We Animals

We Animals was born from Jo-Anne McArthur’s desire to accurately document how we use animals. In Ecuador in 1998, she witnessed a monkey chained to a windowsill trained to pick the pockets of tourists; while everyone seemed to find this entertaining, McArthur instead wanted to take a photograph that could convey the degradation of both this monkey and the people in this moment of exploitation.

In 2019, We Animals was founded as a nonprofit organization dedicated to this emerging genre of photojournalism that represents not only wild or charismatic animals, but farmed, experimented upon and otherwise exploited animals. We Animals has grown from one woman and her camera to more than 120 international photojournalists covering animal industries in more than 80 countries. We have conducted hundreds of assignments, launched and run a stock platform and fellowship program, published three books, and help NGOs and media tell animal stories.