Target: Tom Vilsack, United States Secretary of Agriculture
Goal: Mandate CCTV in all U.S. slaughterhouses and transport vehicles to ensure that animal welfare regulations are being followed.
Billions of animals on factory farms are subjected to routine abuse in the form of painful disfigurements, extreme confinement, and untreated disease. The torture does not end here, but continues until the minute an animal’s throat is slit and blood is drained– oftentimes, while still conscious. Thanks to eyewitness accounts and undercover footage that has been recorded in slaughterhouses across the nation, the cruel methods these animals must endure as they are sent off to be killed have been revealed to the public at large.
As animals enter the slaughterhouse, they can smell the blood and hear the screams of others before them. This is an extremely stressful and fear-inducing process, and animals regularly attempt to escape, though it is often to no avail. Animals are commodified, and workers’ goal is to kill as many animals as quickly and efficiently as possible, rather than to make sure these sentient beings are comfortable in their final moments. Animals that fail to cooperate are brutally kicked and beaten with tools such as shovels and cattle prods. Though animals are often stunned before they enter the slaughterhouse– a practice sought to render them unconscious– many times this is either done improperly or is not effective enough, as it may be hours or even days subjected to the torturous conditions of their impending deaths before an animal is actually killed.
There is still relatively little to ensure the humane treatment of animals in slaughterhouses as according to the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. While the USDA once required external inspectors to ensure animal welfare and food safety standards were upheld, recent USDA rules have been implemented to allow both factory farms and slaughterhouses to conduct self inspections. Needless to say, this change in legislation is extremely harmful to animals, as workers are now pretty much able to decide their own regulations without fear of governmental intervention. In addition, there has been a recent surge in the campaigning for “ag gag” legislation. Such would make it illegal for undercover documentation of slaughterhouse practices, and would allow companies to avoid any accountability for violations to USDA protections.
England, in particular, has taken extensive measures to ensure the welfare of animals used for human consumption through the mandation of CCTV cameras in slaughterhouses. Many additional countries in the UK, as well as others like France, are in the process of implementing similar protective measures for their own slaughter facilities. This new legislation– which necessitates ongoing surveillance on slaughterhouse plants– would likely deter slaughterhouse workers from actively abusing animals. This footage can be monitored by welfare experts, and in case of any suspected breach of animal welfare standards, can be referred back to in order to ensure no maltreatment has occurred.
Sign this petition to encourage lawmakers to push for similar legislation in US slaughterhouses and transport vehicles and to preserve the rights of sentient farm animals.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Secretary Vilsack,
As of 2021, the United States enacted a law permitting slaughter plants to self inspect, forgoing the standard USDA protocol of external inspection that had previously been in place to ensure that animal welfare standards– as according to the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act– were being upheld. This law poses a huge threat for livestock across the U.S., as the limited protection they once had has been rapidly disappearing. Now, without the deterrence of potential penalization by welfare experts or government officials, slaughterhouse companies are at their own discretion, and the animals at the mercy of people who view them as nothing more than meat to be shipped off and sold for a small profit.
Billions of animals are exploited each year by agricultural practices aimed at feeding the incessant needs of human consumption. Animals that survive the cramped conditions of disease ridden transport vehicles are soon after forced to endure treacherous conditions at the slaughterhouses they are delivered to. Right away, these animals can hear the cries of others killed before them and can smell the blood as these animals are drained of life. Clued into the fate that awaits each and every one of them, these animals are extremely stressed and afraid.
Worker practices at these facilities do not help to soothe the animals. Uncooperative animals are viciously beaten and, although animals are to be stunned before slaughter, this process is usually completed improperly or inefficiently, and animals are many times still conscious when they are hung from their legs and bled out onto the killing floor.
Many other countries are in the process of enacting stricter legislation to protect farm animals from abuse during transport and slaughter. Among these efforts is the mandatory implementation of CCTV cameras in slaughterhouses to allow welfare officials to monitor activity and ensure that animal welfare standards are upheld. We are asking you, Mr. Vilsack, to please implement CCTV cameras in transport vehicles and slaughterhouses across the nation to make sure animals are treated with the respect promised to them by the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. These animals deserve to have their limited rights protected, not stripped away in the name of corporate greed.
Sincerely,
[Your Name here]
Photo Credit: Nom d’util
With transparency being an increasingly important issue for consumers, security cameras in commercial slaughterhouses are an excellent idea.
Yes … Mr Vilsack, you are in a position to authorise cameras so PLEASE do it & show a little compassion towards these poor animals.
in this sick and demented society we live in, this is an absolute must have law.
Finally, finally a law that has been needed for decades, is getting attention!!!
Enough of cruelty and exploitation of animals for PROFIT and GREED
YES YES YES FOR GODSAKES, YES. DO IT, ITS LONG OVERDUE!!!!!!!!!!!
SEC’Y VILSACK….EXACTLY WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ASSURE US THAT THE FARM ANIMALS HAVE THE REQUIRED DIGNITY AND ASSISTANCE IN THEIR SHORT, ABUSIVE LIVES? WE ALL KEEP BEGGING FOR MERCY FOR THEM…WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? I’D LIKE TO SEE SOME ACTUAL POSITIVE RESULTS…WHEN EXACTLY WILL THIS HAPPEN? THIS IS YOUR JOB…SHOW US SOME RESULTS!!!!!!!~!
The Animals are going to die, JUST DO IT IN THE MOST HUMANNE WAY!!!
You MUST NOT MAKE THEM SUFFER!! HAVE YOU PEOPLE NO SOUL??? OR ARE YOU JUST PURE EVIL!!!
Humane way is such a horrible thing. We humans are the most abusive, greedy, indifferent to animals, we are hell to them. We need a new word
Tom Vilsack
PLEASE PLEASE please implement CCTV cameras in transport vehicles and slaughterhouses across the nation! so that the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act is enforced and animals are protected and have rights like any living being… animals SHOULD NEVER EVER HAVE BEEN TREATED SO HORRIFICALLY! STOP IT NOW! SHUT DOWN, CHARGE, FINE …WHATEVER IT TAKES….THIS IS TOO SAD WHAT THESE SWEET LITTLE ANGELS GO THROUGH!
I am so horrified and disgusted with this world from people who torture animals and with people who are in a position to STOP it and do the opposite or nothing!!
People who work in this industry have to be mentally deranged to be able to do this to these animals day in and day out
I am sickened that there are not better laws in place already for these poor, voiceless animals that suffer to their deaths. Cameras are a MUST and any abusers need to be held accountable
CCTV doesn’t protect animals – it’s a SLAUGHTERHOUSE, where animals violently die.
The US routinely boils chickens, lobsters, crabs, animals are often eviscerated or disremembered while conscious.
If NOT slitting a throat while conscious is important, NOT KILLING ANIMALS is more important.
The USDA was sued to release data; if animal exploitation is so humane, they would have released it w/ no hesitation, but they had to be sued.
The ONLY humane, is vegan.
USDA, 1000s of pages are ACCEPTABLE TORTURE, just two data sets, there are more:
https://www.fsis.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media_file/2021-06/FOIA-2019-298-Released-Records.pdf
https://www.fsis.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media_file/2021-05/FOIA-2018-062-MOI-NR.pdf
This makes me sick to hear all this torture . There are ways to go about . How do they sleep at night. Those poor animals . The fear they must go threw, it’s terrible
Stop this now!!!
If we do not get a grip on kindness and compassion we will continue on our path of self-annihilation. Do not even bother with the environment if we cannot stop cruelty!!!!
ANYONE involved including the justice system who stands by and does nothing should be charged with animal cruelty!!!! REMEMBER whether you believe it or not YOU GET WHAT YOU GIVE!!!
This is a must put the cameras up and hurry animals are being tortured even before they are killed. It takes special demented people to work at these places and do what they do to the animals. Everyone needs to go vegan. It is so sickening how animal at slaughter have to endure such treatment. These evil people need to be fired on the spot and get prison time. Anyone else that would be doing this outside of the slaughterhouse would have to spend prison time so what’s the difference. Please install these cameras immediately for the sake of less torture for the animals. This is sickening. These people have no good feelings that abuse these animals. I hope they all go to hell. They are putting these animals through hell. Please install the cameras immediately in the trailer’s transporting them and in the slaughterhouses in the slaughterhouses Stockyards. Please the animals have no voice. But you can tell by their behavior that they know what’s going on and they don’t want to die. They try to get away and get beat unmercifully. Please install those cameras as fast as you can. Don’t wait any longer.
Vilsack will do nothing.
He presides over an empire of cruelty
He is the head of Wildlife Services which slaughters millions of our wildlife each year.
He sure doesn’t care about pigs having their throats slit
The humans doing this need their throats slit. This is sickening and needs to stop.
Expose these places and shut them down.
It’s beyond sad that these animals are sacrificing their lives to be someone’s dinner plate, but are treated horrifically and brutally before being killed for this.
Its hard to believe this is happening in a civilised country.It’s shameful and disgusting.Please U.S.A show the world how to behave towards animals.
Stacey I agree 100% but sadly that is probably not going to happen any time soon. I WISH IT WOULD. I can’t eat animals knowing what I know.
But more and more people are going toward meatless or vegan. Thanks!
I went vegetarian years ago.