Animal Aid has today released footage taken secretly inside an Essex slaughterhouse that kills pigs. The film, which was shot over three days in April, shows scenes of extreme and deliberately-inflicted suffering, including use of electric tongs on animals’ snouts, tails and their open mouths. It was shot at A & G Barber’s abattoir in Purleigh, and is the seventh ‘red meat’ abattoir that the national campaign group has secretly filmed since January 2009. The Barber’s footage is the most shocking of all.
The Food Standards Agency has confirmed that one man has had his slaughter licence permanently revoked, and that both he and his employer are being investigated with a view to a prosecution.
Among the scenes filmed were:
Incompetent and inadequate stunning for almost every one of the 767 pigs filmed
Stunned pigs left to regain consciousness
The application of electric stunning tongs to snouts, ears and tails to encourage the animals to move or out of apparent malice
The use of electric stunning tongs around the bodies of animals, which does not stun but delivers instead a painful electric shock
Pigs being routinely kicked in the face
Pigs being hit in the face with shackle hooks, in one case, drawing blood
This is the seventh red meat slaughterhouse that Animal Aid has secretly filmed during the past 18 months, and the sixth where legal breaches have been recorded. As a result of this ongoing investigation, nine men from five slaughterhouses have been either suspended or have had their slaughter licences permanently revoked. Additionally, legal action has been taken or is underway against all nine men and also against four of the slaughterhouse operators.
Says Animal Aid Head of Campaigns, Kate Fowler:
‘The suffering inflicted on pigs at A & G Barber’s is unbearable to watch. That these vulnerable animals are forced to endure terrible and deliberate cruelty while the slaughterer mocks their plight is absolutely shocking.
‘The system has failed to protect these animals from violence, and our investigations indicate that breaches of animal welfare laws are widespread and commonplace. Our campaign to have CCTV installed in all slaughterhouses – which now has the support of the Food Standards Agency – would help ensure best practice and provide evidence for prosecutions but it will never end the suffering. The only way to do that is to choose meat-free foods.’
VIDEO:
A&G Barber public film from Animal Aid on Vimeo.
Saturday 3 July 2010
Thursday 3 June 2010
COK Investigation Inside Hatchery Leads to Impoundment of Birds by Authorities
Media coverage:
While employed as a maintenance worker at California-based Cal-Cruz Hatcheries Inc. for nearly a month in 2009, COK’s investigator witnessed and painstakingly documented miserable conditions forced upon thousands of newly hatched birds, including:
A chick drowning in a bucket of liquid waste
Birds entangled in machinery, their dead bodies mangled, decapitated, or missing limbs
Sick or severely injured birds left to suffer for hours
Unwanted hatchlings dumped down the egg shell disposal chute, then sprayed with a high-pressure hose
Birds thrown five to six feet across the room into buckets where they often languished for hours
Our video evidence uncovering shocking animal abuse prompted Santa Cruz County Animal Services Authority to look further into this case.
In conducting its own follow-up investigation, this humane law enforcement agency collected additional evidence of abuse and neglect and impounded 88 ducklings in need of care.
While several of these newly-hatched birds were too sick or injured to survive, more than two dozen were given a new chance at life at a nearby sanctuary.
This documented case of animal abuse is not an isolated incident. Rather, animal cruelty is standard in the meat-, egg-, and dairy industries, and the most effective step each of us can take to help stop it is to simply leave animals off our plates.
TryVeg.com: Request a free Vegetarian Starter Guide for yourself or a friend
Reach out to others: Share this video with a friend
Choose compassion: Check out these chicken-free products and recipes.
Support Our Work: Our ability to expose animal abuse and empower others to choose compassion at every meal is only made possible by the generosity of our supporters. Your donation today will help us build a kinder tomorrow.
Video:
Using a hidden camera, a COK investigator documented shocking abuses forced upon newly-hatched chicks and ducklings while employed at Cal-Cruz Hatcheries in 2009. The video evidence was immediately turned over to the Santa Cruz County Animal Services Authority and the District Attorney’s Office. In response, a follow-up investigation conducted by humane law enforcement not only corroborated our evidence of abuse and neglect but also resulted in the impoundment of 88 ducklings.
Despite this additional documentation by authorities, the District Attorney’s office held the case for several months, and in late April 2010, officially declined to prosecute the hatchery for violations of state animal protection laws.
Exposing Abuse: COK Investigation inside Cal-Cruz Hatcheries
While employed as a maintenance worker at California-based Cal-Cruz Hatcheries Inc. for nearly a month in 2009, COK’s investigator witnessed and painstakingly documented miserable conditions forced upon thousands of newly hatched birds, including:
A chick drowning in a bucket of liquid waste
Birds entangled in machinery, their dead bodies mangled, decapitated, or missing limbs
Sick or severely injured birds left to suffer for hours
Unwanted hatchlings dumped down the egg shell disposal chute, then sprayed with a high-pressure hose
Birds thrown five to six feet across the room into buckets where they often languished for hours
Our video evidence uncovering shocking animal abuse prompted Santa Cruz County Animal Services Authority to look further into this case.
In conducting its own follow-up investigation, this humane law enforcement agency collected additional evidence of abuse and neglect and impounded 88 ducklings in need of care.
While several of these newly-hatched birds were too sick or injured to survive, more than two dozen were given a new chance at life at a nearby sanctuary.
Act Now: You Can Help Save Animals, Three Times a Day
This documented case of animal abuse is not an isolated incident. Rather, animal cruelty is standard in the meat-, egg-, and dairy industries, and the most effective step each of us can take to help stop it is to simply leave animals off our plates.
TryVeg.com: Request a free Vegetarian Starter Guide for yourself or a friend
Reach out to others: Share this video with a friend
Choose compassion: Check out these chicken-free products and recipes.
Support Our Work: Our ability to expose animal abuse and empower others to choose compassion at every meal is only made possible by the generosity of our supporters. Your donation today will help us build a kinder tomorrow.
Video:
Thursday 27 May 2010
New MFA Investigation: Ohio Dairy Farm Brutality
Related media coverage
After viewing the footage, Dr. Bernard Rollin, distinguished professor of animal science at Colorado State University, stated: "This is probably the most gratuitous, sustained, sadistic animal abuse I have ever seen. The video depicts calculated, deliberate cruelty, based not on momentary rage but on taking pleasure through causing pain to cows and calves who are defenseless."
Immediately upon completion of the investigation, Mercy For Animals contacted the City Prosecutor's Office of Marysville regarding the ongoing pattern of abuse at Conklin Dairy Farms. MFA is pushing for employees of the facility to be criminally prosecuted for violating Ohio's animal cruelty laws.
The deplorable conditions uncovered at Conklin Dairy Farms highlight the reality that animal agriculture is incapable of self-regulation and that meaningful federal and state laws must be implemented and strengthened to prevent egregious cruelty to farmed animals.
Although many of the abuses documented at Conklin Dairy Farms are sadistic in nature, numerous MFA undercover investigations at dairy farms, pig farms, egg farms, hatcheries and slaughterhouses have revealed that violence and abuse to farmed animals - whether malicious or institutionalized - runs rampant nationwide.
Compassionate consumers can end their direct financial support of farmed animal abuse by rejecting dairy, and other animal products, and adopting a vegan diet.
"Chilling undercover footage recorded during a new Mercy For Animals investigation exposes dairy farm workers sadistically abusing cows and young calves."
Captured on hidden camera, the shocking scenes of abuse reveal a culture of cruelty at Conklin Dairy Farms in Plain City, Ohio. During a four-week investigation between April and May, MFA's investigator documented farm workers:
- Violently punching young calves in the face, body slamming them to the ground, and pulling and throwing them by their ears
- Routinely using pitchforks to stab cows in the face, legs and stomach
- Kicking "downed" cows (those too injured to stand) in the face and neck - abuse carried out and encouraged by the farm's owner
- Maliciously beating restrained cows in the face with crowbars - some attacks involving over 40 blows to the head
- Twisting cows' tails until the bones snapped
- Punching cows' udders
- Bragging about stabbing, dragging, shooting, breaking bones, and beating cows and calves to death
After viewing the footage, Dr. Bernard Rollin, distinguished professor of animal science at Colorado State University, stated: "This is probably the most gratuitous, sustained, sadistic animal abuse I have ever seen. The video depicts calculated, deliberate cruelty, based not on momentary rage but on taking pleasure through causing pain to cows and calves who are defenseless."
Immediately upon completion of the investigation, Mercy For Animals contacted the City Prosecutor's Office of Marysville regarding the ongoing pattern of abuse at Conklin Dairy Farms. MFA is pushing for employees of the facility to be criminally prosecuted for violating Ohio's animal cruelty laws.
The deplorable conditions uncovered at Conklin Dairy Farms highlight the reality that animal agriculture is incapable of self-regulation and that meaningful federal and state laws must be implemented and strengthened to prevent egregious cruelty to farmed animals.
Although many of the abuses documented at Conklin Dairy Farms are sadistic in nature, numerous MFA undercover investigations at dairy farms, pig farms, egg farms, hatcheries and slaughterhouses have revealed that violence and abuse to farmed animals - whether malicious or institutionalized - runs rampant nationwide.
Compassionate consumers can end their direct financial support of farmed animal abuse by rejecting dairy, and other animal products, and adopting a vegan diet.
Tuesday 4 May 2010
Sunday 25 April 2010
New Investigations by The HSUS Reveal Appalling Animal Abuse at Four Egg Factory Farms
PRESS RELEASE
RELATED MEDIA COVERAGE
LA Times
Media Newswire
Ocre Register
VIDEO
DES MOINES, Iowa — The Humane Society of the United States released results of its latest investigation into industrial agribusiness and exposed rampant abuse at the top levels of the egg industry in America. An undercover investigator documented extreme and unacceptable conditions at four different factory farms, owned by two of the nation's largest egg producers. There are about 10 million birds at the facilities that were investigated, with one facility having 18 structures each confining approximately 300,000 birds.
In February and March 2010, an HSUS investigator worked inside Rose Acre Farms and Rembrandt Enterprises, the nation's second- and third-largest egg producers. Working at four of these companies' Iowa factory egg farms, the investigator documented appalling abuses.
"Our investigation is a deeply troubling indictment of the battery cage egg industry in America, specifically implicating two of its top three egg producers," stated Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The HSUS. "Misery and suffering are standard at these facilities, and this investigation reveals that animals simply cannot be properly cared for in facilities of this size and type. There is a cage-free alternative, and switching to it should be a minimum moral imperative for the industry."
Rose Acre Farms
An HSUS investigator was employed at Rose Acre Farms for 15 days during February, working at three facilities in Winterset, Stuart and Guthrie Center, Iowa. These factory farms confine nearly 4 million egg-laying hens and about 1 million young hens (pullets). The investigator documented the following abuses:
Broken bones: Workers roughly yank pullets from their cages in growing sheds and load them into cages for transport to battery cages, resulting in a mass of twisted bodies.
Cruel, extremely rough handling: The HSUS investigator videotaped workers pulling young hens from the mobile cages and stuffing them into battery cages.
Cruel depopulation methods: The HSUS investigator documented workers grabbing hens by their legs, then cramming them into gassing carts where they're killed with carbon dioxide.
Prolapsed uteruses: Hens suffer from "blow-outs" that go unnoticed and untreated.
Trapped birds unable to reach food and water: Battery cages can trap hens by their wings, necks, legs and feet in the wire, causing other birds to trample the weakened animals, usually resulting in a slow, painful death.
High mortality in layer and pullet sheds: The HSUS investigator pulled dead young hens, some of them mummified and rotting for weeks, from cages every day.
Failure to maintain manure pits: According to one worker, the manure pit under a pullet shed had not been cleaned in two years. Workers claimed that some hens are blinded from ammonia.
Abandoned hens: Some hens manage to escape from their cages and fall into manure pits.
Rembrandt Enterprises
An HSUS investigator also worked for 10 days during March at a Rembrandt Enterprises, Inc., factory farm in Thompson, Iowa, which confines nearly 5.5 million laying hens. The investigator documented the following abuses:
Injuries from overcrowding: Rembrandt confines six to seven hens in each battery cage. Smaller or weaker hens are often trampled by others.
Trapped hens: Hens' wings, necks, legs and feet become entangled in cage wires, often resulting in trampling, as well as death by starvation and dehydration.
Broken bones: Workers sometimes slam battery cage doors shut on birds' wings, legs and necks, causing broken bones.
High mortality: During his first two days on the job, the HSUS investigator pulled scores of decomposed and mummified hen carcasses that were obviously weeks old.
Eye and beak infections: The HSUS investigator videotaped hens with abscesses that caused their eyes to close and beaks and mouths to swell.
Prolapses: The HSUS investigator pulled many dead hens from cages who had obviously suffered uterine prolapses. One live hen's prolapse became caught in the cage floor.
Failure to euthanize: Sick and injured hens were often put back into their cages instead of being euthanized.
Abandoned hens: The HSUS investigator found starving hens in manure pits.
Lengthy transport: Rembrandt does not kill "spent" hens on site but rather trucks them to a Minnesota slaughter plant. As a result, the birds are violently yanked from their battery cages, confined in mobile cages, and trucked to the plant.
The HSUS also released a new report detailing the problems inherent in cage confinement of laying hens and the importance of the national movement toward cage-free production systems.
Facts
Many major food retailers are moving away from battery cage eggs. For example, Hellmann's is converting to 100 percent cage-free eggs in its mayonnaise, and all Wal-Mart's private line eggs are cage-free.
Michigan and California have passed laws to outlaw cages for laying hens.
U.S. factory farms confine about 280 million hens in barren battery cages so small, they can't spread their wings. Extensive scientific research confirms this causes suffering.
Cage-free hens generally have two to three times more space per bird than caged hens. Cage-free hens may not be able to go outside and may have parts of their beaks cut off, but they can walk, spread their wings and lay their eggs in nests—all behaviors permanently denied to hens crammed into battery cages.
Broadcast quality B-roll is available for media download here. Still photos are available by request.
RELATED MEDIA COVERAGE
LA Times
Media Newswire
Ocre Register
VIDEO
Friday 23 April 2010
Suffering, Death at Petland Animal Supplier Revealed in PETA Sting
VIDEO:
PRESS RELEASE:
PRESS RELEASE:
Authorities Descend on Massive Georgia Animal Warehouse That Supplies Stores Nationwide
For Immediate Release:
April 22, 2010
Contact:
Daphna Nachminovitch 757-622-7382
Chillicothe, Ohio -- This morning, law-enforcement officials entered the Atlanta warehouse of Sun Pet Ltd., a company that supplies small mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and other animals to stores nationwide, including Chillicothe-based retailer Petland. Today's action was prompted by evidence gathered during a three-month PETA investigation, which documented that animals at Sun Pet were cruelly killed, abusively handled, and forced to live in severely crowded, filthy conditions. PETA's investigator worked at Sun Pet for three months and never once saw anyone from Petland's corporate office inspecting Sun Pet's facility. The following incidents were among the findings of PETA's investigation:
* A worker put hamsters in a plastic bag and bashed the animals against a table.
* Unsalable animals were routinely gassed in a filthy, waste-encrusted glass tank or poisoned at bait stations that were placed around the facility's warehouse.
* Petland stores shipped sick and injured animals back to Sun Pet without providing veterinary care or food and water, causing many to suffer and die.
* Sun Pet bought thousands of animals from unlicensed vendors, even though the U.S. Department of Agriculture had warned it about such purchases.
* Sun Pet sold hamsters who were purchased from U.S. Global Exotics (USGE), a company from which more than 26,000 cruelly treated animals were recently seized by authorities following a PETA investigation.
"PETA's investigation shows that for Petland, it is business as usual to keep buying animals from companies that have a record of abuse and failure to provide veterinary care to sick and injured animals," says PETA Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. "At these facilities, animals are treated like disposable objects, and no thought is given to the fact that they are living beings."
PETA has turned evidence over to local, state, and federal law-enforcement agencies for investigation, and the group is calling on Petland to end the sale of animals in its stores.
For more information and to view the video footage, please visit PETA.org.
Atlanta Journal Constitution
11alive.com
My Fox Atlanta
WSBTV
Tuesday 2 February 2010
Compassion in World Farming's investigation into pig farming in six EU Member States
Released: 21 January 2010
PRESS RELEASE
"Compassion in World Farming has been filming undercover in Europe’s pig farms for 18 months. What we found was shocking – an apparent disregard for pig welfare law and political failure to enforce it. Failure to comply with important welfare legislation puts Europe’s pigs at risk of profound suffering.This graphic footage, released at a press conference in Brussels on 21 January 2010, is intended to raise awareness of this scandal with the European public.Following our press launch in Brussels, the scandal of Europe's illegal pig farms has received coverage in over 11 countries throughout Europe and beyond. The results of the undercover investigations have been covered by publications such as the daily French newspaper, Liberation, the Dutch national newspapers De Telegraaaf and De Pers, the Belgian online news source De Standaard and Swedish National TV, Aktuellt, with an audience of 940,000 (watch from 3.17 min for the full report)."Media coverage:
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