'They Die Piece by Piece' -- In Overtaxed Plants, Humane Treatment of
Cattle Is Often a Battle Lost

By Joby Warrick. Excerpted from the Washington Post, April 10, 2001

It takes 25 minutes to turn a live steer into steak at the modern
slaughterhouse where Ramon Moreno works. For 20 years, his post was
"second-legger," a job that entails cutting hocks off carcasses as
they whirl past at a rate of 309 an hour. The cattle were supposed to
be dead before they got to Moreno. But too often they weren't.

"They blink. They make noises," he said softly. "The head moves, the
eyes are wide and looking around."

Still Moreno would cut. On bad days, he says, dozens of animals
reached his station clearly alive and conscious. Some would survive as
far as the tail cutter, the belly ripper, the hide puller. "They die,"
said Moreno, "piece by piece."

Under a 23-year-old federal law, slaughtered cattle and hogs first
must be "stunned" -- rendered insensible to pain -- with a blow to the
head or an electric shock. But at overtaxed plants, the law is
sometimes broken, with cruel consequences for animals as well as
workers. Enforcement records, interviews, videos and worker affidavits
describe repeated violations of the Humane Slaughter Act at dozens of
slaughterhouses, ranging from the smallest, custom butcheries to
modern, automated establishments such as the sprawling IBP Inc. plant
here where Moreno works.

"In plants all over the United States, this happens on a daily basis,"
said Lester Friedlander, a veterinarian and formerly chief government
inspector at a Pennsylvania hamburger plant. "I've seen it happen. And
I've talked to other veterinarians. They feel it's out of control."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture oversees the treatment of animals
in meat plants, but enforcement of the law varies dramatically. While
a few plants have been forced to halt production for a few hours
because of alleged animal cruelty, such sanctions are rare. For
example, the government took no action against a Texas beef company
that was cited 22 times in 1998 for violations that included chopping
hooves off live cattle.

In another case, agency supervisors failed to take action on multiple
complaints of animal cruelty at a Florida beef plant and fired an
animal health technician for reporting the problems to the Humane
Society. The dismissal letter sent to the technician, Tim Walker, said
his disclosure had "irreparably damaged" the agency's relations with
the packing plant.

"I complained to everyone -- I said, 'Look, they're skinning live cows
in there,' " Walker said. "Always it was the same answer: 'We know
it's true. But there's nothing we can do about it.' "

In the past three years, a new meat inspection system that shifted
responsibility to industry has made it harder to catch and report
cruelty problems, some federal inspectors say. Under the new system,
implemented in 1998, the agency no longer tracks the number of
humane-slaughter violations its inspectors find each year.

Some inspectors are so frustrated they're asking outsiders for help:
The inspectors' union last spring urged Washington state authorities
to crack down on alleged animal abuse at the IBP plant in Pasco. In a
statement, IBP said problems described by workers in its Washington
state plant "do not accurately represent the way we operate our
plants. We take the issue of proper livestock handling very
seriously."

But the union complained that new government policies and faster
production speeds at the plant had "significantly hampered our ability
to ensure compliance." Several animal welfare groups joined in the
petition.

"Privatization of meat inspection has meant a quiet death to the
already meager enforcement of the Humane Slaughter Act," said Gail
Eisnitz of the Humane Farming Association, a group that advocates
better treatment of farm animals. "USDA isn't simply relinquishing its
humane-slaughter oversight to the meat industry, but is -- without the
knowledge and consent of Congress -- abandoning this function
altogether."

The USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service, which is responsible for
meat inspection, says it has not relaxed its oversight. In January,
the agency ordered a review of 100 slaughterhouses. An FSIS memo
reminded its 7,600 inspectors they had an "obligation to ensure
compliance" with humane-handling laws.

The review comes as pressure grows on both industry and regulators to
improve conditions for the 155 million cattle, hogs, horses and sheep
slaughtered each year. McDonald's and Burger King have been subject to
boycotts by animal rights groups protesting mistreatment of livestock.
As a result, two years ago McDonald's began requiring suppliers to
abide by the American Meat Institute's Good Management Practices for
Animal Handling and Stunning. The company also began conducting annual
audits of meat plants. Last week, Burger King announced it would
require suppliers to follow the meat institute's standards. "Burger
King Corp. takes the issues of food safety and animal welfare very
seriously, and we expect our suppliers to comply," the company said in
a statement.

Industry groups acknowledge that sloppy killing has tangible
consequences for consumers as well as company profits. Fear and pain
cause animals to produce hormones that damage meat and cost companies
tens of millions of dollars a year in discarded product, according to
industry estimates.

Industry officials say they also recognize an ethical imperative to
treat animals with compassion. Science is blurring the distinction
between the mental processes of humans and lower animals --
discovering, for example, that even the lowly rat may dream. Americans
thus are becoming more sensitive to the suffering of food animals,
even as they consume increasing numbers of them.

"Handling animals humanely," said American Meat Institute President J.
Patrick Boyle, "is just the right thing to do."


CLEARLY, NOT ALL PLANTS HAVE GOT THE MESSAGE

A Washington Post computer analysis of government enforcement records
found 527 violations of humane-handling regulations from 1996 to 1997,
the last years for which complete records were available. The offenses
range from overcrowded stockyards to incidents in which live animals
were cut, skinned or scalded.

Through the Freedom of Information Act, The Post obtained enforcement
documents from 28 plants that had high numbers of offenses or had
drawn penalties for violating humane-handling laws. The Post also
interviewed dozens of current and former federal meat inspectors and
slaughterhouse workers. A reporter reviewed affidavits and secret
video recordings made inside two plants. Among the findings:

* One Texas plant, Supreme Beef Packers in Ladonia, had 22 violations
in six months. During one inspection, federal officials found nine
live cattle dangling from an overhead chain.
But managers at the plant, which announced last fall it was ceasing
operations, resisted USDA warnings, saying its practices were no
different than others in the industry. "Other plants are not subject
to such extensive scrutiny of their stunning activities," the plant
complained in a 1997 letter to the USDA.
* Government inspectors halted production for a day at the Calhoun
Packing Co. beef plant in Palestine, Tex., after inspectors saw cattle
being improperly stunned. "They were still conscious and had good
reflexes," B.V. Swamy, a veterinarian and senior USDA official at the
plant, wrote.
The shift supervisor "allowed the cattle to be hung anyway." IBP,
which owned the plant at the time, contested the findings but "took
steps to resolve the situation," including installing video equipment
and increasing training, a spokesman said. IBP has since sold the
plant.
* At the Farmers Livestock Cooperative processing plant in Hawaii,
inspectors documented 14 humane-slaughter violations in as many
months. Records from 1997 and 1998 describe hogs that were walking and
squealing after being stunned as many as four times. In a memo to
USDA, the company said it fired the stunner and increased monitoring
of the slaughter process.
*At an Excel Corp. beef plant in Fort Morgan, Colo., production was
halted for a day in 1998 after workers allegedly cut off the leg of a
live cow whose limbs had become wedged in a piece of machinery. In
imposing the sanction, U.S. inspectors cited a string of violations in
the previous two years, including the cutting and skinning of live
cattle.
The company, responding to one such charge, contended that it was
normal for animals to blink and arch their backs after being stunned,
and such "muscular reaction" can occur up to six hours after death.
"None of these reactions indicate the animal is still alive," the
company wrote to USDA.
* Hogs, unlike cattle, are dunked in tanks of hot water after they are
stunned to soften the hides for skinning. As a result, a botched
slaughter condemns some hogs to being scalded and drowned. Secret
videotape from an Iowa pork plant shows hogs squealing and kicking as
they are being lowered into the water.