This kind of thing was the trigger to my becoming a vegetarian in 1978. The claim by humans to be higher than other animals is untenable. I am planning on moving next year. I well certainly not be moving to the barbaric five states that make it a crime to expose this kind of evil.
By Aviva Shen on Dec 14, 2012
Secret video footage of a hog farm in Manitoba, Canada show workers body-slamming piglets into the floor, swinging them into metal posts and kicking them when they can’t stand up. The harrowing video was filmed by an investigator for animal rights group Mercy for Animals Canada, who went undercover at the Puratone farm for three months. Mercy for Animals Canada — a sister organization of the U.S. group by the same name — released the footage Monday, calling for major grocery chains that carry Puratone meat to boycott the pork producer.
As Manitoba officials prepare to inspect and possibly investigate the Puratone facility, however, an “Animal Care Review” panel has dismissed this type of abuse as a standard, “humane” practice. This panel of researchers and scientists was put together by the Center for Food Integrity, an American organization funded by agribusiness giants including Monsanto, the National Pork Producers Council, Pfizer, Cargill and Purdue. The Vancouver Sun reports:
But the Animal Care Review Panel, made up of a University of Manitoba animal sciences professor, an Ontario Veterinary College professor and a research scientist, says [body-slamming piglets is] a humane way to euthanize piglets.
The panel, formed by the Center for Food Integrity, a U.S.-based organization representing farmers, food processors and retailers, said most of what’s in the video is widely acceptable and humane. [...] The footage appears to show pigs bleeding from open wounds in tight metal cages, pregnant pigs with distended, inflamed bellies, and piglets being slammed down on the floor by staff.
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Rather than put effort into reforming systematic cruelty, Big Ag companies prefer to invest in bending the law to suit them. Five states have passed so-called “ag-gag” laws, which criminalize undercover investigations and secret footage inside these facilities. These laws’ sole purpose is to keep consumers from discovering the conditions in which their food is produced.
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/03/five-states-now-have-ag-gag-laws-on-the-books/#.UMtDlG883zg
Five States Now Have ‘Ag-Gag’ Laws on the Books
By Dan Flynn | March 26, 2012
Criminal codes in Iowa and Utah were used this year to keep secrets on factory farms by threatening jail time for anyone working undercover and taking pictures or video of animals without permission.
But Iowa and Utah were not the first to adopt what we now call “ag-gag” laws. About 20 years ago, there was a similar push for these laws in farm states with very similar language adopted in North Dakota, Montana and Kansas.
This means there are at least five states that now make illegal the sort of undercover work conducted by several major animal welfare groups, which involves sending someone in as an employee to record what is actually going on.
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Iowa and Utah enacted new laws, while ag-gag bills were killed in Florida, Illinois and Indiana. Ag-gag bills remain pending in Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York and Tennessee.
The animal agriculture lobby is having success in the current election year it did not experience last year when proposed video fans first resurfaced in four states. Last year, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota and New York all rejected ag-gag bills.
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