Re: Activists Seek Changes at Slaughterhouses

On Mon, 07 Jul 2003 02:03:52 GMT, [email protected] (fuller) wrote:

>July 6, 2003
>Activists Seek Changes at Slaughterhouses
>By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
>
>LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The owners of a Southern California egg farm
>insist they did nothing wrong when they slaughtered 30,000 chickens,
>quarantined because of a virus, by throwing them into wood chippers.
>
>State authorities agreed and decided not to file animal cruelty
>charges.
>
>That decision has incensed animals rights advocates -- and even some
>producers -- who say it's an example of the need for stricter national
>laws and enforcement to stop what they consider inhumane slaughter of
>livestock.
>
>``It's not what we do,'' said Paul Bahan, owner of AAA Egg Farms in
>Riverside County, who chairs an industry committee targeting treatment
>of poultry.
>
>Amid a growing national push for better treatment of livestock, the
>industry is enacting new guidelines for slaughterhouses and farms that
>will take into account everything from the size of cages to the ways
>animals are killed. Restaurant and grocery store chains are urging
>independent audits of the nation's 900 slaughterhouses, and the
>federal government is moving to hire more inspectors.
>
>Critics say the changes aren't happening fast enough.
>
>During a hearing in May on agriculture appropriations, Sen. Robert
>Byrd, D-W.Va., called on the Agriculture Department to speed up the
>hiring of inspectors.
>
>``Despite the laws on the books, chronically weak enforcement and
>intense pressure to speed up slaughterhouse assembly lines reportedly
>have resulted in animals being skinned, dismembered, and boiled while
>they are still alive and conscious,'' Byrd said.
>
>Members of Congress also have received a video from Sen. Jim Moran,
>D-Va., actor Alec Baldwin and People for the Ethical Treatment of
>Animals. The tape, titled ``Meet Your Meat,'' contains graphic images
>of cruelty at farms.
>
>``Enforcement is the issue,'' Baldwin, a longtime PETA activist, told
>The Associated Press. ``You live in a society where the USDA is the
>only barrier between producers and your food.''
>
>The American Meat Institute denied that enforcement at slaughterhouses
>is weak and that animals are routinely abused. Officials also pointed
>out that the plants can't operate unless an inspector is on the
>premises.
>
>In the past decade, the $133 billion processing and packing industry
>has taken a number of steps to improve animals' final moments, such as
>redesigning pens to accommodate natural movements and minimizing use
>of electric prods, American Meat Institute spokeswoman Janet Riley
>said. Such treatment is not only ethical, it's good business, she
>said.
>
>``If an animal is stressed when it goes to slaughter ... it will emit
>hormones that create quality defects in meat that then has to be
>trimmed away,'' she said.
>
>Each year, 8 billion chickens and turkeys, 97 million hogs, 35 million
>cattle, 3 million sheep and lambs, and 1 million calves are
>slaughtered in the United States.
>
>Larger animals are usually killed with a gun that shoots a rod
>directly into the brain. Chickens are typically stunned in an
>electrified bath before their heads are cut off with a rotating blade.
>Others are suffocated with carbon dioxide or their necks are broken.
>
>The 45-year-old federal Humane Slaughter Act offers guidelines on
>slaughter methods but only requires that animals be rendered
>``insensible to pain'' before being killed. It excludes poultry from
>that requirement. State laws vary.
>
>In the wood chipper case, the USDA did not approve the slaughter
>method, said Ed Lloyd, a department spokesman. The decision on filing
>charges was up to the San Diego County district attorney's office,
>which declined in May after determining there was no criminal intent
>by the owners of the farm, Arie and Bill Wilgenburg.
>
>``I've done nothing wrong and I stick by that, and I won't say
>anything else about it,'' Bill Wilgenburg said.
>
>Officials have said the brothers acted on the advice of a
>veterinarian. The birds could not be sent to a slaughterhouse because
>they had been quarantined after an outbreak of a bird virus, Exotic
>Newcastle Disease.
>
>While the case is unusual, animal welfare advocates say it shows that
>farmers are seldom held responsible when animals are subjected to
>unnecessary pain and suffering.
>
>The USDA reported that from January 1998 to January 2003, 21 of the
>nation's slaughterhouses were cited for violations related to
>mistreatment.
>
>It says the relatively low number of citations shows enforcement
>methods are working.
>
>``We make our living by selling cows. We don't make our living by
>abusing them,'' said Arthur Green, whose Benton Packing Co. in
>Springdale, Ark., was cited last year for having too many cows in one
>pen.
>
>^------
>
>On the Net:
>
>Animal Welfare Audit Program: http://www.awaudit.org/
>
>Humane Farm Animal Care: http://www.certifiedhumane.com/
>
>National Chicken Council: http://www.eatchicken.com
>
>Department of Agriculture: http://www.usda.gov
>
>
>

Animals deserve the same rights afforded to niggers and jews. Death
should not come sadistically, A quick jolt of a hangman's noose. or a
guillotine will make the process quick and painless