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Our Hen House: Vegan & Animal Rights Movement | Stories from the Frontlines of Animal Liberation

Episode 549: The Ethics Behind Animal Planet’s Saved by the Barn ft. Kelly Holt and Dan McKernan

Our Hen House: Vegan & Animal Rights Movement | Stories from the Frontlines of Animal Liberation

Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan

Documentary, Education, News, News Commentary, Society & Culture, Self-improvement

4.9579 Ratings

🗓️ 18 July 2020

⏱️ 71 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the intro to the show Jasmin announces that she’s moving back to New York, so start spreading the news! Jasmin and Mariann also announce their new Director of Operations, Jen Riley. Jen is a long time animal rights activist and organizer and has long been the mastermind behind the Animal Rights Conference. In other exciting news, Jasmin will be speaking at the Farmed Animal Conference E-Summit. This year the summit will be happening virtually. We also continue our Supporting Vegan Businesses program by shouting out the LA Food Truck, Lettuce Feast.  Then, Jasmin speaks with Kelly Holt and Dan McKernan, stars of Animal Planet’s Saved by the Barn and founders of Barn Sanctuary, in Chelsea, MI, which has rescued around 400 farmed animals from abuse and neglect. They launched Barn Sanctuary from Dan’s family farm after the decision to go vegan inspired them to look into the treatment of farmed animals across the world. Their mission is to give their rescued animals a safe place to live out the rest of their lives, and with their Animal Planet show, they want to show how wonderful these animals are and how they deserve to not end up on someone’s plate.  Kelly and Dan join us to share why they gave up their jobs in marketing and technology, respectively, to open a sanctuary for rescued farmed animals. They share how the series Saved by the Barn came into being after Dan’s picture of a tender moment with one of the cows went viral, why he rigorously interviewed all of the production companies that wanted to make the show, and the conditions he imposed during filming. Kelly also shares why she feels it's so important to connect and work together with other farm sanctuaries and organizations to build a collaborative way forward.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to Our Hen House. This is Marianne Sullivan, and this is Jasmine Singer. We are totally excited that you're joining us this week because this is a really cool interview. I'm so excited about this. Jasmine's going to be speaking with Kelly Holt and Dan McCurnan. And many of

0:22.4

you probably already know this, but they are, respectively, the executive director and the president

0:27.9

of Barn Sanctuary, which is in Michigan. And Dan is the host of the Animal Planet TV show

0:35.3

saved by the barn. It just blows my mind that there is an Animal Planet TV show saved by the barn. It just blows my mind

0:38.6

that there is an animal planet TV show

0:40.9

about a farmed animal sanctuary

0:42.7

and about all the animals there.

0:44.9

I have a funny story about that.

0:46.4

I was chatting with Kelly

0:47.5

before this show aired,

0:49.0

but after it was shot,

0:50.2

and she just wanted to talk about PR strategies

0:52.6

and stuff.

0:53.6

Of course, she already knew everything.

0:55.5

So I don't know why I was on the phone.

0:57.2

But the whole time we were on the phone,

1:00.0

I thought she meant that that their sanctuary was getting one episode of like an animal planet show.

1:07.8

And so like,

1:16.7

I bet you were super excited about it. then at the end I go and who knows maybe at some point animal planet will offer you your own show and she was so polite about the whole thing

1:24.2

and I was like so embarrassing I know it was embarrassing that's how I roll

1:29.0

anyway I am excited about it and they are reaching so many viewers with this story of of how they

1:36.2

found it and like the interview was interesting too because it provides like a kind of behind the

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