USDA-FSIS Investigates a Texas Slaughterhouse and Initiates a ‘Humane Handling-Related Enforcement Action’

July 2010 

PETA heard from a whistleblower at a JBS Swift cow slaughterhouse in Texas about a horrific incident in which workers failed to stun a cow with a captive-bolt gun and then also failed to kill the animal via exsanguination before beginning to cut her apart. Far down the line from the “knock box,” the whistleblower investigated the cause of a line stoppage and saw a cow suspended by one hind leg, still conscious and struggling. Workers had already removed three hooves, but the cow’s desperate struggling was preventing them from removing the fourth. A supervisor finally shot the cow in the head with a handgun, 20 minutes after the botched captive-bolt shot. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) responded to our complaint by investigating the plant, and the agency initiated a “humane handling-related enforcement action.” Since the investigation, the FSIS veterinarian at this plant has almost doubled the amount of time spent supervising the “stun and stick areas” each day in order to prevent such incidents from occurring again.