Animal rights activist drone video details livestock cruelty on ‘factory farms’

The broadening deployment of UAVs for rapidly diversifying purposes in recent years has allowed operators to get eyes on – and in – places that were previously inaccessible, when not intentionally shut away from outside observers. Among organizations that have taken to the skies for closer looks are animal rights activists, who now operate drone missions to obtain video evidence of inhumane treatment of livestock on massive “factory farms.”

The most recent example of that work by animal rights activists was a highly effective ­and very disturbing drone video of an enormous dairy farm. After an opening shot of three cows feeding in cramped plywood stalls, the video gradually pulls away to expose countless more of the creatures standing in similar conditions over an area so vast the UAV’s camera can’t frame the entire space. Closing footage from the craft backing away features a giant body of liquid beside the complex – almost certainly a manure lagoon…