Footage of suffering endured by animals on industrialized farms is often only seen if you visit an animal welfare group's web site or YouTube page. On occasion, the footage will make the evening news, such as the Humane Society's undercover videos of workers trying to force downed cows to their feet with forklifts and a hose and water so they can walk to slaughter in its investigation of Hallmark Meat Packing Co.
However, the public will get a look at the horrors of an industrialized pig farm on Monday, March 16, when HBO premieres Death on a Factory Farm. The documentary follows the undercover investigation of Wiles Hog Farm in Creston, Ohio, by The Humane Farming Association (HFA), and the subsequent court case. Among the gory findings of the HFA's investigators: piglets being thrown into crates from across a room, an unhealthy piglet being slammed against a wall to euthanize it, and an ill sow being hung by a chain from a forklift until it choked to death.
What happened at this farm is not unusual. As Gene Baur, the President of Farm Sanctuary often reminds us, bad has become normal on today's factory farms. Gestation crates, which restrict impregnated pigs from being able to turn around, have become the standard. A life lived completely against nature, all to save a few cents.
This film airs at a crucial time: when Americans are turning to cheap food sources, including fast food, in droves, as the economy remains anemic. Yet there is an unseen price tag associated with cheap food, and that price is paid by animals in the forms of unusually cruel confinement to save pennies for their producers; workers, who abandon their humanity; the environment; and our own morality, as we have come to value cheap food at any cost whatsoever.
Resources:
Learn more about the HBO special.
Humane Farming Association
PETA's Top 10 Reasons Not to Eat Pigs.
Thanks for the heads up. I remember this case, and that awful photo of the pig hanging from a chain. I am always for airing dirty laundry when it comes to animal welfare. Animal abuse should never be sugarcoated or hidden from public view. I've narrowed it down to a simple, clear equation. Animal farming is animal abuse.
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell is wrong with Ohio's animal cruelty laws?
ReplyDeleteIs this not america, where we try to be HUMAN and not barbaric, when it comes to ANY practice with animals or humans?
I felt sick when I saw those little piglets having their heads slammed into a concrete wall, only to have them thrown into a rusted out bin, to convulse ans bleed to death.
Is this the best we, as rational humans can do?
Is this respectable and proper?
These hick farmers deserve to have their teenie little balls strung up, while we chuckle at the site.
Would this be crueal and unusual?
I suggest ANYONE who was outraged by this documentary to call the mayor, Paul Weihl at 740-592-3338, and discuss why he did not further prosecute these barbaric farmers from EVER breathing around ANY farm again!!!
SHAME ON YOU MAYOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SHAME ON YOU POLICE FORCE!!!!!!!
SHAME ON YOU OHIO FOR NOT MAKING THIS MATTER STOP ONCE AND FOR ALL!!