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Infliction of harm and killing are an essential part of producing meat and dairy, and none of it is necessary because in the industrialized word there is an embarrassment of food choices for which other thinking, feeling beings did not need to be hurt. Needless suffering happens regardless of how "humanely" the animals are raised. Further, the nonhuman animal exploitation industries often foster cruelty to the animals beyond their "standard industry practices"; they often threat their workers poorly, the workers often torture the animals for fun and to relieve stress, and the workers often take this desensitization to cruelty home to their families. Below we've started chronicling this. Check back for more examples. And please contact us if you run across examples.
Pig farm workers regularly torture animals
The following is an excerpt from a FoxNews story from Dec. 12, 2007. Click here to read the full story.
A local prosecutor in North Carolina is investigating allegations of animal cruelty by a pig farm supplying Smithfield Foods, the nation’s largest pork producer. The investigation comes after an animal rights activist secretly videotaped workers beating and dragging swine, gouging out their eyes and cutting out their testicles.
Attorneys from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals presented their case to the Sampson County District Attorney's Office in North Carolina on Monday and will turn over videotapes and a signed affidavit by PETA's undercover investigator, who says he witnessed daily violent mistreatment of baby and adult pigs at Murphy Family Ventures Garland Sow Farm in Garland, N.C.
In the black-and-white video, a supervisor can be heard bragging to the undercover PETA investigator that he brutally beats the animals.
Click here to see the video. WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT AND EXTREMELY FOUL LANGUAGE.
Cows regularly abused by workers at slaughterhouse
Click here to read the full Washington Post story; this is an excerpt:
Video footage being released today shows workers at a California slaughterhouse delivering repeated electric shocks to cows too sick or weak to stand on their own; drivers using forklifts to roll the "downer" cows on the ground in efforts to get them to stand up for inspection; and even a veterinary version of waterboarding in which high-intensity water sprays are shot up animals' noses -- all violations of state and federal laws designed to prevent animal cruelty and to keep unhealthy animals, such as those with mad cow disease, out of the food supply.
Moreover, the companies where these practices allegedly occurred are major suppliers of meat for the nation's school lunch programs, including in Maryland, according to a company official and federal documents.
The footage was taken by an undercover investigator for an animal welfare group, who wore a customized video camera under his clothes while working at the facility last year. [ Warning - Graphic Video: View the video on the Humane Society Web site] It is evidence that anti-cruelty and food safety rules are inadequate, and that Agriculture Department inspection and enforcement need to be enhanced, said officials with the Humane Society of the United States, which coordinated the project.