Tranquility du Jour #377: Mercy for Animals
Tranquility du Jour
Kimberly Wilson
4.6 • 554 Ratings
🗓️ 22 August 2016
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mercy for Animals with founder Nathan Runkle. We talk growing up on a farm in rural Ohio to starting Mercy for Animals in his teens, why MFA chose farm animals as their focus, and what we can do to help make a difference in the lives of other beings.

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Tranquility du Jour Guest

Nathan Runkle is the founder and president of Mercy For Animals. Raised on a farm in rural Ohio, Nathan has long had a deep connection with farmed animals. After a local farmed animal abuse case involving a piglet slammed headfirst into a concrete floor during an agricultural project at a nearby high school, Nathan founded MFA to give "food" animals a much-needed advocate in his local community.
Since founding MFA over a decade ago, Nathan has overseen the organization's growth into a leading international force in the prevention of cruelty to farmed animals and promotion of compassionate food choices and policies.
A nationally recognized speaker on animal advocacy, factory farming, and veganism, Nathan has presented at colleges, conferences, and many other forums from coast to coast.
Through his work with MFA, Nathan has been an outspoken advocate for animal rights, featured in hundreds of television, radio, and newspaper interviews, including on ABC's World News Tonight, Nightline, and 20/20, CNN, and National Public Radio, and in USA Today, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune.
Nathan works closely with MFA's diverse group of members, supporters, and employees to develop and fulfill objectives within the organization's four areas of focus: education, legal advocacy, corporate outreach, and undercover investigations.
Nathan has worked alongside elected officials, corporate executives, heads of international organizations, academics, farmers, celebrities, and film producers to pass landmark farmed animal protection legislation, raise public awareness about vegetarianism, and implement animal welfare policy changes.
VegNews magazine has recognized both MFA and Nathan for making substantial contributions to the vegetarian movement, naming Nathan one of the "25 Most Fascinating Vegetarians" and one of the country's "Top 20 Activists Under 30 Years Old," and twice naming MFA "Non-Profit of the Year." In 2009, at the age of twenty-five, Nathan became the youngest person ever inducted into the US Animal Rights Hall of Fame.
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Tranquility du jour, August 22, 2016. |
| 0:09.6 | Hello there, this is Kimberly Wilson, and welcome to the 377th edition of Tranquility |
| 0:17.6 | DeJure. |
| 0:19.1 | Today's show features someone I have had a professional crush on for |
| 0:23.3 | quite a few years, the amazing Nathan Runkle of Mercy for Animals. So we talk about growing up |
| 0:30.9 | on a farm in rural Ohio to starting this amazing organization in his teens. why Mercy for Animals chose farm animals as |
| 0:41.3 | their focus, and what we can do to help make a difference in the lives of other beings. I think |
| 0:48.2 | you'll be really inspired by his story and the amazing work that he is doing. I also wanted to share, I am fresh back from |
| 0:56.4 | Farm Sanctuary, where we were up for our annual visit to the Ho down there. And of course, |
| 1:02.9 | I stalked this dreamy piglet named Cameron, who's about three weeks old, and there is a link |
| 1:08.6 | to him in the show notes. I think you too will be quite fond of |
| 1:12.6 | him. He's just absolutely precious. And we had just such a great time. I got to pet cows, and then we |
| 1:19.5 | heard some great speakers, one being Susie Coston, who basically is the farm manager there, |
| 1:25.1 | and she's worked there for years and tell stories of all |
| 1:28.7 | these amazing animals that she gets to connect with every day and also rescue stories. |
| 1:35.5 | So two huge farm to table organizations or not really organizations, kind of backyard butchers |
| 1:42.3 | who were really, really neglecting their animals |
| 1:46.6 | that farm sanctuary went into and rescued a few hundred animals this past year. So sharing their |
| 1:53.2 | stories and we got to meet some of those animals, which was really amazing and a good reminder |
| 1:58.6 | about really knowing where our food is coming from because I think so many |
| 2:02.6 | people are like, oh, well, I don't support factory farming, but I like farm to table. And it's |
| 2:07.2 | interesting that those were the two organizations or I should say operations, excuse me, |
... |
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