An undercover video that showed California cows struggling to
stand as they were prodded to slaughter by forklifts led to the largest
meat recall in U.S. history. In
Vermont,
a video of veal calves skinned alive and tossed like sacks of potatoes
ended with the plant's closure and criminal convictions.
Now in a pushback led by the meat
and poultry industries, state legislators across the country are
introducing laws making it harder for animal welfare advocates to investigate cruelty and food safety cases.
Some bills make it illegal to take photographs at a farming operation. Others make it a crime for someone such as an animal welfare advocate to lie on an application to get a job at a plant.
Bills pending in California, Nebraska and Tennessee require that anyone collecting evidence of abuse turn it over to law enforcement
within 24 to 48 hours — which advocates say does not allow enough time
to document illegal activity under federal humane handling and food
safety laws.
"We believe that folks in the
agriculture community and folks from some of the humane organizations
share the same concerns about animal cruelty,"
said Mike Zimmerman, chief of staff for Assembly Member Jim Patterson,
R-Fresno, whose bill was unveiled this week. "If there's abuse taking
place, there is no sense in letting it continue so you can make a
video."
Patterson's bill, sponsored by the California Cattlemen's
Association, would make failing to turn over video of abuse to law
enforcement within 48 hours an infraction punishable by a fine.
Critics say the bills are an effort to deny consumers the ability to know how their food is produced.
"The meat industry's mantra is
always that these are isolated cases, but the purpose of these bills is
to prevent any pattern of abuse from being documented," said Paul
Shapiro, vice president of farm animal protection for the Humane Society
of the United States, which conducted the California and Vermont investigations.
In Indiana, Arkansas and Pennsylvania it would be a crime to make videos at agricultural operations.
The goal of the proposed California law, industry representatives
say, is to halt any abuses quickly and get video evidence to government
regulators within two days, not to impede undercover investigations by
animal welfare groups.
"The people doing this aren't cops so I wouldn't think it's their job
to build a case. The goal for all of us is to reduce instances of
animal abuse," said David Daley, a Cattlemen vice president and
professor of agricultural science at California State University-Chico.
Formal opposition to the California bill comes from the ASPCA, the Teamsters, the HSUS
and dozens of others. They say these attempts by the agriculture
industry to stop investigations are a part of a nationwide agenda set by
the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative think tank
backed by business interests.
ALEC has labeled those who interfere with animal operations
"terrorists," though a spokesman said he wishes now that the
organization had called its legislation the "Freedom to Farm Act" rather
than the "Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act."
"At the end of the day it's about personal property rights or the
individual right to privacy," said spokesman Bill Meierling. "You
wouldn't want me coming into your home with a hidden camera."
Animal welfare advocates say all of the focus on secrecy is energy misspent.
"I wish the cattlemen actually wanted to stop cruelty, not the
documenting of cruelty," said HSUS California director Jennifer Fearing.
"One could think of a thousand ways for them to actually stop cruelty
rather than waiting for people to make videos and turn them over."
Animal welfare advocates say law enforcement agencies do not have the
time or inclination to work complex animal abuse and food safety cases,
and that federal USDA inspectors in slaughter plants have turned a
blind eye to abuse.
When a USDA inspector at the Vermont plant was heard in 2009 coaching
a plant worker on how to avoid being shut down, U.S. Agriculture
Secretary Tom Vilsack weighed in, calling the conduct "inexcusable."
In reaction to concerns, the USDA has been working to improve
enforcement of its humane handling regulations over the past two years,
including establishing an ombudsman position that accepts reports of
violations. Last year 24 new positions in the Food Safety Inspection
Service were dedicated to humane handling, said a high-ranking food
safety official not authorized to speak publicly.
That hasn't slowed investigations or the bills designed to stop them.
The Arkansas bill goes further than the others and would prohibit
anyone other than law enforcement from investigating animal cases.
Last year Iowa, a major egg-producing state, passed a bill making it
illegal to deny being a member of an animal welfare organization on a
farm job application. Utah passed one that outlaws photography.
Most of the sensational videos of abuse in recent years are shot by
undercover operatives who surreptitiously apply and are hired by the
meat processors for jobs within the facilities. One recorded last year
by Compassion over Killing at Central Valley Meats in Hanford, Calif.
showed a worker standing on a downed dairy cow's nostrils to suffocate
it and others repeatedly shot in the head, prompting several fast-food
hamburger to cancel contracts, at least temporarily.
Animal welfare groups say investigations take weeks because the
operatives nose around only when they aren't performing the duties for
which they were hired.
An HSUS investigator was in the Hallmark plant in Southern California
for six weeks between October and November 2007, when the nonprofit
turned over to the local district attorney evidence that included fraud
in the federal school lunch program because animals too sick to walk
were being slaughtered. In January 2008, HSUS released the video to
force the DA to act. Two employees were convicted of cruelty charges.
Late last year, nine workers at a Wyoming pork processing facility
were charged with animal cruelty after an HSUS video showed them kicking
and tossing piglets and failing to euthanize a sow gravely injured by a
worker while giving birth.
In 2009, HSUS spent 21 days in the Vermont slaughterhouse where male calves born to dairy cows were killed for veal.
"Believe me our investigators would like to be out of there as soon
as possible. They're stoic, they're courageous, but they are not
enjoying their work at all," said Mary Beth Sweetland, director of
investigations for HSUS.
Instead, he was taken into the desert by her boyfriend and another
man and shot three times in the back of the head as part of what
prosecutors said was a plot by Milke and the two other defendants to
collect a $50,000 life insurance policy.
Why
do people turn to cannibalism? There's desperation for food, and there
are the psychotic murders, and… well, in other times and other places,
cannibalism has been used for other purposes, not all of them nefarious.
