"Animal Care Certified" egg farm video

WLWT Channel 5, the NBC affiliate in Cincinnati gave terrific coverage this evening to an undercover investigation of an "Animal Care Certified" egg farm. You can watch the whole story on line at: http://www.channelcincinnati.com/video/4231732/detail.html It is well worth taking a look.

And I will paste, below, the text from the relevant web page, http://www.channelcincinnati.com/news/4233941/detail.html, which gives thorough print coverage of the news story and also has a link to the video.

Please send the station a huge thank you for the coverage. Positive feedback will encourage similar programming in the future.

WLWT takes comments on the news at:
cinnews [at] channelcincinnati.com

Here's the web page text:
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Target 5 Investigates: Does Egg Farm Abuse Chickens?
Animal Rights Group's Video Raises Questions


What's the real price of eggs?

Filth, abuse and death, according to a local animal rights group.

And it has the video to prove it.

The question is: Does the tape tell the whole story?

Target 5's Jesse Jones set out to find out.

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Nathan Runkle is executive director of Mercy for Animals. Runkle's group shot video of chickens in cages and he says it documents abuse at Ohio Fresh Eggs Farm near Columbus.

The chickens are "crammed into cages so small they can't spread their wings, they can't turn around, they have painful mutilations," Runkle said.

Runkle's group claims it infiltrated the farm in November. He says they wanted to show that the new Animal Care Certified stamp on egg cartons sold across the state are less than truthful.

It's not only blatant animal abuse, it's also consumer fraud, Runkle says.

Target 5 went to Ohio Fresh Eggs to ask about the video and inspect conditions first-hand.

Plant manager Mohamed Mousa said the video might have been shot a long time ago, or it might have been shot at a different egg farm.

Mercy for Animals settled the timing question by having an activist on the tape hold the New York Times with its date clearly visible.

"I'm the man in charge of the birds. I do not have in this facility or in the other facility any birds that look like that in the video, period," Mousa said. "I'll stand in front of any one of them and say, 'That's not right.'"

Mousa took Target 5 into the plant, and Jones reported that he didn't see anything that Mercy for Animals documented.

In fact, the place looked clean, Jones reported. But he also was confined to a small area of one plant.

Mousa told Target 5 that this is really about money -- that if you want eggs the activists' way, prepare to pay up to seven times the current price for a dozen.

That would be followed by a drop in exports and a loss of job, he said.

"So you and those people and others in the media (would be) helping the destruction of our economy," Mousa said.

Mousa said he was willing to sit and talk with the people from Mercy for Animals.

But he still says the hens in the video are not his.

Mercy for Animals plans to release its investigation next week.
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