First Ever Exposé into Cows Killed for CFL Footballs: PETA Calls for Switch to Synthetics

For Immediate Release:
August 14, 2025

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Today, PETA is releasing undercover footage filmed inside an Ohio slaughterhouse that supplies leather for Wilson’s official CFL footballs and which shows terrified cows watching wide-eyed as their herd mates are shot in the head, hung up, skinned, and sawn apart. The disturbing footage shows one cow trying to escape the kill pen in vain, and another staring fearfully for over nine minutes as a cow just a few feet away is raised off the floor by her feet and cut to pieces.

The footage was taken at Rodabaugh Bros Meats, whose owner was caught on PETA’s video bragging to PETA’s investigator that he gets to “kill things”—and it reveals multiple violations of Canadian government and veterinary guidelines, including:

·        A slaughterer using a captive bolt gun to the back of the head to stun the cows, in violation of slaughterhouse guidelines put forth by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which states, “Do not stun from the top of the head or behind the ears [emphasis original],” which can lead to stunning failures and “result in extreme suffering for the … animal.”

·        Forcing cows to watch the slaughter and dismembering of other cows violates best practices and guidelines from the North American Meat Institute and the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA), which states that “methods employed must minimize fear, pain, distress and suffering.”

PETA notes that other outdoor professional sports, including the highest levels of soccer and rugby, prefer synthetic balls for their consistent performance, especially in adverse weather conditions, and that CFL footballs already have synthetic bladders, laces, stitching, and embossed textures. A league rule currently stipulates the balls’ casing must be made of animal leather, requiring thousands of cows to be killed annually.

In a letter to the new CFL Commissioner Stewart Johnston—whose signature appears on the CFL ball—PETA Vice President Philip Schein, a Toronto native, writes: “Imagine the cows’ terror as their acute sense of smell detects the blood, and as they see their herd mates being slaughtered in front of them, realizing that’s what’s about to happen to them next.”

PETA is also sending a letter to Wilson urging it to solely manufacture synthetic footballs.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.