Feds Cite Local Slaughterhouse After Pig Is Repeatedly Shot

Crying Pig Blasted in the Head Three Times—PETA Calls For Public Scrutiny, Operational Overhaul

For Immediate Release:
September 14, 2020

Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382

Following a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report documenting that a worker shot a female pig in the head three times on August 24 at Wayne Mays Meat Processing in Taylorsville, PETA has fired off a letter urging the owner to livestream video footage from the facility in order to help prevent workers from mishandling and abusing animals during slaughter. PETA also asked the facility to stop killing animals and switch to butchering only wildlife who’ve been accidentally killed in vehicle collisions. The group points out that the sow cried out after the first two blasts from a .22 Magnum rifle before the third shot ended her suffering.

“Publicly livestreaming slaughter operations—or ending them altogether—would help prevent animals from experiencing agonizing, prolonged deaths,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “PETA is urging Wayne Mays to overhaul its facility immediately and encouraging anyone disturbed by this incident to help keep animals out of slaughterhouses everywhere by going vegan.”

PETA’s motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat,” and the group opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. PETA also asked Wayne Mays what actions it has taken against the staff member responsible for the botched shooting, such as reporting them to local law enforcement and reassigning them to a position that doesn’t involve contact with live animals.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.

PETA’s letter to Jimmy Mays, owner of Wayne Mays Meat Processing, follows.

September 14, 2020

Jimmy Mays

Owner

Wayne Mays Meat Processing, Inc.

Dear Mr. Mays,

Given a U.S. Department of Agriculture report documenting that one of your employees shot a pig in her head three times with a rifle at Wayne Mays Meat Processing on August 24, we ask that you immediately make changes to your operations in order to reduce animal suffering at your slaughterhouse.

In light of the pain and terror that this sow endured, we ask that you seriously consider no longer slaughtering pigs on your kill floor. Rather than risking similar violations in the future, you could focus on minimizing the stress and suffering of the farmed animals you slaughter.

We also ask that you publicly livestream video footage from all areas of your facility where live animals are handled. Your workers would surely take their duty to handle animals lawfully more seriously if they knew that people were watching. The world’s foremost expert on livestock welfare, Dr. Temple Grandin, writes, “Plants that are doing a good job should show what they are doing.” Members of your industry often complain that consumers today don’t understand how animals are raised and killed for food. You could shed light on this subject by allowing the public to observe your workers as they move countless animals—individuals who value their lives—off trucks in all weather extremes, attempt to stun them, slash their throats, and then bleed them to death.

What action, if any, have you taken against your staff member referenced in the federal report? Have you reassigned them to a job that doesn’t involve contact with live animals—such as evisceration, butchering, or packaging—and reported them to your local law-enforcement agency so that they might be investigated for violating North Carolina’s anti-cruelty statute?

Finally, if you want to stay in this kind of business without causing animals to suffer needlessly, you could start exclusively butchering animals killed in collisions with vehicles and legally salvaged by customers who wish to eat their flesh, as state law allows. May we hear from you?

Sincerely,

Daniel Paden

Vice President of Evidence Analysis