Fuller
Mon, Jul-07-03, 06:12
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
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