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ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE A worker checks on young broiler chickens in one of the dozen bird houses at a chicken farm in Clermont, Ga. Gwen Venable of the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association said poultry provides a valuable, affordable source of protein.


Seeking to capitalize on that discrepancy, animal-welfare advocates are launching a campaign called the Someone Project that aims to highlight research depicting pigs, chickens, cows and other farm animals as more intelligent and emotionally complex than commonly believed. The hope is that more people might view these animals with the same empathy that they view dogs, cats, elephants, great apes and dolphins.

"When you ask people why they eat chickens but not cats, the only thing they can come up with is that they sense cats and dogs are more cognitively sophisticated than species we eat - and we know this isn't true," said Bruce Friedrich of Farm Sanctuary, the animal-protection and vegan-advocacy organization that is coordinating the new project.

"What it boils down to is people don't know farm animals the way they know dogs or cats," Mr. Friedrich said. "We're a nation of animal lovers, and yet the animals we encounter most frequently are the animals we pay people to kill so we can eat them."

The lead scientist for the project is Lori Marino, a lecturer in psychology at Emory University who has conducted extensive research on the intelligence of whales, dolphins and primates. She plans to review existing scientific literature on farm animals' intelligence and prepare reports on her findings that would be circulated worldwide via social media.

"I want to make sure this is all taken seriously," Ms. Marino said in an interview. "The point is not to rank these animals but to re-educate people about who they are. They are very sophisticated animals."

For Ms. Marino and Ms. Friedrich, who are both vegans, the goals of the project are twofold - to build broader public support for humane treatment of farm animals and to boost the ranks of Americans who choose not to eat meat.

"This project is not a way to strong-arm people into going vegan overnight but giving them a fresh perspective and maybe making them a little uncomfortable," Ms. Marino said.

"Maybe they'll be thinking, 'Hmm, I didn't know cows and pigs could recognize each other and have special friends,"' she said. "That might make them squirm a little, but that's OK."


"While animals raised for food do have a certain degree of intelligence, Farm Sanctuary is seeking to humanize them to advance its vegan agenda - an end to meat consumption," said David Warner of the National Pork Producers Council.

Gwen Venable of the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association said poultry provides a valuable, affordable source of protein. "Consumers should be able choose their food based on their own dietary preferences and nutritional needs and without being unduly influenced by any one group's personal agenda," she wrote in an email.