is pulled in the air. Animals are killed headfirst, so blood is leaving the body more rapidly.

At half height X15 starts to flounder again. He slides off the chain, bangs down on the floor with his 120 kg weight. He lies on one side and madly starts to kick in the air. He tosses and turns. Blood smears over his face.

So, this is what they mean by „quick and easy“ killing of an animal? If such mistakes, which increase the suffering, would happen to only every thousandth pig, this for Austria would mean a number of 5.300 pigs, which every year would have to die in an agonizing manner.

A butcher fixes X15´s had again by stepping on the rope, which is fastened to his upper jaw, so that his head is pressed to the floor. The second butcher takes a sharp knife and stabs it into X15´s throat.

Gargling noise. Blood in the rhythm of the heart-beat is extruding out of his throat. A puddle of blood is slowly developing around his head. Accompanied by rattling breath, X15´s legs still keep on jerking madly. X15 is neither dazed, nor is he killed painlessly. The faces of the butchers express a mixture of shock, uncertainness and abashment. Because we are there video-taping? Or do such situations just remind them too strongly, that what they are dealing with is not a mobile mass of flesh, but a feeling creature? We don´t know.

After a long minute rattling breath and leg-jerking get weaker and slower. In the end they stop completely. Now X15 gets the chain around his leg again and his body is pulled up. The remaining blood is supposed to leave his body. While he is hanging and breathing out for the last time, he is cleaned with water spray. X15 dies.

A long and definitely painful death. A singular individual. Everybody, who has experienced pigs in an environment, where they are free to develop their personality, knows, that everyone of them is different. They have their own character, just like dogs, cats and human beings. A feeling creature with his/her own consciousness. Executed. For the crime of being a pig? A young pig. Seven months old and of 120 kg weight. In this system a pig is prevented from getting older than these few months, if humans want to eat it. Because every kilogram more than 120 kg needs more feed – which produces higher costs. Consumers are demanding cheap meat.

We can´t be really mad about the butchers – even not in this moment in the slaughtering room. We are rather confused, since the butchers in talks before and after were – in their way – nice. But nevertheless, they periodically switch off their compassion, blind out, that they deal with feeling creatures and kill some pigs. That´s how they have always done it. They perform the act of biggest violence as possible – the oppressive finalisation of a life. Something, which no human being can reverse.

But X15 is more than that pig, who had to die today. X15 is a symbol for all pigs, who in behalf of meat-eaters are bred, castrated without anaesthesia, transported and killed. X15 stands for the 5.3 million of pigs on Austria. X15 stands for the 50 million pigs in Germany. 250 million in the EU and 1.2 billion of pigs per year on this planet.

Altogether, our habit to eat meat worldwide kills more than 55 billion of animals. Every year! This is, what X15 stands for as well. You think, this sounds fatal and barbarous? There are a lot of ways to prevent other X15`s from such a life. By buying meat you create a request on the market for meat. Thus, more X15´s are killed. So what´s the solution? We leave the answer to this question to you and wish you a great deal of compassion and courage to act. Because this and even a lot more we owe to all the animals.

Michael Hartl
Head of the campaign “pig-vision”

Robert Kresse
Campaign-team pig-vision

Other posts that might be interesting:

• Slaughtering of X15 (0)
• X15′s last walk (1)
• Life of the pig-vision pigs – a retrospect (0)

Thomas & Campo

X15 is dead. His death was like his short life: brutal, dolorous and comfortless. A spate of emotions comes up, if you see the last pictures of his life – angriness, helplessness and shame about the fact, that everything what happened is accepted as “normal”. That is daily routine in the so called agriculture.

It is natural, if you are looking for culprits, for instance while having the wish “to kill the messenger“. In this case we are messengers, we published the destiny of X15, but we did not saved his life. Moreover we filmed his death. But we have to mention that we are not the reason for the evil: 5 million X15 die every year in Austria, X15 existed before our project began and unfortunately afterwards.

But how can we channelise the pent-up emotions, where is the culprit, who should be hated? Is it the farmer, who lives from his animals? Is it the veterinarian, who gives the paper for appropriate holding? Is it the slaughterman, who is not able to anaesthetise the pig enough, so that the animal experiences its own death? Or should we hate every housewife, every consumer, who buys brainless ham and bacon in the supermarket?

The phenomenon of modern “animal production” is monstrous, it is not possible to get simple solutions. Everyone, who wants to change anything, has to start in the surrounding. It must be shown, what happens behind the high walls. We should build an awareness for that cruelty and try to change the behaviour.

If I look back on the project PIG-VISION, I am glad to see the direct result of our project – the pig JACKPOT – that got the chance for a fantastic life on animal paradise Schabenreith. 30.000 people attended the project. But the downer is, that we could not reach enough people who are not interested in themes like animal protection. Usually we wanted to avoid the „preaching to the converted“, we tried to be interesting for those, who are sitting Sundays on a roast pork and to reconsider their attitude and discuss it. But it seemed to be only a wish – who wants to deal with displeasing truths or change the habits? But also for people with awareness for animal rights that project can be a new boosted motivation: a motivation to refer others to the consequences of their acting. On average every Middle-European kills in one year about 20 animals with his eating habits. If every second person standing behind PIG-VISION brings 3 persons to think about the own attitude concerning animal exploitation with the consequence to avoid the misery for the animals, it is possible to reach one million less cases of violence and distress every year! These are only drops in the ocean, but only drops will fill the ocean.

Finally PIG-VISION will not end with the death of X15. In the future we will report on the website about the adventures of JACKPOT with his friends. And I hope it will be possible to put this unparalleled project on DVD for sensitising people.

Thomas Winger
United Creatures

Other posts that might be interesting:

• Pig-vision and X15 (0)
• Life of the pig-vision pigs – a retrospect (0)
• What happened so far… (0)

Thomas & Campo

The aim of PIG-VISION is, to motivate people to subsist non-violent. Therefore we show the live of ONE SINGLE FARROW, we “exploit” it and gave it to a grace court, where it will live forever. This action was not easy and the transport was stressful, but in the whole we wanted to act in the interest of the animal. The farrow is called JACKPOT.

Furthermore we did not influence any mental state of the animals and we did not take responsibility for any animal. But we DOCUMENTED. The grimace of pig-breeding behind the wall of exploitation could be shown now on the monitors. To dramatize the reality, we gave one anonymous “production unit” a name, X15.

X15 does not belong to us, but to the mast factory, just like all his fellows. And although we got the permission for shooting, X15 is not ours. We may not influence its destiny.

We only want to show, what happens every year, five million times only in Austria, caused by the consumer behaviour of our friends, our relatives. And we will show it to the bitter end.

If anybody wants to blame us for this consequent view of reality, it is like „beating the messenger“, a known reaction on helpless desperation. But it is fully senseless.

In the whole it is also senseless to think about saving X15. Do you think, it would make sense to rescue X15, and one day later we film its fellow X16 or X2501? It seems to be more sensitive to use the educational potential of our campaign while showing it to meat eaters (parents, teachers…). I know that there will not be many people who want to see those films, and most of you are already Vegetarians. But sometimes also meat eaters will watch the films.

We do not want to change the world with PIG-VISION, to collect donations or become famous. We only want to give you another medium to make convincing. More and more people shall be make impossible to say “We did not know that.”.

Other posts that might be interesting:

• X15 is dead (0)
• Life of the pig-vision pigs – a retrospect (0)
• What happened so far… (0)

The film gained a lot attraction.

On Saturday, the 17th october 2009, the Ottakringer Greens have hold a Day of Animal Protection with the theme pig breeding in Austria.

From 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. there was an info-table on the market place. Our short movie about pig-vision was shown here, too. Experts of politics, of animal protection and of praxis gave interviews and answered questions of pedestrians. For children it gave balloons and a playing corner.

Main themes were the practical keeping of pigs in conventional factories and the rigorous action of the state against animal protecter by means of the “Mafiaparagraphen” 278a StGB.

The speakers were Wolfgang Pirkelhuber (speaker of farming from the Greens), Claudia Smolik (speaker of Animal Protection from the Greens of Vienna), Michael Hartl (pig-vision) and Elisabeth Sablik (Association Against animal factories VGT).

A theme was also biological keeping and outdoor-keeping of pigs. Speakers were an info-farmer and Georg Bacher from Bio-Austria.

Interested kids everywhere...

For more pictures check out Flickr.

Other posts that might be interesting:

• Sorry but there are no related posts to this article.

But there is still a chance and so we set ourselves a time limit of 4 weeks to discuss with you, how pig-vision could and should continue. At this low level, at which the campaign runs at the moment, we cannot continue. So, if you want the campaign to be continued in this form, here our deep call to you: spread information about the campaign once again as far as you can on the internet. Invite people, who might be interested in the story, to visit the website or to become a member of one of the groups. Forward pictures and videos to people, who – from your point of view – should be engaged in this issue already. Use pig-vision as a tool, to change the world a little bit. Only then quotes of access will increase and thus the probability, that we still can save this campaign.
We are curious about your proposals and happy about your help.

The Team of pig-vision

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• Pig-vision needs your help (0)
• Austrian media reports on pig-vision.com (0)
• pig-vison on tour (0)

In the last few days we have given two interviews – one for the Kronen newspaper and the other for Hitradio Ö3. The article in the Kronen from 15^th August 2009 read as follows:

Giant pig on the Linzer Landstraße – Animal campaigners like student Lisa Pfleger (20) from Linz hope that the giant pig will draw attention to intensive pig farming in Austria. Activists are accompanying two piglets with a video camera, Jackpot lives at an animal sanctuary while his brother X15 leads a miserable existence in an intensive pig farm – in six months he will be slaughtered. Pedestrians decide for themselves which life is better.

The interview and photo-shooting took place on Friday 14^th August. Then there was a call from Hitradio Ö3, asking me to give them an interview. The shortened version of what turned out to be a very long interview went on air on the Saturday evening. Hitradio Ö3 gave us the following recording of the interview (German only):

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• pig-vison on tour (0)
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Don’t post videos showing bad stuff like animal abuse, drug abuse, under-age drinking and smoking, or bomb making.

On one hand, we are glad to see that YouTube shares our opinion that the conditions shown in our film amount to animal abuse. On the other hand, castrating piglets without anaesthetic is allowed in Austria, Germany and the USA. Our film shows a totally legal practice, routinely carried out in pig farming.

We are trying to get in touch with Google directly (YouTube is a Google owned company) on the phone, but as yet, we haven’t had any luck getting through. It leaves a nasty taste in the mouth to think that a scene showing an absolutely legal practice should be deactivated.

We need your help!

Because we don’t seem to be getting anywhere, we need your help. If you know anyone who is familiar with reactivating deactivated YouTube films, then please let us know! If you have any ideas yourself, then please contact us via Twitter, Facebook or leave a comment for us here.

When we have any news, you’ll see it here first. We’ll keep you posted.

Here is the film currently deactivated on YouTube:

Other posts that might be interesting:

• An interview with the Albert Schweitzer Foundation (0)
• Life of the pig-vision pigs – a retrospect (0)
• Pig-Vision in interview with PROVIEH (0)

Piglet X11 checks out his new home filled with loads of straw

As promised, from today you can take part in the decision about the name for X11. We’ve spoken to the people at the sanctuary and they’ve told us that X11 is very active and alert. Therefore, the following five names have been chosen for the short list. You’ve got until Thursday 12.00 to get your friends and family to vote for your favourite name for X11. We can’t wait!

Update 31th July:
SURVEY IS CLOSED

You have decided: X11 will be called from now “Jackpot”!

The result of the survey:
1. Jackpot (53 votes = 46 %)
2. Halli Galli (29 votes = 25 %)
3. Paletti (15 votes = 13 %)
4. Schabernack (15 votes = 13 %)
5. Lari Fari (3 votes = 2 %)

Other posts that might be interesting:

• Good Appetite – Jackpot digs in quite well (0)
• Arrival at Animal Paradise Schabenreith (0)
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