It is a documentary that involves an animal rights advocate who goes undercover to work on a Hog farm, covertly videotaping the practices within and attempting to collect physical evidence for an animal cruelty investigation by the Humane Farming Association.
He takes photographs videotapes various methods of treatment, housing, living conditions, and euthanasia of the livestock on the farm. Piglets that are small, deformed, or otherwise considered undesireable are immediately culled, usually by method of blunt force trauma (one of the recommended methods by veterinarians). For the adults, most sick or injured animals are moved to pens where, being unable to get food or water on their own, they eventually die and are dumped in a pit in the rear of the farm.
Eventually, the farm owner, its General Manager, and an employee are brought to trial with the evidence collected in the investigation. Central to the case against the farm is a video of a sick sow being hung by the neck with a chain from a front loading tractor. The animal appears to struggle and suffer for some 4-5 minutes before it stops moving.
The decision of the court considered that there are no easy or economical methods of euthanising an adult hog, and determined that the practice at the farm could not be considered to be torture to the animals.
Did anyone get a chance to see this? If so, what are your thoughts?
For me, it's no secret that the meat producing industry is not pretty. It's also no secret that many of us, in modern society, have been sheltered from the death and gore that preceeds us buying clean, neatly packaged meat in the supermarket.
Is this a function of nature, though? For example, when a pride of lions take down a wildebeast and begin to eat it before it is dead, does that animal suffer less than the cows in our meat packing plants? Obviously, humans have the ability to come up with other methods - after all, all the lions have are their teeth and their claws - does that mean that we have a duty to minimize pain and suffering? Is it our ability to have compassion for other living things that even makes this an issue at all?
I'm conflicted about the issue. And I REALLY, REALLY like barbeque.
He takes photographs videotapes various methods of treatment, housing, living conditions, and euthanasia of the livestock on the farm. Piglets that are small, deformed, or otherwise considered undesireable are immediately culled, usually by method of blunt force trauma (one of the recommended methods by veterinarians). For the adults, most sick or injured animals are moved to pens where, being unable to get food or water on their own, they eventually die and are dumped in a pit in the rear of the farm.
Eventually, the farm owner, its General Manager, and an employee are brought to trial with the evidence collected in the investigation. Central to the case against the farm is a video of a sick sow being hung by the neck with a chain from a front loading tractor. The animal appears to struggle and suffer for some 4-5 minutes before it stops moving.
The decision of the court considered that there are no easy or economical methods of euthanising an adult hog, and determined that the practice at the farm could not be considered to be torture to the animals.
Did anyone get a chance to see this? If so, what are your thoughts?
For me, it's no secret that the meat producing industry is not pretty. It's also no secret that many of us, in modern society, have been sheltered from the death and gore that preceeds us buying clean, neatly packaged meat in the supermarket.
Is this a function of nature, though? For example, when a pride of lions take down a wildebeast and begin to eat it before it is dead, does that animal suffer less than the cows in our meat packing plants? Obviously, humans have the ability to come up with other methods - after all, all the lions have are their teeth and their claws - does that mean that we have a duty to minimize pain and suffering? Is it our ability to have compassion for other living things that even makes this an issue at all?
I'm conflicted about the issue. And I REALLY, REALLY like barbeque.
