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The Iowa secretary of agriculture, chief rabbinate in Israel, and the Orthodox Union weigh in on AgriProcessors. Read their reactions here.
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AgriProcessors workers ignore the suffering of cows who are still sensible to pain after having their throats slit by the ritual slaughterer. The animals stagger and slip in blood while their tracheas dangle from their necks.
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Statement of Holly Cheever, DVM,
Large Animal Veterinarian
November 30, 2004:
To whom it may concern:
I have been asked by People for the Ethical treatment of Animals (PETA) to review a tape labeled �kosher slaughter� in order to give my professional opinion, as a practicing veterinarian with a food animal production background, as to whether the cattle, turkey, and chickens filmed therein were conscious and suffering during the process of their slaughter. The plant, which is not identified, uses the kosher method.
To introduce myself, my degrees include an A.B. from Harvard University (�71, summa cum laude) and a D.V.M. from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University (1980), from which I graduated with a class rank of #1. I started my professional career as a dairy practitioner in Cortland County, a leading dairy region in upstate New York, having spent my veterinary school summers milking cattle on a Vermont dairy. Presently, I care for a small herd of cattle on my farm near Albany, NY. I have watched cattle die from a barbiturate overdose, from the use of firearms, from cardiopulmonary failure, from meningitis, and also from stunning and slaughter in a slaughterhouse. Therefore, I am well qualified to discuss the behaviors of the cattle depicted in this distressing film footage, which unequivocally and unarguably indicate that the cattle were conscious and suffering an agonal and inhumane death.
The film is approximately 30 minutes in length, the majority of which focuses on the cattle�s death with a final few scenes of poultry processing. The many �incidents� (as they are called and numbered) show the slaughter process to consist of the following: the cattle are put, one by one, in a restraint device while standing. The restraint is rotated 180 degrees along the horizontal axis so that the animal, still aware and alert and fully conscious, is held upside down on its back. The underside of the neck is hosed down with a jet of water, and the shochet comes with a large knife and saws through the skin, trachea, and great vessels (jugular veins and carotid arteries) in the middle of the neck. Blood spurts forth, indicating the high blood pressure of the terrified and immobilized animal. A second man takes a second knife to cut free the above-named structures, and then grasps them to tear them out of the body from the lower end; they remain attached at the upper throat in the still-conscious and pain-sensing animal. The cow or steer finally is released from the restraint apparatus when the floor and side drop out from underneath them, and they roll onto the floor which is drenched and slick with large volumes of blood. Finally, the animal is shackled with a chain around its hind leg (hock) and is elevated, hind limb first, off the floor.
There is overwhelming and incontrovertible evidence that the majority of the cattle shown in these many incidents are fully conscious as they are dumped from the apparatus. Some actually make conscious, directional attempts to escape (e.g. #21 and #40: #21 actually manages to walk and crawl through a doorway, away from the killing area). Some try to escape through the front of the restraint apparatus after their throats are cut and before they are dumped out (#28, #30, #25). While on the floor, many make very conscious attempts to stand and crawl forward, even with repeated attempts, but can�t due to the slippery bloody floor and their failing strength. Their thrashing is desperate and clearly directed at attempts to rise (#21, 28, 30, 34, 35, 40, 24, 26, 45, 43, etc.), rather than the uncoordinated random neuromuscular firing of a dead animal. Others are too weak and in shock to attempt to stand, but struggle to right themselves and to adopt a sternal (i.e. lying on the chest) position with head thrusts and attempts to roll upright (#28, 26, 27, 25, 43, etc). Some clearly react to stimuli: #42 startles in response to a blow from a worker, #43 resists the repeated attempts of a worker to push him/her over and re-rights himself/herself each time. Even more disturbing than the actual evidence of their consciousness is the length of time it can persist: #21 is still clearly alive after 3 minutes as the shackle is attached to its leg, and #32 who lies immobile for one and a half minutes, then tries to struggle into the sternal position after almost 2 minutes.
The final footage shows a man identified as the shochet idly kicking blood into the faces of the cattle lying conscious on the killing floor (#7, 4) and a worker prodding the face of an animal in the restraint chute. Since there is no purpose in the slaughter process for either the kicking of the blood or the beating on the face, these acts seem like random acts of cruelty. Last, we see a turkey who escaped off the processing line who is lying alive on the floor (#1) and 2 chickens caught in the conveyor belt, crushed but alive (#22, 9).
In conclusion, it is my professional opinion that these animals as cited above showed clear evidence of consciousness and therefore would experience terror, pain, and extreme suffering, some for as long as 3 minutes, after their throats are cut. They would smell and be terrified by the large volumes of blood everywhere�walls, clothing, floors. Those that are still conscious as they are shackled and raised experience the further pain of having their skulls strike the floor as they are jerked upwards. Those that are still conscious on the floor when the apparatus dumps the next victim out next to them feel the terror of seeing a dying and agonal conspecific. This method of slaughter as depicted on this tape is brutal and should be amended to provide for a humane end for these animals.
Sincerely,
Holly Cheever, DVM
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