Archive: Farmed Animals

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) have petitioned the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to amend the US animal export regulations to include “fitness to travel” requirements for all farmed animals exported to any foreign country except those traveling overland to Canada or Mexico. AWI and WSPA are recommending that the USDA adopt the fitness requirements included in the animal transport standards of the World Organisation for Animal Health (or “OIE”).

Live animal exports from the US have increased dramatically. In 2010, the number of beef and dairy cattle exported to countries other than Canada and Mexico more than quadrupled over the previous year. Exports are projected to remain high in the coming years, with a majority of cattle going to the Eurasian countries of Turkey, Russia and Kazakhstan.

While some exported animals are flown to their destination, others are subjected to ocean journeys that can last weeks. During transport, many stressful experiences—including inadequate ventilation, noise, motion sickness and heat stress—severely impact animal welfare and make the animals more susceptible to illness and disease.

“Mortality is known to be much higher in lengthy sea transport than in domestic truck transport,” says AWI farm animal program manager Dena Jones. “We recommend that no animals be transported such long distances, but if they are, it is critical that only fit animals make the journey.”

Unfit animals include those unable to stand or bear weight on all four legs, are blind in both eyes, have unhealed wounds, are extremely young, or are pregnant and in the final stage of gestation. “Some births have occurred during recent shipments of dairy cattle, which suggests that USDA inspectors are not following the OIE’s internationally-recognized fitness requirements,” says Sharanya Prasad, US programs manager for WSPA.

Many countries that export live animals to the US have already enacted fitness to travel standards. The groups say implementation of such requirements by the US will help harmonize national laws pertaining to international transports, reduce animal suffering, and protect both human and animal health.

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) is encouraging grocery store and restaurant chains to monitor the animal welfare record of their meat suppliers and refuse to deal with any company that repeatedly violates humane standards. In a letter to retailers, AWI president Cathy Liss urged retailers to not do business with companies on AWI’s list of repeat offenders of the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, the federal law regulating the treatment of animals in slaughterhouses.

“Consumers are increasingly aware that they hold the power to impact animals’ lives through their food choices, and they want retailers to only offer products from humanely treated animals,” said Liss. “Until now, unless a retailer conducted its own audits, it had little or no information about a producer’s animal welfare record to help the retailer make purchasing decisions. AWI is now making that information available to retailers and consumers alike.”

To assist in assessing the welfare record of a meat supplier, AWI has created a list of all slaughter establishments that have been suspended by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for violations of the humane slaughter law. Plant suspension is one of the most serious enforcement actions the USDA can take and typically occurs in response to an egregious incident. In some cases, the suspension list provides a link to actual enforcement documents, obtained from the USDA through the Freedom of Information Act.

Examples of repeat offenders of the humane slaughter law include a large Minnesota plant with 18 noncompliance records and three suspensions within an eight-month period and a very small North Carolina plant with six suspensions in 18 months. Violations include using an electric prod to shock a pig multiple times on the face, beating and kicking a disabled pig, chaining and hoisting a still-conscious steer, and shooting a bull with a firearm a total of five times before rendering the animal unconscious.

“Retailers should strive to provide high-quality, sustainable and socially responsible products for their customers, and that means only offering meat from animals that have been humanely raised and slaughtered,” added Dena Jones, farm animal program manager for AWI. “Unfortunately, the treatment of animals on the farm is not currently regulated in the US—but slaughter is regulated and a meat company’s humane slaughter record should inform retailer procurement decisions.”

Last week the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) began posting on the agency’s website letters sent to slaughter plants found to be in violation of federal regulations governing the humane handling and slaughter of animals.

Most of the records posted are notifications of plant suspension for egregious inhumane treatment of animals. For example, one notice of suspension involves an incident where an animal was shot 10 times before being properly stunned for slaughter. In other cases, a truck driver was seen kicking a lamb during unloading, and a plant worker was observed repeatedly using an electric prod on a downed cow who was unable to stand and walk to slaughter.

In August 2010 the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) submitted a petition to FSIS requesting that humane slaughter records be made available to the public, and in February 2011 AWI repeated the request in an appeal of the agency’s delay in providing humane slaughter enforcement records through the Freedom of Information Act.

“We commend the USDA for taking this step toward greater efficiency and transparency,” said Dena Jones, Farm Animal Program Manager for AWI. “Posting of humane slaughter records serves several purposes including educating consumers regarding how animals may be treated at slaughter so they can make informed choices and encouraging compliance by slaughter establishments with humane handling and slaughter regulations.”

The humane handling enforcement records can be accessed on the FSIS section of the USDA website. In addition to this new resource, AWI maintains an online listing of all federal slaughterhouses that have been issued a suspension, or threatened suspension, for inhumane treatment of animals since January 1, 2008.

FSIS has also responded favorably to AWI’s request to make available online its Humane Handling Quarterly Report, which reveals the number of hours inspection personnel spent performing humane handling procedures, and the number of plants suspended from production due to humane handling violations.

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) today requested a USDA Inspector General audit of the USDA Process Verified Program, which certifies some products as “humanely raised” when in fact they come from animals suffering on conventional, industrial farming operations.

AWI’s request for an audit of the Process Verified Program is based on Humanewashed, its investigative report on the Process Verified labeling scheme. The report exposes the use by conventional producers of the Process Verified label to imply that the USDA has certified their use of “humane” animal raising practices, even though there is no federal definition of the term “humane.” In fact, companies decide independently what to call “humane,” and the USDA merely verifies that the company follows its own arbitrary standards. Under such a scheme, a company need not make any actual concessions to animal welfare, yet still receive the USDA “Process Verified” seal for welfare claims and sell this to consumers.

The report focuses on claims made by Perdue Farms and Sparboe Farms, poultry companies whose animal care standards maximize productivity and sacrifice the birds’ ability to express their natural behaviors as a result of intensive indoor confinement. Americans were shocked last fall when an investigation of Sparboe uncovered the company’s deplorable animal welfare practices. Certain large retailers stopped purchasing Sparboe eggs following the investigation, and the FDA cited the company for thirteen serious violations of food safety laws. AWI has learned that these violations were found during FDA audits of Sparboe facilities that occurred within days of PVP audits in which USDA auditors recorded no problems.

“The American people rely on the federal government to verify the truth and accuracy of the labels on their food,” AWI president Cathy Liss said in requesting a review of the program. “The Process Verified Program betrays the public’s trust by putting a USDA ‘humane’ certification on products from animals raised in a manner that no reasonable consumer would consider humane.”

Liss added: “Consumers of chicken, beef, pork and eggs cannot easily verify how the animals used to produce these products were treated, and for most, labels are the only source of information about how the animals were raised. The Process Verified Program allows companies to exploit consumers by duping them into believing that animals were treated humanely when in reality they were suffering on factory farms.”

A briefing for Members of Congress and their staff on the need to pass the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA), hosted by the Animal Welfare Institute, the ASPCA, and The Humane Society of the United States. A veterinarian and farmers will discuss the negative impacts of the misuse of antibiotics on animals and the need for action.

WHO:
Michael Blackwell, DVM, MPH: Previously dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tennessee; deputy director for the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine; vice chair of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production; chief of staff of the Office of the Surgeon General of the United States; and a veterinarian in private practice, Blackwell is president and CEO of Blackwell Consulting, LLC and administrator of the Young-Williams Animal Center in Knoxville, Tenn.

Will Witherspoon: Linebacker for the Tennessee Titans. Witherspoon raises grass-fed cattle at the Shire Gate Farm, an Animal Welfare Approved certified farm, using sustainable techniques that nearly eliminate the need for antibiotics.

Frank Reese: Raises heritage poultry on pasture in Kansas as part of the Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch cooperative. Reese does not administer sub-therapeutic antibiotics.

WHEN:                    
Tuesday, July 24, 2012; 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m.

WHERE:                             
The United States Capitol Visitor Center
Meeting Room South
East Capitol Street, NE and 1st Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002

Background:  
An estimated 80 percent of all antimicrobials sold in the United States today are being used to counteract the consequences of confining farm animals in overcrowded, stressful and unsanitary conditions, as well as to speed the animals’ growth. A direct link has been demonstrated between this use and the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria “superbugs” that affect the health of both animals and people.

The Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA) was introduced in the House by Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-NY, Congress’s only microbiologist, and in the Senate by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Susan Collins, R-Maine. PAMTA would phase out the routine non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in farm animals to promote growth and prevent diseases associated with poor animal husbandry systems, in order to maintain the effectiveness of these drugs for treating sick people and animals.

Honorary Hosts: Reps. Louise Slaughter, D-NY, and Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill.

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and Compassion in World Farming are calling on the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to take immediate action following reports that 400 pregnant cattle among a total of 3,900 cattle being transported by ship from the United States to Russia have died en route. The groups are urging USDA to thoroughly investigate the incident and take all necessary steps to prevent a similar occurrence in the future.

Last week Compassion in World Farming received complaints from a Gibraltar supporter that the ship, called the Pearl of Para, was crammed with cattle and had docked temporarily on July 30. The supporter raised concerns because the ship reportedly smelled “awful.” The ship was on its way to Russia.

Accounts of the incident suggest that the animals may have suffocated on ammonia fumes due to a breakdown in manure removal and ventilation systems with no back-up system in place. U.S. regulations require that vessels transporting animals for export have spare motors and fans available on board for each type of motor or fan used, in order to facilitate replacement or repair of the ventilation system if any malfunction occurs during the voyage.

To animal welfare advocates familiar with this type of disaster, an occurrence involving US cattle was inevitable. Cattle exports from the United States have expanded rapidly in the past two years, as countries like Turkey, Russia, and Kazakhstan try to establish breeding herds. According to USDA, last year approximately 100,000 animals—many of them pregnant dairy cattle—left from the east coast on voyages to Europe and Asia lasting more than two weeks. During transport, many stressful experiences—including inadequate ventilation, noise, motion sickness, and heat stress—severely impact animal welfare and make the animals more susceptible to illness and disease.

“We don’t know how many animals become sick or injured or, as happened in this case, die on these voyages,” said Dena Jones, farm animal program manager for AWI. “The suffering involved in the suffocation of 400 animals must be immense and shouldn’t be tolerated by the people or their governments on either side of the Atlantic.”

“This tragedy illustrates that it is impossible to ensure the health and welfare of animals on such long journeys. Cramming pregnant cows onto a ship for days on end is downright inhumane and unacceptable,” said Leah Garces, USA director for Compassion in World Farming. “We hope USDA will take a long hard look at this incident and realize that is no justification for these nightmarish journeys.”

In early 2011, AWI and the World Society for the Protection of Animals—aware of the expanding trade in live animals from the United States—petitioned USDA to revise federal animal export regulations to include animal “fitness to travel” criteria. To date, USDA has not responded to the petition.

Many food labels are confusing—and some downright misleading—especially with regard to animal welfare claims. To help navigate the confusion, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) has released A Consumer’s Guide to Food Labels and Animal Welfare. The new guide aims to help consumers who purchase meat, dairy and eggs interpret the meaning of label claims and locate products from animals who were humanely raised and handled.

AWI’s label guide defines the most common claims related to farm animal welfare and places them into one of three categories.

• Certified Labels (such as “Animal Welfare Approved,” “Certified Humane,” and “USDA Organic”) are defined by a formal set of publicly available animal care standards, and compliance with those standards is verified by a third-party audit. Consumers should look for these labels.
• Unverified Claims (such as “cage free,” “free range,” and “pasture raised”) are relevant to animal welfare but the standards are vague and/or weak, and compliance isn’t verified by an independent audit. While not as reliable as certified labels, consumers should choose these products over products without any welfare claims.
• Meaningless or Misleading Claims (such as “natural,” “no added hormones” when used on poultry or pork, and “cage free” when used on meat chicken or turkey) are meaningless or misleading in terms of animal welfare. Consumers should avoid products with these claims.

When consumers in a survey by Demeter Communications were asked what they would like to know about food production that they didn’t currently know, more than two-thirds said they wanted to know what farmers are doing to ensure animal care. In another survey commissioned by the US Farmers and Ranchers Alliance, 70 percent of consumers said their food purchasing decisions are influenced by how food is grown or raised. However, while consumers want this information, they are not currently receiving it from package labels—the preferred source of information for a large majority of shoppers. For example, only 2 percent of consumers responding to a survey conducted for AWI were able to correctly identify the definition of “natural” when used on meat products.

“The welfare of animals raised for food is important to consumers and is increasingly a strong consideration in buying food,” said Dena Jones, AWI’s farm animal program manager. “Unfortunately, few people outside the food industry and US Department of Agriculture understand the meaning of the various claims used on packaging. This guide helps consumers decipher label claims and make decisions consistent with their values regarding how animals raised for food should be treated.”

The guide is available in both pocket-sized and full-length versions.

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) are urging the Russian Federation to suspend imports of cattle by sea from the United States. This request from animal welfare organizations follows an incident in August in which more than 1,000 out of 3,400 breeding dairy cattle from one US shipment died en route to Russia or had to be euthanized upon arrival due to their extremely poor condition.

Initial reports indicate that the incident may have been caused by a breakdown in manure removal and ventilation systems on the Pearl of Para, the vessel transporting the cattle. According to a statement by the Russian Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance, 178 animals died on board; 59 more died during transport to the farms of destination; 160 died during the quarantine period on the farms; 180 were emergency slaughtered, and another 665 were expected to be emergency slaughtered due to extreme ill health.

Another 195 animals were not accepted at port and remained on the vessel to be returned to the United States. As far as CIWF and AWI are aware, this ship did not return to the US and the location, health and welfare of these cattle remains unanswered. Furthermore, the organizations have  learned of an additional shipment of cattle from the United States that left in early September  and is due to arrive in the Russian Federation this week.

Leah Garces, USA Director for Compassion in World Farming said,” How the United States could send yet another shipment of pregnant cattle, when they haven’t even answered for the deaths of over a 1,000 animals from the last shipment, is unfathomable. This is a cruel and unnecessary trade and we are calling on the Russian Federation to suspend all trade of cattle by sea with the United States. “

In her letter to Nikolai Fyodorov, Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, AWI president Cathy Liss said, “We fear further animal suffering and loss of life if strong action is not taken,” and asked the Ministry to immediately suspend imports of cattle from the United States by sea.

Photos accompanying the Russian officials’statement depict thin, dead or dying cattle lying in several inches of filth next to empty feed or water containers. Russian veterinary officials claim that the United States is not in compliance with international standards for the transport of animals by sea and that “extremely grave deficiencies in animal safety” have been identified in shipments of live animals from the United States that resulted in injury and death. Although the incident at issue occurred six weeks ago, US Department of Agriculture Veterinary Services—the program responsible for inspecting animals and the oceangoing vessels used to export them—has yet to provide any explanation for the deaths.

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) has submitted a petition to the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) requesting that the agency write regulations designed to decrease the needless suffering of animals during slaughter. AWI is asking that FSIS require all slaughter establishments to create and implement a comprehensive, written animal handling plan. AWI further requests that FSIS make other changes to the regulations to address some of the most frequent causes of inhumane handling and slaughter incidents, by requiring that all workers who have contact with animals be trained in humane handling, that stunning equipment be routinely tested and maintained, and that backup stunning devices be available in both the stunning and holding areas of every slaughter plant.

AWI’s petition is based on its review of more than 1,000 humane slaughter violations occurring at state and federally inspected slaughter plants from 2007 through 2012. AWI received records describing the incidents in response to more than one hundred Freedom of Information Act requests submitted to USDA and state departments of agriculture.

Eight years after USDA recommended that all slaughter establishments take a systematic approach to humane slaughter by developing a comprehensive, written animal handling plan, only 35 percent of federally inspected plants—and very few state inspected plants—had developed these plans. At present, USDA considers the development of a plan for handling and slaughtering animals to be at the discretion of the individual plants, and such a plan is typically not required until after one or more egregious incident has occurred, if at all. “It is disturbing that slaughterhouses are allowed to kill animals without having such a plan in place,” said Cathy Liss, president of AWI. “It is equally unacceptable that untrained employees are allowed to handle and slaughter the animals, and that routine testing of equipment used to stun animals is not required.”

Nearly 35 years have passed since USDA last amended its regulations for the purpose of making slaughter more humane. During that time, tens of thousands of incidents of inhumane slaughter have been observed and documented by inspection personnel. An analysis of some of these incidents by AWI identified a number of specific causes that occur with alarming frequency. “The common-sense amendments requested in the AWI petition address these reoccurring causes of inhumane handling and could significantly reduce the amount of needless suffering experienced by animals during slaughter,” said Liss.

Today, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and Farm Sanctuary, working with the Animal Law Clinic at Lewis & Clark Law School, petitioned the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) to develop regulations governing the handling of chickens, turkeys, and other birds at slaughter. The petition calls for FSIS to write regulations to address bird handling and slaughter practices that result in adulterated products, as is the agency’s duty under the Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA).

The PPIA defines “adulterated” to include products from birds which have died by means other than by slaughter, or if the product is unhealthy or unwholesome. Under its authority to regulate adulterated products, FSIS condemns or downgrades poultry products from birds with bruises and other bodily injuries—which often result from inhumane handling. Birds in slaughter plants may be subjected to intentional acts of cruelty by workers, including being kicked, hit, mutilated, driven over, or killed by an unauthorized, inhumane method. Improper stunning or cutting can further lead to birds entering the scalding tank while still alive and dying by drowning.

In 2005, after the exposure of incidents of intentional cruelty at some US poultry plants, FSIS acknowledged the connection between inhumane handling and slaughter of birds and adulteration. It instructed the industry to handle birds in accordance with “good commercial practices,” on the basis that birds who have been treated humanely are less likely to be bruised or to die other than by slaughter. About that time, FSIS in-plant inspectors and humane slaughter experts began conducting Good Commercial Practices (GCP) reviews, and citing plants in official reports and memorandums for any observed violations.

FSIS failed to define “good commercial practices” in regulation, however, and enforcement of its humane handling requirements has been infrequent and uneven among FSIS field offices. For example, only 21 percent of federal poultry plants received a formal GCP review from an agency humane slaughter veterinarian during a recent 18-month period, according to records received through the Freedom of Information Act. Moreover, there was no documentation of humane handling activities of any kind at approximately half of all federal poultry plants during that period.

“Chickens and turkeys represent more than 98 percent of slaughtered land animals, and the way they are treated would shock the conscience of any kind person,” said Bruce Friedrich, senior policy director at Farm Sanctuary. “They are routinely boiled alive, thrown alive into trash bins, driven over with fork lifts, and more—we’re asking USDA to create binding regulations to prohibit this abuse.”

“FSIS has identified inhumane handling of birds as a cause of adulterated poultry products, which they are obligated by law to address,” said Dena Jones, AWI farm animal program manager. “Without appropriate regulations, good commercial practices will not be consistently implemented by the industry or enforced by agency inspection personnel—and birds will suffer as a result.”