Feds See Pig Punched at Slaughterhouse; PETA Seeks Kill-Floor Cameras
For Immediate Release:
March 16, 2022
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Following a federal report documenting that an employee at Stoney Point Butchery near Littlestown repeatedly punched a pig in the neck and face with a closed fist while the animal attempted to escape the blows, PETA fired off a letter today to the company’s president, Kristin Chrismer, urging her to stop slaughtering pigs. The group is also calling on her to livestream video from inside the slaughterhouse in order to help prevent workers from mishandling and abusing animals of other species the company kills.
“As if the journey to slaughter weren’t terrifying enough, this bully of a slaughterhouse worker repeatedly punched a helpless pig in the neck and face,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “PETA is calling for Stoney Point Butchery to help protect animals from egregious abuse by publicly livestreaming slaughter operations and urging anyone disturbed by this incident to go vegan.”
PETA has also asked Stoney Point Butchery to report the worker who abused the pig to local law enforcement and permanently reassign him to a position that doesn’t involve contact with live animals.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
PETA’s letter to Chrismer follows.
March 16, 2022
Kristin Chrismer
President
Stoney Point Butchery Inc.
Dear Ms. Chrismer:
Given the recent U.S. Department of Agriculture report detailing how one of your employees repeatedly punched a pig in the neck and face while the animal attempted to escape the blows, we ask that you immediately improve operations at Stoney Point Butchery Inc. and reduce animal suffering at your slaughterhouse.
In light of the egregious pain and terror that your employee inflicted on this pig in violation of federal law, won’t you please stop slaughtering pigs? Rather than risk further, similar violations, you could focus on minimizing the stress and suffering of the other farmed animals you slaughter.
Will you please publicly livestream video from all areas of your facility where live animals are handled? Workers might take their duty to handle animals lawfully more seriously if they knew that caring people were watching. As the world’s foremost expert on livestock welfare, Dr. Temple Grandin, writes, “Plants [t]hat are doing a good job should show what they are doing.” Your industry often complains that today’s consumers do not understand how animals are raised and killed for food. You could improve understanding by enabling us to observe your workers moving countless individual animals—who value their lives as we value ours—off crowded trucks in all types of weather, attempting to stun them, slashing or sticking their throats, and bleeding them to death.
At the very least, will you permanently reassign the worker referenced in the federal report to a job that does not involve contact with any live animals—such as evisceration, butchering, or packaging—and report him to your local law-enforcement agency to be investigated for apparently violating Pennsylvania’s anti-cruelty statute?
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Colin Henstock
Assistant Manager of Investigations
