October 6, 2020 2.53 pm This story is over 41 months old

Lincoln photographer captures animal suffering around the world

Harrowing photos of man-made atrocities
An intensive egg farm in South India, where over 300,000 chickens are crammed into cages. | Photo: Amy Jones
By Local Democracy Reporter

A photographer from Lincolnshire is set to be published in a groundbreaking new book about our relationship with animals in the 21st century.

The book is called Hidden: Animals in the Anthropocene, a photography book that shows the mistreatment of animals across the world by humans, from slaughtering for food to slaving for entertainment.

The foreword of the book is written by Oscar-nominated actor Joaquin Phoenix, a famous animal rights activist, and Lincolnshire photographer Amy Jones is one of 30 photojournalists to have her pictures selected for the published piece.

Amy, 26, went around the world to capture these heartbreaking moments and show them to everyone who may take for granted the levels of devastation that animals suffer on a global scale, including the UK.

Lincoln photographer Amy Jones travelled the world to capture animal suffering at the hand of humans for a new book.

The photographs you are about to see can be graphic and unsettling.

A pregnant cow lies on rubber matting waiting to give birth at a dairy farm in Sri Lanka. She is restrained by her neck. | Photo: Amy Jones

Tiger show at Koh Samui Zoo, Thailand. Tigers are forced to perform tricks such as jumping through fire. | Photo: Amy Jones

On her journey through the likes of Thailand, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Morocco, Amy saw unimaginable suffering for animals, whether that be death, injury or slavery.

Some animals are even stored next to the dead bodies of their own kind, taking a full glimpse at their own fate at the hands of human consumption.

Slaughtered dogs being butchered into kebabs, Vietnam. | Photo: Amy Jones

Speaking about her experience for the book, Amy said: “Whilst it can feel very isolating doing this kind of work, Hidden serves as a reminder of how each investigator inspires others to continue, and that we’re in this together for animals.

Crocodiles in captivity at Phuket Zoo. Tourists can take photographs and watch a performance show. | Photo: Amy Jones

“One of the events that encouraged me to pick up my camera and start documenting the plight of animals was when, a few years ago, I saw a truck crammed full of sheep on the A46 in Lincoln during a scorching hot day. It was heartbreaking to see these animals packed tightly into a lorry and treated as nothing more than cargo.

A calf is kept in a metal cage away from their mother at a dairy farm in Sri Lanka. | Photo: Amy Jones

“I don’t know what happened to these individuals, but with over 12 million animals being reared for slaughter indoors at any one time in Lincolnshire alone, it’s not hard to imagine where they probably ended up.”

Cows being sold at a slaughter auction in Lincolnshire. They are only a few years old. | Photo: Amy Jones

Amy is a Lincoln resident and co-founder of the Moving Animals group, and she spent the last two years investigating and photographing animal exploitation around the world.

This skeletal baby elephant was forced to “rave” to music, “play” musical instruments, and perform tricks, all for tourists’ entertainment at Phuket Zoo in Thailand. Despite a global campaign to free him, he died after his back legs snapped beneath him. | Photo: Amy Jones

Hidden: Animals in the Anthropocene by Jo-Anne McArthur will come out on November 17 and is available for Amazon pre-order now.

Fish in pet shop with marker pen writing in Cambodia. | Photo: Amy Jones

At Monkey Centre in Mae Rim, Northern Thailand, over 15 monkeys are kept in horrific conditions. Many of these social animals are kept alone in isolated cages with chains around their necks and hardly any space to move. When tourists arrive, they’re taken to a stage and forced to perform unnatural tricks. | Photo: Amy Jones

Working donkeys used in Morocco. Many of them have untreated injuries. This donkey has scraped kneews – likely from falling when carrying a heavy load. | Photo: Amy Jones

Here a frog watches as another individal is decapitated. Live frog have their heads cut off with scissors. Their still-wriggling bodies are then skinned, and ready to sell. Wet market, Vietnam. | Photo: Amy Jones

The bodies of live birds next to those recently killed. | Photo: Amy Jones

Dogs being transported to slaughter, Vietnam. | Photo: Amy Jones

A chicken being slaughtered while others watch on. | Photo: Amy Jones

A macaque monkey during a performance at Phuket Zoo, Thailand. | Photo: Amy Jones

Live animals, including soft shell turtles, at a wet market, Vietnam. | Photo: Amy Jones

Amber Fort is one of India’s biggest tourist attractions, forming part of the ‘cultural triangle’, and attracting thousands of global tourists every single day. However, it is infamous for its use of elephants, where over 100 elephants, many of whom are blind and lame, are forced to haul tourists up and down the steep fort. | Photo: Amy Jones

What actor and activist Joaquin Phoenix said about the upcoming book.