The Truth Behind "The Industry"

“In the summertime, when it's 90, 95 degrees, they're transporting cattle from 1,200 to 1,500 miles away on a trailer, 40 to 45 head crammed in there .... [In the winter], can you imagine if you were in the back of a trailer that's open and the windchill factor is minus 50 degrees, and that trailer is going 50 to 60 miles an hour? The animals are urinating and defecating right in the trailers, and after a while, it's going to freeze, and their hooves are right in it. If they go down—well, you can imagine lying in there for 10 hours on a trip.”  
— Former U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) veterinary inspector Dr. Lester Friedlander.

            The officials of our government need to lobby for stricter regulations of the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) treatment of livestock destined for the slaughterhouse, because the ways that the livestock are currently being treated in slaughterhouses and in transit is, in my opinion, gruesome and inhumane.  

            By the time that the exhausted cows finally reach the slaughterhouse, many of them are too sick or injured to walk. These cows are often referred to as "downers" and have to have ropes or chains tied around their legs so that they can be dragged off the trucks. Then of those animals that arrive at the slaughterhouse that are healthy enough to walk, many of them are frightened and don't want to leave the truck, so to get them off the trucks the animals are shocked repeatedly with electric prods or dragged off with chains. Then once they are unloaded from the trucks they are forced single-file through a chute where they’re shot in the head with a captive-bolt gun to stun them, but because the lines move so quickly and many workers are poorly trained, the technique often fails to render the animals insensible to pain.  Then they are hung upside down by their back feet before they have their throats cut and their heads, skin, and feet removed.

            Ramon Moreno, a longtime slaughterhouse worker, told The Washington Post that he frequently has to cut the legs off completely conscious cows. "They blink. They make noises," he says. "The head moves, the eyes are wide and looking around. … They die piece by piece." And another worker, Martin Fuentes, also told the Post that many animals are still alive and conscious for as long as seven minutes after their throats have been cut. Much like with humans where research was conducted and showed that a human could stay conscious for up to 6 minutes after being beheaded.

            The line is never stopped simply because an animal is alive and because of the speed with which the workers are required to work, animals are routinely skinned while apparently alive, and still blinking, kicking, and shrieking. This is not only cruel to the animals, but also dangerous for the human workers, as cows weighing several thousands of pounds thrashing around in pain are likely to kick out and debilitate anyone working near them.

            Because the industry makes more money the more animals that it kills, any worker who would stop to alert officials to abuses at their slaughterhouse would risk losing their job. The meat industry thrives on a workforce made up largely of impoverished and exploited workers, many of them are immigrants who can’t complain about poor working conditions or cruelty to animals for fear of being deported. And that’s why I feel that it’s the duty of our elected governmental officials to step in and lobby for a change in the treatment of these animals.