Matt Rossell: His Time Inside The Hidden Worlds of Testing Labs, Circuses, and Fur

Species Unite

elizabeth novogratz

Philosophy, Society & Culture

5.0 • 911 Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2019

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

He has spent the past two decades fighting to create a better world for animals and it all started by accident. While he was in grad school in the 90s, he worked security at a hospital at night. One night he heard some horrible cries behind closed doors and he proceeded to investigate. And, what he saw changed his life forever – horrific experiments taking place on live kitten's brains. He took photos and contacted PETA, and thus began a seven-year stretch as an undercover investigator. He worked in fur farms, factory farms, circuses, primate labs - really in every industry where that terrible things are done to animals under massive secrecy. And in all of these industries, the only people who are really checking on anything are the animal undercover investigators.

Matt's footage has created awareness and sparked huge change in many of these worlds. In order to get the footage, he like all other undercover investigators, had to work horrible jobs with long grueling hours and minimal pay all while having to perform jobs that harmed, exploited, or killed the very animals he has dedicated his life to protecting. He has witnessed the worst of humanity yet somehow he's positive, hopeful, and all love and light.

Since his undercover days, he has worked for many organizations - all in the fight for animal rights, freedom, safety, and welfare. He's an advocate, an activist, and a hero. Animals everywhere are lucky to have this man on their side.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Elizabeth Novagrat's welcome to Species Unite, the podcast where we talk to people who are fighting some of the hardest fights on Earth to stop the unnecessary suffering of animals.
0:16.0	Today's conversation is with Matt Rossell. The first time I met Matt, I was at an event that he was going to be speaking at and I was in line for a
0:26.1	drink and I heard these two young guys talking about him and one said to the
0:30.3	other Matt Rossell he's a total legend.
0:34.6	And he is a total legend.
0:36.4	He is a huge legend in the animal rights world
0:38.9	and just an all-around incredible human being.
0:42.6	I started out in college.
0:49.2	I started out in college.
0:50.8	I was an environmental activist, but didn't really know that much about the
0:55.4	animal rights movement and in Nebraska there wasn't much happening at all.
1:00.5	I sort of fell into it by accident when I was moonlighting as a security guard at
1:06.7	Boys Town Hospital which is a well-known hospital for children, but no one really knew that they were also doing vivisection there,
1:18.8	animal testing.
1:20.2	I was, as I said, a security guard there and I heard the plaintiff cries of kittens on the other
1:27.1	side of a locked door and because I had all the keys I went to see what was going on and what I found were the victims of Ed Walsh who was a
1:37.7	researcher there. He was doing invasive brain
1:45.0	he was severing nerves at the base of these kittens brains doing surgeries on one and two day old kittens
1:48.0	and the lucky ones didn't survive surgery because the ones that survived had all kinds of
1:55.5	problems they were having trouble nursing they were having trouble walking they
1:59.4	were crying out in pain they weren't getting any analgesics, and not knowing really anything about animal rights or what to do, I heard of PETA, and so I reached out to them.
2:10.0	They asked me to take some photographs, they asked me if I could get any video or get any more information and little by little
	...

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