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A Trump administration rule could stop a powerful tool for exposing animal cruelty

Drones can peer into secretive factory farms. A proposed FAA ban could make this illegal.

In February, an animal rights group flew a drone over a farm in California that raises calves destined for dairies and cattle ranches. Double D Dairies, the company that owns the farm, is linked to a prominent milk brand that highlights its humane farming practices. But the drone documented a very different reality.

In one part of the drone video, filmed by the group Direct Action Everywhere, employees can be seen kicking calves in the face. In another, they grind hot irons into calves’ skulls, apparently without anesthetics, causing some to thrash and collapse (this procedure is done to prevent horn growth). Many calves were confined in tiny crates.

The ranch fired one of the employees after the investigation was published in the Los Angeles Times. “Animal welfare and safety are incredibly important to us, and we have a zero-tolerance policy for any mistreatment,” the owner wrote to the LA Times over email. When Vox reached the owner for an interview, he declined to comment.

This sort of treatment of farmed animals, it turns out, is far from unusual. Many investigations into the milk and beef industries — along with other livestock sectors — have uncovered similar abuses.

Americans ditched veal. A drone investigation revealed that what replaced it may be just as bad.

But without drone footage, we probably wouldn’t know about many of them. Drones flown by animal advocates have also captured enormous hog manure pits overflowing during a hurricane, millions of egg-laying hens culled amidst a bird flu outbreak, and a large egg farm that falsely claimed to let its hens roam free when it didn’t.

Over the past decade, as drones have become more affordable and easier to operate, they have become an essential — and impactful — tool for exposing wrongdoing at the factory farms that collectively house billions of animals in the US. But a recently proposed rule by the Trump administration could cut off such drone-powered documentation, making the mere search for this type of animal cruelty illegal — and a huge, largely hidden industry all the more impenetrable. It could also take out eyes in the sky that add visibility into countless other massive industries and facilities across the US.

The potential drone ban, briefly explained

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