Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
including aggressive handling, inefficient stunning, and even re-
gaining consciousness during slaughter. In a devastating exposé
in the
Washington Post
in 2001, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
Joby Warrick reported that the U.S. Department of Agriculture was
not shutting down noncompliant slaughterers, cattle were being
skinned alive, and plant managers instilled atmospheres in which
processing speed trumped the welfare of animals.
Even more shocking is the fact that birds, who make up more
than 95 percent of all land-based animals killed for food, are not
afforded the protections under the federal Humane Methods of
Slaughter Act, as interpreted by the USDA. As a result, the billions
of birds killed annually are not even rendered insensible to pain
before they are shackled, electrically stunned, and their throats
are slit.
Nonambulatory cattle, also known as “downers,” are rou-
tinely subjected to horrendous mistreatment. Primarily so-called
“spent” dairy cows, these animals, exhausted and broken, are un-
able even to walk and stand on their own. On January 30, 2008, my
organization, the Humane Society of the United States, released
the findings of an undercover investigation at a cattle slaughter
plant in California that documented downed cows being rammed
with the blades of a forklift, dragged with chains pulled by heavy
machinery, suffering simulated drowning as water from a high-
pressure hose was forced down their throats and nostrils, and
repeatedly electrically shocked and beaten—all in attempts to
get them on their feet to walk to slaughter. The footage of blatant
animal cruelty alarmed the nation and, indeed, the world. Within
one month, two employees of the slaughter plant were charged
with animal cruelty; the nation's largest-ever recall was issued; a
$100-million-dollar company was shut down; Congressional hear-
ings were held; and lawmakers and consumers alike questioned
how these events could have occurred.
