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When Mishka Henner’s infamous feedlot photos made the internet rounds last year, they caught most viewers off guard. Filled with what looked like colorful pools of ink, smeared across beige canvasses, their captions made it clear that the black flea-sized dots in the photos were in fact cows, and the “ink” was liquid manure collecting alongside giant feedlots or concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

When Will Potter, the author, TED fellow, and journalist behind the blog Green Is The New Red, saw the images, he didn’t just feel nauseous, shake his head, and click on something else. He wondered, what else could we learn about CAFOs by documenting them from above? This month, Potter started fundraising for a journalism project called Drone on the Farm, which will use unmanned drones to fly over and document large factory animal farms. Just one week in, he has already exceeded his initial goal of $30,000. On Friday, he told his followers he was “working around the clock with photographers and journalists in multiple countries to craft a plan for expanding the project.”       

For the last several years, Potter has been documenting so-called ag-gag laws, which give large farms the right to press charges against those who document their practices. The goal is to scare animal rights activists, who have been filming the mistreatment of animals from the inside for years. And they often come with harsh penalties; in some cases, exposing cruelty can lead to more jail time than committing it.   

These anti-whistleblower laws have been proposed in 25 states, and passed in nine. Just last spring, Potter reported on the first ag-gag arrest. Now, he’s looking to expand the conversation beyond animal cruelty.