Gabriel Wildgen (@GabrielWildgen) profile picture

Senior Associate VP of Public Policy @TheHumaneLeague. Passionate about transitioning to a humane, just, and sustainable food system.

Joined September 2009
Photo by Gabriel Wildgen (@GabrielWildgen)Photo by Gabriel Wildgen (@GabrielWildgen)Photo by Gabriel Wildgen (@GabrielWildgen)
Gabriel Wildgen retweeted
Huge news: the Senate released its Farm Bill text, and because you spoke up, the cruel "Save Our Bacon Act" is NOT in it! This is a massive testament to the power of our community, but the fight isn’t over. Let's protect this win 💪 Take action: thl.link/4g3jqlf
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Gabriel Wildgen retweeted
It has been remarkable to see so many public figures, on left and right alike, standing up to oppose the systematic abuse of pigs. The "Save Our Bacon Act," which would privilege abuse of pigs over the right of voters to ban it, is in real trouble. Thank God.
I OPPOSE the Save Our Bacon Act and any attempt to jam it into the Farm Bill. This bill would gut state food safety and animal welfare laws, wipe out voter-approved protections, and strip states like NY of the right to set basic standards. It's a giveaway to Big Ag and meat monopolies, punishing family farmers who followed the rules, while giving the biggest corporations more power to squeeze farmers and families. Congress should be lowering food costs, not rewarding the monopolies driving them up. The Save Our Bacon Act does not belong in the Farm Bill, and I will fight to keep it out.
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This is the kind of leadership we need on this issue. Thank you, @SenSchumer, for standing against making animal cruelty laws illegal.
I OPPOSE the Save Our Bacon Act and any attempt to jam it into the Farm Bill. This bill would gut state food safety and animal welfare laws, wipe out voter-approved protections, and strip states like NY of the right to set basic standards. It's a giveaway to Big Ag and meat monopolies, punishing family farmers who followed the rules, while giving the biggest corporations more power to squeeze farmers and families. Congress should be lowering food costs, not rewarding the monopolies driving them up. The Save Our Bacon Act does not belong in the Farm Bill, and I will fight to keep it out.
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Gabriel Wildgen retweeted
Here's what the pork industry doesn't want you to know about the way it sneaked a provision into the 2026 farm bill that would nullify ballot measures that improve animal welfare, while helping Chinese companies torture American pigs. The issue is personal to me, because we once raised pigs on our family farm, and I saw that these are not commodities but animals rather like dogs: smart with very distinct personalities. A naughty boy who punishes a single animal may be punished, but an adult who presides over the systematic abuse of hundreds of thousands of pigs as a business model is hailed as a visionary CEO -- and voters get that, and that's why they have backed laws that improve animal wellbeing. This is, remarkably, an issue that unites many liberals and conservatives alike; @TomiLahren, @Cernovich and @IngrahamAngle are among those who have been outspoken on this issue. I hope R and D members of Congress alike will stand firm, for the stakes are immense, with four pigs slaughtered around the clock on average all year. Here's a gift link to my piece: nytimes.com/2026/05/30/opini… I welcome your comments.
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Gabriel Wildgen retweeted
CO led the way in adopting humane farming practices. Now the U.S. House is trying to stop that momentum. @SenatorHick @SenatorBennet Please amend the Farm Bill to ensure states can protect animals from inhumane treatment. Thank you! #copolitics denverpost.com/2026/05/18/an…
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Gabriel Wildgen retweeted
The pork industry lost with voters. Lost at the Supreme Court. So they turned to Congress—and got the "Save Our Bacon" Act buried in the House Farm Bill. It's the biggest rollback of animal welfare protections in U.S. history. A thread. 🧵
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Gabriel Wildgen retweeted
It may be unrealistic to expect the world to become vegetarian (at least not until synthetic meat is produced at scale), but that doesn't mean we must treat farm animals with vicious cruelty. Small protections can reduce massive harm at tolerable costs. Tell your senator to vote NO on the Farm Bill if it includes the "#SaveOurBacon Act."
Millions of mother pigs could be forced to spend their lives in gestation crates — unable to move or turn around. The House just passed a #FarmBill with the #SaveOurBacon Act that allows exactly this. Call your senator: (202) 224-3121 — tell them to vote NO on #SaveOurBacon 🐷
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Gabriel Wildgen retweeted
This makes me sick to my stomach. Pigs develop friendships, they have rich emotional lives and even show empathy when other pigs are in distress. They’re smart and can do puzzles. They feel sadness and pain. To do this to them is so evil.
This is shocking: the House Rules Committee just blocked a vote on stripping the Save Our Bacon Act from the farm bill. The SOB Act, buried deep in the farm bill, would wipe out state bans on pork from crated pigs, condemning millions to a lifetime in gestation crates. We were getting very close to having the votes to pass Rep. Luna’s bipartisan amendment to strip the SOB Act from the bill on the floor of the House. Then pork industry lobbyists got to work. Behind closed doors, they got Rules Committee leadership to stop a vote entirely and protect the SOB Act from the scrutiny it can’t survive. The only option now is to kill the whole rotten farm bill. Please call your representatives at (202) 225-3121 and tell them to vote NO.
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Gabriel Wildgen retweeted
🚨 The Farm Bill is officially moving to the floor with harmful language that could overturn animal protection laws across the United States. We need to fight back before the vote tomorrow. Tell your legislators to vote ❗ NO ❗ on the Farm Bill: thl.link/4n8ZgI3
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Inexcusable. We must take action now to call our Representatives and urge them to vote down this whole Farm Bill.
This is shocking: the House Rules Committee just blocked a vote on stripping the Save Our Bacon Act from the farm bill. The SOB Act, buried deep in the farm bill, would wipe out state bans on pork from crated pigs, condemning millions to a lifetime in gestation crates. We were getting very close to having the votes to pass Rep. Luna’s bipartisan amendment to strip the SOB Act from the bill on the floor of the House. Then pork industry lobbyists got to work. Behind closed doors, they got Rules Committee leadership to stop a vote entirely and protect the SOB Act from the scrutiny it can’t survive. The only option now is to kill the whole rotten farm bill. Please call your representatives at (202) 225-3121 and tell them to vote NO.
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Gabriel Wildgen retweeted
ANIMALS MATTER (my most personal and heartfelt book, ever), now available for preorder. Amazing cover to come. @NickKristof @Lewis_Bollard amazon.com/Animals-Matter-Ca…
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Gabriel Wildgen retweeted
Pigs don't just feel fear themselves. They also feel the fear of other pigs — and try to comfort them. In one study, pigs watching another pig in distress first showed fear themselves and then tried to comfort the distressed pig through snout-to-snout contact. Pigs who'd previously endured the same ordeal reacted even more intensely — they seemed to recognize what the distressed pig was going through. (Goumon & Špinka, 2016.) On factory farms, pigs trapped in gestation crates aren't just feeling afraid themselves. They're feeling the fear of all the other pigs around them. But the crate's iron bars stop them from even turning toward their fellow pigs — let alone comforting them with their snout.
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Gabriel Wildgen retweeted
This is a pig who spent years confined in a gestation crate. She was left behind when factory farms flooded in Iowa and then rescued by some volunteers. The volunteers took her home and dug her a mud pit. She ignored it. They assumed years of confinement had extinguished her natural instincts. Then they noticed her wandering into the woods on their property. They followed her — and found her rooting in a pile of dirt, digging her own mud pit. The pork industry claims pigs adapt to confinement. They don't. Inside every gestation crate is an animal who still yearns to root, wallow, and just be a pig. This is the tragedy of factory farming. We tried to reduce feeling animals to machines. We failed.
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Today, we won! 🦆💜 After years of legal battles, organizing, and refusing to back down, New York City’s ban on the sale of foie gras has been upheld by the state’s Appellate Division — and we couldn’t be prouder of every single person who made this moment possible. VFAR is a proposed intervenor-appellant and an amicus curiae in the case. Read more on our blog! vfar.org/duck-yeah-new-york-…
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Gabriel Wildgen retweeted
Let’s ask @RepAshleyHinson why she thinks packing pregnant pigs into 7 x 2 metal crate for 16 weeks sounds like a remotely humane or decent thing to do.
Hidden on page 744 of the farm bill the House Agriculture Committee passed Thursday is a provision that would condemn millions of pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates. Rebranded the 'Save Our Bacon Act,' it's a pork-industry play to wipe out every state law banning the sale of pork from crated pigs — laws the conservative Supreme Court upheld in 2023. Over 85% of Democrats and Republicans oppose these crates. Voters have backed ballot measures to ban them in state after state. The pork industry knows it can't win a straight vote on this. So it's burying the provision in an 800-page bill and hoping no one notices. Contact your senators and representative today and tell them: oppose the farm bill unless the Save Our Bacon Act is stripped out. You can reach them at senate.gov and house.gov — it takes two minutes and it matters.
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This is sickening. Gestation crates are unimaginably cruel. Pigs have been shown to have some cognitive abilities comparable to those of a THREE YEAR OLD child. Stop this now.
Hidden on page 744 of the farm bill the House Agriculture Committee passed Thursday is a provision that would condemn millions of pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates. Rebranded the 'Save Our Bacon Act,' it's a pork-industry play to wipe out every state law banning the sale of pork from crated pigs — laws the conservative Supreme Court upheld in 2023. Over 85% of Democrats and Republicans oppose these crates. Voters have backed ballot measures to ban them in state after state. The pork industry knows it can't win a straight vote on this. So it's burying the provision in an 800-page bill and hoping no one notices. Contact your senators and representative today and tell them: oppose the farm bill unless the Save Our Bacon Act is stripped out. You can reach them at senate.gov and house.gov — it takes two minutes and it matters.
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Gabriel Wildgen retweeted
Heads up: corporate agribusiness has formed a new "think tank" called the "Center for American Food Power" to justify the cruelest and most polluting factory farming practices in the name of "national security."
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Gabriel Wildgen retweeted
For four days this site has blown up over the farm bill provision to keep pigs locked up in gestation crates. 50K+ people have posted about it. Yet its sponsors remain silent. @RepAshleyHinson has been posting about the Congressional Art Competition. @CongressmanGT has stopped posting entirely. Why? They know they can't defend this. They claimed it would help small family farms. But small family farmers are posting that they oppose it. They claimed it would help American producers. But the industrial pork industrial is dominated by two foreign-owned corporations: Smithfield and JBS. They claimed only liberals care about animal welfare. But conservatives like @Cernovich and @TomiLahren have been among the strongest voices opposing it. They never even pretended this is what most citizens want. It's lawmaking of the lobbyists, by the lobbyists, for the lobbyists. They were really just hoping you wouldn't notice this buried deep in the farm bill. Now they're hoping you'll forget about it. Prove them wrong.
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Gabriel Wildgen retweeted
I can’t express how relieved I am that people are finally waking up to this ultimate banality of corporate evil. REWRITE THE FARM BILL
Hidden on page 744 of the farm bill the House Agriculture Committee passed Thursday is a provision that would condemn millions of pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates. Rebranded the 'Save Our Bacon Act,' it's a pork-industry play to wipe out every state law banning the sale of pork from crated pigs — laws the conservative Supreme Court upheld in 2023. Over 85% of Democrats and Republicans oppose these crates. Voters have backed ballot measures to ban them in state after state. The pork industry knows it can't win a straight vote on this. So it's burying the provision in an 800-page bill and hoping no one notices. Contact your senators and representative today and tell them: oppose the farm bill unless the Save Our Bacon Act is stripped out. You can reach them at senate.gov and house.gov — it takes two minutes and it matters.
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