Written by Michelle Sherrow
As it turns out, people are genuinely taken by surprise when they find out where sausage meat comes from, as evidenced by this amusing Portuguese video showing what happens when a fake butcher pretends to make sausage from scratch.
Finally, a bit of justice for the most abused animal on the planet. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) charged Canada's largest chicken producer, Maple Lodge Farms, with 60 violations of federal animal health laws after it let thousands of chickens freeze to death during transport.
The CFIA cites multiple occasions on which Maple Lodge crammed crates full of chickens into unheated trucks and drove them to slaughter in temperatures well below 0 degrees Fahrenheit. CFIA inspectors even found snow and ice inside the crates of some chickens who were stacked near the truck's freezing-cold metal floor and walls.
Our neighbors to the north seem to assert that chickens at least shouldn't be frozen to death, unlike in the U.S., where birds have no federal legal protection from cruelty whatsoever while being transported to slaughter. The best protection that chickens currently receive in both the States and Canada is from people who say "No" to supporting torture and "Yes" to cruelty-free mock meats.
Written by PETA
With one move, two grocery store chains may have spared thousands of pigs from a good deal of suffering. Foodland Super Market and Times Supermarkets on Oahu have announced that they will no longer sell meat from pigs who were shipped live to Hawaii from the mainland. In addition to the pain of having their throats cut and being scalded during slaughter, pigs who are transported across the ocean alive spend days aboard ships in cramped, filthy conditions and stifling temperatures. Many become sick and die during the arduous voyage.
The grocers' decision could spell the end for Oahu's only slaughterhouse certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and could end all live transport to Oahu. Slaughtering pigs shipped from the mainland is the bulk of business for Hawaii Livestock Cooperative's slaughterhouse. The facility has been struggling financially for a decade and surviving only with help from the government. The president of the slaughterhouse cooperative, Calvin Wong, said he isn't sure that it can sustain the latest loss of business, calling it "another nail in the coffin."
Want to add another nail to that coffin? Stop eating pigs.
On the eve of the Kentucky Derby, Secretariat star James Cromwell has written to The Jockey Club urging it to adopt PETA's proposed Thoroughbred 360 Lifecycle Retirement Fund. The plan would require owners and breeders to pay a $360 retirement fee for each new foal they register. The money generated from the fees would be put into a fund to provide care for the 10,000 former racehorses currently sent to slaughter each year.
"These magnificent animals should not end up on a meat hook after a terrifying journey to a terrifying death," writes Cromwell in his letter. "I urge the Jockey Club, as the only official body that deals with every thoroughbred owner in every racing state, to implement PETA's Thoroughbred 360 Lifecycle Retirement Fund without delay."
Join James Cromwell in asking The Jockey Club to give racehorses the dignified retirement that they deserve.
A controversial new bill in Hawaii may have taxpayers footing the bill to bail out a financially troubled slaughterhouse, no matter how they may feel about its harm to the environment and animals or how unprofitable it is.
Senate Bill 249, which would make Hawaii the first state to own a slaughterhouse, allocates $1.6 million in taxpayer money for the purchase of the Hawaii Livestock Cooperative slaughterhouse in Kapolei. The slaughterhouse has already received millions of dollars in loans and grants from the government, although Hawaii currently has a billion-dollar deficit. The plant is also in an environmentally sensitive area close to the ocean, where waste runoff could damage coral reefs and kill fish.
Please take a moment to send an e-mail to Hawaii's representatives and urge them to vote against purchasing this slaughterhouse and for preserving Hawaii's environment and protecting animals from abuse.
The Cove opened eyes and filled them with tears. Tonight, the sad saga continues with Blood Dolphins—a three-part miniseries based on the Oscar-winning documentary's exposé of Japan's gruesome dolphin trade and slaughter.
Blood Dolphins premieres tonight at 11 p.m. Eastern time on Animal Planet.
Also, if you haven't seen The Cove yet Animal Planet will be airing it this Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern time. Please tell everyone you know to tune in to both. The official "killing season" will begin September 1 in Taiji, Japan ("The Cove"). Together we can change the tide. Please contact your local Japanese embassy and demand that Japan stop this bloody business.
Written by Amy Elizabeth
As a writer, I've never really liked the adage "a picture is worth a thousand words." But even I had to admit its truth after looking at these jaw-dropping images of animals' last moments inside slaughterhouses. The photos are the work of Italian photographer Tommaso Ausili and are part of a series titled "The Hidden Death," for which Ausili won the prestigious L'Iris D'Or/Sony World Photography Awards Photographer of the Year award. The series explores the fact that "Neatly packaged meat in supermarkets is often completely detached in consumers' minds from the process of its production." I could say more, but the photos are so powerful that I will give my keyboard a rest and let the images speak for themselves.
Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post
Last fall, a jury found Sholom Rubashkin, former Agriprocessors CEO, guilty on 86 federal financial fraud charges. Now, a judge in the case has announced that Rubashkin will be sentenced to 27 years in prison and ordered to pay nearly $31 million in restitution!
This is the culmination of a long, sordid history of financial crimes at the plant as well as violations against humans and animals dating back to PETA's original undercover investigation in 2004.
This undercover investigation exposed that Agriprocessors was hacking out the tracheas and esophagi of cattle immediately after the kosher slaughter cut, when the animals were still conscious and able to feel pain. Many animals remained conscious for prolonged periods, some even struggling to their feet in agony three minutes after their throats were cut, their organs dangling from their necks.
Dr. Temple Grandin, the world's leading slaughterhouse expert, called this "the most disgusting thing [she'd] ever seen." The USDA agreed with PETA and cited Agriprocessors for "engaging in acts of inhumane slaughter." Sholom Rubashkin tried to defend these egregious methods, but PETA undercover investigations in both 2007 and 2008 caught his facilities again performing dressing procedures on conscious animals. Dr. Grandin said, "The undercover video clearly showed that when they think nobody is looking, they do bad things in this plant."
At least Sholom Rubashkin will not have the opportunity to harm any more animals for the next 27 years.
Written by Shawna Flavell
PETA's recent undercover investigation of the largest slaughterhouse in Uruguay exposed that the facility was using the primitive and cruel "shackle and hoist" method for kosher slaughter.
This slaughterhouse is the largest foreign supplier of kosher meat to the U.S. and a major kosher meat exporter to Israel. Thanks to the PETA investigation, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel has just announced that by 2011 it will no longer certify meat as kosher if it's from a slaughterhouse that use "shackle and hoist"—that's about 80 percent of the meat imported into Israel, so we're not talking small potatoes!
This is a great step. Of course, the only way to know for sure that you are not supporting slaughterhouse cruelty is to go vegan. Plant-based foods are naturally kosher, and a vegan diet is in keeping with Jewish laws mandating that animals be treated with compassion and respect.
Written by Heather Moore
PETA Files readers already know that few "retired" racehorses live out the remainder of their days frolicking in rolling green pastures. Now, Washington Post readers know it, too, thanks to a great article that was published over Memorial Day weekend.
The article describes one of the many ugly sides of the horse-racing industry—the fact that with approximately 35,000 thoroughbreds born in the U.S. every year, there are thousands of horses who don't have quite enough speed and stamina to be champions. What becomes of these also-rans? Most are eventually sold at auction, where many are bought by "killer buyers."
While no horse slaughterhouses are currently operating in the U.S., horses are still being shipped to slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico. Some retired racehorses—even Derby champs like Ferdinand and Charismatic—also wind up in Japan, where they may initially be used for breeding. But when they stop being moneymakers, they, too, may be slaughtered, as a PETA investigation at a Japanese slaughterhouse last year revealed.
You can help by contacting your U.S. representatives and asking them to sponsor the Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act, which would make it illegal to slaughter horses for consumption in the U.S. or to export them for slaughter.
Written by Alisa Mullins
Follow PETA on Twitter!
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.