This Little Piggy Went to the Market…
All bloody, sick, abused, neglected.
The German Society for the Protection of Animals, an equivalent to the ASPCA, discovered shocking and horrendous conditions at several pig farms which supply “Westfleisch”, one of the top five meat producers in Europe, with pork. More than 3,000 operations provide Westfleisch with over eight million pigs per year for killing.
A team of undercover researchers did months-long investigations and provided the German Society for the Protection of Animals with many hours of video documentation as well as still-photos showing serious abuse and severe violations of animal protection laws. Seven different suppliers were chosen, but the Animal Protection Society claims that similar conditions exist at most of the pig farms. Animals were injured but didn’t receive any veterinary care. They don’t get any fresh straw but live in their own waste, in tiny crates. Some animals are sick but are left to themselves until they die. There were dead animals lying around the living ones, dead piglets in freezers.
It’s hard to read about this and even worse to see the pictures. If you want to learn more about this horrific scandal please visit the German Society for Animal Protection; although it’s written in German, the images speak for themselves.
I’m bringing this up because the undercover researchers got immediate attention from TV and the press: magazines like Der Spiegel, renowned newspapers such as Süddeutsche Zeitung, and major TV stations (for example, ARD [Federation of Germany's Public Radio/TV Stations]) reported extensively about the abusive treatment of the pigs. Criminal charges against Westfleisch followed immediately, and the company contritely stated that they would look into the alleged abuses and remedy them quickly.
Reading this made me curious about what would happen in the United States if similarly shocking conditions would be discovered. Would TV stations report about it, would lawsuits be filed against factory farms? Pardon this rhetorical questioning where the answer is a resounding NO. You may have heard of ag-gag laws – legislation which is designed to penalize whistleblowers who investigate and reveal animal abuses on industrial farms. That’s right, who is being punished is not the abuser but the person who reports the abuse. This twisted logic is possible because animals are considered “things” and property before the law. While companion animals such as cats and dogs receive some legal protection from cruel treatment, farmed animals and animals used in laboratories are often excluded from state animal protection laws. And the lobby for industrial meat producers couldn’t care less about animals’ feelings; what matters is financial profit.
Many states tried to pass anti-whistleblower legislation, but in most cases such laws were struck down as unconstitutional because they violate the First Amendment. The states that have passed ag-gag laws, although they keep being challenged in courts, are: Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, North Carolina, and Utah. In these states, activists who secretly film animal abuse on commercial farms face jail time and steep fines. A list of 2021 state laws and bills can be found here.
In addition, there is the eco-terrorist legislation: The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines Eco-terrorism as "the use or threatened use of violence of a criminal nature against people or property by an environmentally-oriented, sub national group for environmental-political reasons, or aimed at an audience beyond the target, often of a symbolic nature."1 The main targets of the FBI were members of the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front, decentralized organizations that promote non-violent action against animal cruelty and the destruction of the environment. While neither of these two groups was ever responsible for the death of a person, they are considered to be eco-terrorists because they have destroyed property. Because of that, they are classified as far-left and were called in 2004 “the FBI’s highest domestic terrorism investigative priority”.2 It is hardly surprising that ALEC – an organization for conservative state legislators and private sector representatives – were involved with the model legislation for eco-terrorism.3 The Intercept, an award-winning investigative news organization, asked in 2019 How a movement that never killed anyone became the FBI's No.1 domestic terrorism threat, although out of 70 federal prosecutions of animal rights activists and environmentalists 52 didn’t result in any charges. And Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept’s co-founder (he resigned in 2020 because he felt censored by the current editors) wrote a long article about the barbaric conditions at factory farms. The FBI actively covers this up, Greenwald claims, because they were hunting down some activists who rescued two piglets they found which were almost dead when they had entered a Smithfield Foods-owned factory farm. They filmed the horrible conditions in which the pigs were bred before they were slaughtered. When they saw the piglets, the activists felt morally obliged to rescue them and take them to an animal sanctuary where they were treated by a veterinarian and nursed back to health. According to the FBI, this was a crime.
China-owned Smithfield Foods is the largest pig- and pork producer in the world and is the equivalent of German producer Westfleisch in terms of abuse and violations to animal protection laws. They kill about 30 million pigs every year which is close to 82,200 EVERY DAY. Santa Fe, the state capital of New Mexico where I live, has a population of 87,505 as of 2020. Just let this sink in: a number close to the entire population of a major US city is the number of pigs killed every day. And what is worse is the way these poor pigs have to LIVE before they're slaughtered.
Here is a summary by PETA about what goes on at Smithfield Foods, and here is a personal account by somebody who used to work there.
Pigs are highly intelligent creatures, similar to dogs, chimpanzees, elephants, dolphins, even humans. They form loving relationships, especially mother pigs who have a strong bond with their piglets. They enjoy roaming around and foraging for their food. Domestic pigs can live up to 20 years, and some have been reported to be even older. The reality in a factory farm doesn’t offer any of this. They’re crammed together in barren enclosures with solid floors. Mother pigs are kept in gestation crates during pregnancy where they can barely move. After they give birth, they’re moved to farrowing crates (steel cages) which also severely restrict their movements so that they can see, but not properly care for their babies. Painful procedures that mutilate the piglets – tail docking and castration – are performed without anesthetics. Mother pigs are kept alive for about six gestation periods, after which they’ll be killed.
Animal welfare groups fight continuously to improve the conditions of these poor pigs on factory farms. Often, the food industry will announce some improvements; however, the ag-gag laws protect factory farms from whistleblowers speaking out. Which means they can say whatever they want, and they think they can get away with it. This is unacceptable. There are things we can do: not eating animals or using animal products is of course one of them, but there is more. Here in New Mexico for example we have Animal Protection Voters, a nonprofit organization that is actively working with state legislation to pass laws that protect animals. They encourage people to show up for hearings to make their voices heard, and before any elections they publish recommendations for state legislators based on their prior records concerning animal well-being. I’m sure every state has something similar. It’s a great way to get involved with animal rights, and to achieve results.
Thanks for pointing out the cognitive dissonance from people who think young dogs and cats are cute and sacred, but young pigs and goat are food to be killed without remorse. Even after pointing out, the mental gymnastics they perform to justify it, is just sad. Why is this so hard to understand? I just don't get it.
It truly saddens me that people put their taste for bacon above the welfare and life of a living animal...