Peta Undercover: Sacred and Federal Laws Violated at Iowa Slaughterhouse

What the Experts Say

Select News Coverage

How You Can Help

What the Investigator Saw

Key Documents

Legal Complaints

Photos

Support Our Work

The Iowa secretary of agriculture, chief rabbinate in Israel, and the Orthodox Union weigh in on AgriProcessors. Read their reactions here.

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.

	Watch the five-minute video.
	Watch the full-length video.

Slaughterhouse: Inside the Meat Industry

Free Vegetarian Starter Kit

Intro to Veganism

"Meet Your Meat"

"Chew on This"

Kentucky Fried Cruelty

Vegetarian Recipes

AgriProcessors Investigation—Rubashkin vs. The Experts

Sholom Rubashkin (President of the Plant):

"What you see on the video is not out of the ordinary ďż˝ Nothing wrong was, or is being, done. There is nothing to admit."

However, 100 percent (literally without exception) of animal welfare experts and veterinarians who have been asked for comment have condemned AgriProcessors for its horrific abuse of animals, as have a growing number of rabbis.

Among those calling for AgriProcessors and the Orthodox Union (which certifies AgriProcessors as kosher) to make changes as PETA are the president of The Rabbinical Assembly, the Conservative movement's rabbinic body, and the executive director of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Reform movement's rabbinic body. Together, the Conservative and Reform movements represent 70 percent of American Jewry.

Examples follow (complete statements: http://www.goveg.com/feat/agriprocessors/experts.asp):

President of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative Movement (in a message sent to every Conservative rabbi, representing one-third of Jewish Americans):

"[T]he scenes recorded are not what shehitah should be, nor does it correspond to the Jewish way of treating animals ďż˝ When a company purporting to be kosher violates the prohibition against tza'ar ba'alei hayyim, causing pain to one of God's living creatures, that company must answer to the Jewish community, and ultimately, to God."

Dr. Bernard Rollin, Ph.D., Colorado State University, farmed animal expert

"[W]hat was depicted on this videotape is one of the most atrocious incidents I have ever witnessed. This plant has shown itself unworthy of even minimal trust, and should be closed down."

Dr. Lester Friedlander, D.V.M., former USDA slaughter inspector (including kosher)

"The footage captured by PETA represents the most egregious violation of the USDA Humane Methods of Slaughter Act (HMSA) I have ever witnessed."

Dr. Temple Grandin, Ph.D., kosher slaughter expert, USDA slaughter consultant

"I thought it was the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen. I couldn't believe it. I've been in at least 30 other kosher slaughter plants, and I had never ever seen that kind of procedure done before."

Dr. Chaim Milikowsky, Talmud Scholar, Bar Ilan University, Israel

"It very well may be that any plant performing such types of shechita is guilty of hillul hashem—the desecration of God's name-for to insist that God cares only about his ritual law and not about his moral law is to desecrate His Name."

Rabbi David Rosen, Former Chief Rabbi of Ireland

"I've been in many slaughterhouses in my time, and I've never seen anything like that."

Holly Cheever, D.V.M., large animal veterinarian

"[T]he cattle depicted in this distressing film footage ďż˝ unequivocally and unarguably indicate that the cattle were conscious and suffering an agonal and inhumane death."

Gary Dahl, Representative, USDA slaughterhouse inspector of 21 years

"[T]he suffering of these animals was obvious, as was their consciousness after they had their tracheas removed."

Shimon Cohen, shechita UK (U.K.-based kosher slaughter group)

"I don't know what that is, but it's not shechita."

Rabbi Ezra Raful, Israel's Chief Rabbinate

"You see there, it looks like he ripped out the trachea and esophagus. We do not allow the animal to be touched after the shehita until the main part of the bleeding stops ďż˝"

Rabbi Barry L. Schwartz, Central Conference of American Rabbis' Task Force on Kashrut

"The suffering of these animals during slaughter is sickening. Death is neither quick nor merciful. If this is kosher, then we have a big problem."

Patty Judge, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture

"It's disturbing. Certainly it's nothing I would condone, or any of my meat inspectors or veterinarians would condone."

Rabbi Avrom Pollak, Ph.D., President of Star-K (kosher certification)

"None of the practices seen on the video apply in any places Star-K is associated with."

Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb, Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation

"The abuses in this ostensibly 'kosher' slaughterhouse are sickening ďż˝"

Dr. Brenda Forsythe, M.S., Ph.D., D.V.M., Expert, Large Animal Behavior

"In my expert opinion, turning frightened animals upside down for the convenience of the slaughterer, cutting body parts out of conscious animals, dumping struggling dying animals out of chutes onto a blood soaked kill floor, using electric cattle prods on immobilized animals, and suspending heavy animals by a single limb prior to unconsciousness all result in unnecessary pain, suffering, or distress and are violations of humane slaughtering practices."

Rabbi Joel Rembaum, Temple Beth Am, Los Angeles

"[A]ccording to CJLS [Committee on Jewish Law and Standards] standards, even with the new policies in force by the OU at the Postville plant, the meat that comes from there is not kosher."

Dr. Peggy Larson, D.V.M., M.S., J.D.

"[A]ll aspects of slaughter in this plant are unacceptable and must be corrected, from handling of the animals in the runway to the pen/chute that turns them upside down, to ripping out tracheas in a conscious animal, to dumping them, still conscious, onto the ground. This plant requires full scale change in handling and slaughter."

Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, Executive Vice President, The Orthodox Union

Has said that he found the procedure seen in our investigation footage "especially inhumane" and "generally unacceptable."

What about the statements from the Orthodox Union and other kosher certifiers that back AgriProcessors?

Although AgriProcessors and its attorney, Nathan Lewin, continue to contend that animals who stand up minutes after their throats have been slit, as many of them did in our investigation, are not conscious, none of the kosher certification agencies has backed this notion. Read closely, the kosher agency and Orthodox Union statements are statements in support of kosher slaughter, not what was happening at AgriProcessors. Our reply to these statements is available here: http://www.goveg.com/feat/agriprocessors/responseToOUStatement.asp.