For cast-off farm animals, a place of love
This article is an adaptation of our weekly Photography newsletter that was originally sent out on April 24, 2021. Want this in your inbox? Sign up here.
By Whitney Johnson, Director of Visual and Immersive Experiences
Photojournalism can take you to a new place, far from your home. If it is done right, the storytelling can make you care about something you may not have known about before.
In this story for Nat Geo, photographer Ana Palacios not only had to overcome the distance of a reader from Spain, but she had to transcend perhaps a touch of skepticism: Would a reader care about a grassroots movement of people rescuing injured farm animals from slaughter—and in one case, the dumpster—to take them to places where the animals could live out their days with love?
In the photo above, Palacios married the beauty of Laietana the duck with the care with which it is shown. Volunteer Carla Heras cradles Laietana, which is one of 1,500 animals—most rescued from the streets and the farming industry—living at the Santuario Gaia in Camprodon, Spain. Gaia is among a few dozen sanctuaries in Spain providing a home to animals previously farmed for food.
Saving fish, too: Fundación El Hogar is the only sanctuary in Spain that rescues fish, mainly from hotel aquariums and restaurants. Caring for rescued fish is no less complicated than any other species, says founder Elena Tova. Some have undergone extensive medical treatment, including one fish, Slovoda, who had successful surgery to remove a cancerous tumor.
Team effort: At left, staff and volunteers at El Hogar gather to eat a vegan meal and plan schedules. The group shares a common passion for animal rights and belief in veganism to reduce animal suffering. “It’s nice to share this philosophy of life with others and feel that I am being helpful,” says longtime volunteer Victoria Celedón. “Being here makes me happy.” At right, every morning, Elena Tova gives treats to (clockwise from Tova) Sia (who is deaf), Woody (who has three legs), Gretel and Neo (who are both physically impaired), Soul, and Julieta, as a reward for good behavior. Tova originally rescued dogs before expanding El Hogar to include other species in 2007.
Saved from a dumpster: Patri, a turkey at El Hogar, rests in a crib, surrounded by pregnancy pillows and cushions to prevent pressure sores. Originally rescued from a dumpster outside of a turkey farm, Patri has an incurable joint disorder that leaves him unable to walk. The turkey also spends time hanging from a custom-made swing, so that Patri can stretch its legs.
Helping the stricken: Olivia Gómez treats a pig named Paola with electrotherapy. Santuario Gaia rescued Paola in November 2019, after it was abandoned outside of a farm when other pigs were taken to a slaughterhouse: Paola had a broken vertebra and couldn’t walk onto the transport truck. Veterinarians at Gaia worked to heal her spine, and Paola can now stand and take a few steps.
Not the end: Neo, a pitbull at El Hogar, was found sick and paralyzed in some bushes in 2016. Although Neo still has no sensation below the waist, intensive medical care and physiotherapy mean the dog now can run around easily on front legs, exploring El Hogar’s 60 acres. Read—and see—the rest of the story.
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TODAY IN A MINUTE
Yosemite without the people: What does one of the most iconic U.S. national parks look like after a year in which the animals took over? Los Angeles Times photographer Carolyn Cole wanted to find out. Take a look.
Follow-up: Remember the outrage that followed Irish artist Matt Loughrey’s manipulated images to make Khmer Rouge victims look like they were smiling? Now the Cambodian government has threatened to sue Vice News for running the misleading images of people who were slaughtered in Cambodia’s Killing Fields during the 1975-79 rule of the Khmer Rouge. The images were manipulated from photos taken without permission from the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, and their publication may violate Cambodian law, The Art Newspaper reports.
Showing change: In a home in northern Kashmir, a group of women musicians defies norms that say only men can play Sufi music. But they are fulfilling another key religious tradition in a valley with few traditional musicians.“We ignore these obstacles just for the love of this art,” one musician, Gulshan Lateef, tells the Christian Science Monitor. See photos of the musicians at work.
Protecting photographers: Minnesota’s governor has joined in on the condemnation of suburban Minneapolis police for assaulting, pepper-spraying, and detaining journalists who were doing their job covering a police shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright. Freelance photographer Tim Evans, who was tackled and hit in the face by police, told the Star-Tribune he was “yelling that I'm press the whole time." Governor Tim Walz said the police assaults were "unacceptable" and being investigated.
Related: On this day, the U.S. justice system agreed that George Floyd’s life mattered
INSTAGRAM OF THE DAY
Tending the forests: For centuries, foresters in France have maintained the regeneration of the woods by planting new trees to selectively replace the old. Photographer Thomas van Houtrye shows a trimmer climbing an old oak tree that grew exceptionally tall in the cultivated forest of Bercé. This tree, estimated at 230 years old, is one of eight from the grove that will be harvested this year to form the base of the new spire of the cathedral of Notre-Dame of Paris. The previous spire burned in April 2019.
Younger, shorter trees: In many other forests, the grand old trees are going en masse
THE BIG TAKEAWAY
Faith: After tornadoes and amid a pandemic, photographer Natalie Keyssar went to Alabama, the state with the highest percentage of people reporting that religion was “highly important” in their lives. Keyssar covered Christians, Jews, and Muslim communities around the state. (Above, a Good Friday service and the non-denominational Central Church of Flora-Bama.) Keyssar even met Candice Eaton, whose home was wrecked by a tornado. “If I wasn’t religious,” Eaton told Nat Geo, “I don’t know where I’d be at right now.”
This work was supported by the National Geographic Society's COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists.
IN A FEW WORDS
It was definitely scary—I’ve never been in a situation like that with so many police officers hitting me, hitting my equipment.
Joshua Rashaad McFadden, Photographer, on assignment for the New York Times, From: Minnesota Governor Calls Alleged Assaults on Journalists ‘Chilling’
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On Monday, Debra Adams Simmons covers the latest in history. If you’re not a subscriber, sign up here to also get Robert Kunzig on the environment, Victoria Jaggard on science, George Stone on travel, and Rachael Bale on animal and wildlife news.
THE LAST GLIMPSE
A witness to what humans do: How have we changed our planet? Photographer Tom Hegen shows us in startlingly vivid ways, usually in images taken from above. In these images from a coal-mining operation in Germany, Hegen tells Nat Geo he hopes to draw attention, not airbrush destruction. Above left, water runoff after mining can carry toxic concentrations of minerals into drainage ponds. Those minerals can contaminate groundwater. On the right, excavation and storage sites, angular and symmetrical can suggest artistry, even beauty.
This newsletter was curated and edited by David Beard, and Jen Tse selected the photographs. Amanda Williams-Bryant, Rita Spinks, Alec Egamov, and Jeremy Brandt-Vorel also contributed this week. Have an idea or a link? We’d love to hear from you at david.beard@natgeo.com. Thanks for reading!
