Investigation Sought After Cow Shot in Head Three Times at Slaughterhouse

PETA Cites Federal Report Showing That Blasts Left Animal Bleeding With Hole in Skull

For Immediate Release:
August 30, 2017

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Armed with a damning U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) record, PETA sent a letter this morning calling on the state attorney for Glades County to investigate Gray’s and Danny’s Investment, Inc., and, as appropriate, file criminal charges against the slaughterhouse worker who failed to stun a cow properly—subjecting the animal to three captive-bolt blasts to the head.

According to the USDA document, on August 14 an inspector witnessed a worker improperly place a captive-bolt gun against a cow’s head and fire two failed shots. The animal was left “bleeding from the forehead, moving his eyes” and “breathing heav[ily]” until a second worker finally stunned him with a third captive-bolt blast. The bungled stunning attempts left a large hole in the cow’s skull, and PETA notes that the incident may violate Florida’s cruelty-to-animals statute, which makes it a crime to “torment[] … or unnecessarily mutilate[] … any animal.”

“PETA is calling for a criminal investigation of Gray’s and Danny’s Investment, which allowed a cow to endure the agony of multiple bolt blasts to the head,” says PETA Senior Vice President of Cruelty Investigations Daphna Nachminovitch. “There’s no difference between the pain and terror that this cow felt and how dogs or cats would feel if they had multiple shots fired into their skulls.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that animals have the same central nervous system and sense of self-preservation as humans and that the only way to prevent cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals from suffering in slaughterhouses is to go vegan.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.