I know a lot of people were really angry about the Vick dog fighting issue. Does ths make you as angry? Should these people have the full weight of the law thrown at them too? If they should be prosecuted, what should the sentence be? North Carolina Slaughterhouse Workers Fired for Brutally Abusing Pigs Saturday , December 22, 2007 By Catherine Donaldson-Evans FC1 ADVERTISEMENT Workers at a North Carolina slaughterhouse caught on hidden camera brutally abusing pigs have been fired. Several employees of Murphy Family Ventures, which owns pig-breeding farms that supply the country's largest pork producer Smithfield Foods, were filmed by an undercover investigator from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) dragging and beating swine, gouging out their eyes and castrating their babies without painkillers. Click here to see the video A supervisor was also taped admitting to violently mistreating the pigs. "Non-conformances to the company's animal welfare policy were found," Don Butler of Smithfield's livestock subsidiary Murphy-Brown LLC (a different company from Murphy Family Ventures) wrote in an e-mail to PETA that was supplied to FOXNews.com. "Appropriate actions have been taken, including termination of those who violated the policy." All existing and future employees will also be forced to sign contracts promising not to abuse animals, according to PETA. It wasn't known how many workers were fired at the 2,200-pig farm. Murphy-Brown LLC didn't return calls seeking comment, and Murphy Family Ventures declined to offer details. "Appropriate disciplinary actions have been taken," said a Murphy Family Ventures representative. Earlier this month, the prosecutor's office in Sampson County, N.C., opened an investigation into allegations of animal cruelty after PETA lawyers turned over affidavits and videotapes of the reported abuse. The undercover PETA investigator, who worked at the slaughterhouse in Garland, N.C., for $7 an hour from Sept. 13 until Nov. 2 of this year, said he witnessed constant atrocities. "[The abuse of pigs] happened every day," the PETA employee told FOXNews.com on Dec. 12, speaking on condition of anonymity. "You can't even capture the full horror of what goes on there." In the grainy, black-and-white video, pigs with the word "KILL" spray-painted on their backs scream as they're yanked to slaughter with a heavy metal prodder attached to their legs, ears and snouts, and women laugh as they cut off the testicles of one piglet after another without anesthesia. In a different segment, a supervisor boasts about beating the animals. "I ain't going to lie to you; I've done it," he says. "I have knocked the s— out of them. Like that one bit me the other morning, that mother f—.... I cut the s— out of his G—d— nose with a f— gate rod." The PETA investigator said he also saw people cutting off the tails of baby pigs, as well as other horrors. Castration and tail-chopping without painkillers are general practice at swine slaughterhouses, according to the animal rights group. Smithfield's firing of the workers at Murphy Family Ventures Garland Sow Farm is "the very least they could have done," said PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich. "Our hope is that they will implement a policy so PETA doesn't have to alert them when their workers are abusing animals." PETA wants all employees involved in the violent mistreatment of the pigs to be charged with animal cruelty, a criminal offense that is generally classified as a misdemeanor under North Carolina law — though some acts are considered felonies. Sampson County District Attorney G. Dewey Hudson and local law enforcement are still reviewing the case. "Our initial meeting and subsequent conversations with him have been very encouraging," Friedrich said of the prosecutor. Murphy Family Ventures pig-breeding farms and slaughterhouses are under contract with Smithfield Foods' Murphy-Brown as pork suppliers. PETA is calling on Smithfield Foods and its contractors to more aggressively enforce the humane treatment of the animals. The group wants surveillance cameras installed and regular undercover investigations to be conducted internally. It also wants a ban on the use of tiny gestation crates, where the pigs are kept and raised. Smithfield has come under fire before for human rights violations and the hiring of illegal workers. The Link
Just because the animals are destined for slaughter doesn't mean they should be mistreated and abused. Cruelty is cruelty. Those people should be punished to the maximum the law allows. In fact, I'd like to learn that they got a little of what they've been dishing out to the poor pigs. People who are cruel to animals should get a taste ot their own medicine.
It has a lot do to with the kind of people they hire and the people responsible for supervising them. Turnover is so high... Sampson Co. is one of the counties near us- and the sampling of people I have met from there...makes this story more than believeable.
Dogs are cuter than pigs. And we don't eat dogs. Therefore, this will not elicit nearly the outrage. Oh and Michael Vick is a world famous athlete, while these guys are nobodies. It's not hard to figure out that no one will make a fuss about this.
^ do not gloss over the fact that Vick's post plea conduct was a major factor in the sentence he received, which basically doubled what he would have gotten. The attention was due to celebrity. duh. the sentence was due to vick being an idiot between court dates. he got the same sentence anyone else in that set of facts would have gotten.
I think that is disgusting and I hope those people are hit with cruelty charges. And, I am glad Michael Vick got the sentence he did for his actions. I wish everyone who partakes in dogfighting and cruelly killing undesirable dogs did. It's sick.
again, i aint no PETA person, but i find animal cruelty absolutely heinous and despicable. i hope these people share a fate worse than what Vick got.
All pigs, goats, lambs and calves are castrated without painkillers. Beating and mutilating them is wrong though.
Man, I just can't read stuff like this... F'ing sick people out there.... I don't even understand what is going on in their heads... I love steaks, bacon....etc... But, when I read this stuff... I want to just give it all up so I'm not indirectly participating in that sh*t. Kinda like I gave up buying Pearl Jam stuff.
People that would do things like this are seriously ****** in the head. They should receive substantial jail time and mandatory counseling before being released back into the general population. Sick ********, throw the book at them.
A lot more serious than what some accused get 25 years in prison for in Williamson County. I'd like to see them go to jail.
No one uses painkillers for that. I would guess that most PETA folks have no idea how livestock are raised and those that saw it were uphauled by it.
I'm another who was taught that "cutting" pigs is done sans painkillers. I guess I trusted my teachers (real teachers, they were ag teachers at my high school) that this was the way it was done. God, I hated that chore. Especially because 99% of the time I was doing it because some teenage girl who thought it would be cool to raise pigs for FFA wouldn't do the damn job herself.
Just because that's how it's normally done, that doesn't mean it's right. Honestly that's ****** up. Of course, I am assuming that animals have nerve endings in and around their testicles. I guess it's possible that they don't. Anybody that abuses animals automatically sucks at life, in my book. I'm like an above poster. I love beef, chicken, pork, etc. but I have seriously considered becoming a vegetarian so I wouldn't contribute to this ****.
