Animal Equality sues the USDA for Allowing Slaughterhouses to Drastically Increase their Speed

Animal equality recently filed suit
against the USDA in an effort to push
back against the increase of slaughterhouse line
speeds. This increase would allow facilities to
ramp up production by killing animals at
an even faster pace.
Increased line speeds put farmed animals at
a greater risk of cruel treatment and abuse and add
to the many ways. They suffer within the food chain when animals
are moved quickly through slaughterhouse lines.
They are more likely to receive ineffective stunning.
This results in animals being killed while still fully
conscious for example increase speeds
in chicken and turkey slaughterhouses result in
rougher handling of the birds with workers slamming them
into shackles breaking their delicate legs and
wings and improperly stunning and bleeding them. So they are
boiled alive. Some of these acts are violations of
federal law, but enforcement is sorely lacking.
New USDA rules also shift certain
responsibilities from federal inspectors to the
slaughterhouses own employees. This allows
the companies to police themselves when it comes to
the welfare of the animals, they slaughter as line speeds
increase. It also becomes more likely that food
safety mandates will be viable.
Food safety inspectors receive limited time
per animal to inspect for signs of disease that could
impact human health and have less time to implement
sanitation measures. The impact of faster
speeds is felt up and down the supply chain
more farmed animals will be raised on factory farms
to supply slaughterhouses increased processing capacity
crowded living conditions are made even
more unbearable and animals wallow in
their own waste.
Pollution also increases with expanded
animal agriculture further contributing to harmful
greenhouse gas emissions.
The USDA has ignored warnings from
its own office of Inspector General who is consistently raised
concerns about high-speed Slaughter and
violations. These shortcomings will
only worsen when line speeds are increased and farmed animals
will ultimately pay the price.
Please stand with us as we ask
our government to prevent the abuse of these animals and
improve their protections. Let your voice
be heard urge your federal elected officials
to take a stand against increased Slaughter
speeds.