SF: Lawsuit Filed By Bay Area Group and HSUS Today Over Poultry Slaughtering

Humane Society sues USDA over poultry slaughter

November 21, 2005
By Christopher Doering
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. poultry slaughter methods are cruel and raise the risk of consumers contracting a foodborne illness, the Humane Society of the United States said in a lawsuit that seeks to ensure birds are unconscious before being slaughtered.

U.S. industry practices include hanging live birds upside down in metal shackles, then moving them through an electrified water bath that paralyzes them while still conscious, the lawsuit claimed.

The slaughter plant treatment increases the chance that a bird will inhale feces in the water, leading to a higher bacteria level in its meat, the lawsuit said.

The case against the U.S. Agriculture Department was filed in federal district court in San Francisco. It seeks to broaden a 1958 law requiring the humane slaughter of cattle and pigs to include poultry.

The Humane Society and the East Bay Animal Advocates said the failure of USDA to include chickens, turkeys and other birds under the act has lead to inhumane treatment.

"These birds ... are being slaughtered by methods that are not humane," said Paul Shapiro, spokesman for the Humane Society of the United States. "It's only because the USDA fails to define poultry as livestock even though any dictionary definition demonstrates that farmed birds ought to be."

The National Chicken Council, a trade group for farmers and slaughter plants, called the lawsuit "little more than a publicity stunt" that is likely to be thrown out of court.

Steven Cohen, spokesman for the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, said he could not comment on the lawsuit, but added that the slaughter process described by the Humane Society "is standard practice in the industry."

USDA veterinarians are assigned to poultry plants to ensure practices there do not violate the law, he said.

Shapiro estimated that 9 billion birds, or about 95 percent of domestic animals raised on farms, are unprotected during the slaughter process.

The Humane Society has advocated that chicken slaughter plants adopt the use of gas before birds are processed.

The lawsuit said recent reports of abuse in slaughter plants in West Virginia, Maryland and Alabama, where workers jumped on, kicked and slammed chickens against a wall, increased the need to protect poultry.

In those cases, neither the workers nor the plants could be prosecuted because poultry are not covered under the federal law for human treatment of livestock.

The HSUS Files Lawsuit Challenging USDA’s Exclusion of Birds from the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act

Animal protection organizations assert that inhumane slaughter places public at increased risk of food-borne illnesses

SAN FRANCISCO (November 21, 2005) — Today, The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), East Bay Animal Advocates (EBAA), and five poultry consumers filed suit challenging the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) policy of excluding chickens, turkeys, and other birds killed for human consumption from the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1958. The animal protection organizations, representing more than nine million members and constituents, assert that current poultry slaughter methods are cruel and place the public at risk of food-borne illnesses.

The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act (HMSA) explicitly requires that "cattle, calves, horses, mules, sheep, swine, and other livestock" be slaughtered in accordance with humane methods. Despite the fact that "other livestock" clearly includes animals such as farmed birds, who comprise more than nine out of ten farm animals killed annually in this country, the USDA interprets this law in a way that excludes chickens, turkeys, and other birds from protection under the HMSA.

As a result of the USDA policy, processors continue to slaughter birds using such inhumane methods as shackling fully conscious birds upside-down, electrically stunning them into paralysis, and sometimes even drowning the conscious birds in tanks of scalding water. According to several recent studies, these methods increase the risk that carcasses will become contaminated with dangerous bacteria that can sicken consumers.

"Studies show that current inhumane poultry slaughter methods can lead to increased fecal contamination of the carcass," explains The HSUS director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture Michael Greger, M.D. "By handling meat that is the product of an inhumanely slaughtered bird, consumers may well be at an increased risk for contracting a potentially life-threatening food-borne illness."

When enacting the HMSA, Congress recognized that certain slaughter practices, including hanging conscious animals by their legs from metal shackles and slaughtering animals while still fully conscious, cause "needless suffering." To alleviate this widespread suffering, Congress mandated that all livestock be rendered insensible to pain before shackling and slaughter. Yet each year, more than 9 billion chickens, turkeys, and other birds suffer from these very practices.

Jonathan R. Lovvorn, vice president of Animal Protection Litigation for The HSUS states, "When Congress enacted the HMSA, the dictionary definition of ‘livestock’ was ‘domestic animals used or raised on a farm.’ Yet today, nearly 50 years later, 95 percent of domestic animals raised on farms are still entirely unprotected during the slaughter process."

Recent abuses in poultry slaughter plants across the country have highlighted the far-reaching implications of USDA’s policy of excluding poultry from the HMSA. For example, a 2004 New York Times article graphically reported horrific abuses and "hundreds of acts of cruelty" at a Pilgrim’s Pride chicken slaughter plant in Moorefield, West Virginia, including workers "jumping up and down on live chickens, drop-kicking them like footballs, and slamming them into walls" with the acquiescence of plant supervisors. Likewise, a 2004 investigation of a Perdue poultry slaughter plant in Maryland and a 2005 investigation of a Tyson’s facility in Alabama revealed similar abuses. The workers involved in some of these cruelties were terminated, but neither the workers nor the facilities could be prosecuted under federal law because of USDA’s practice of not applying the HMSA to poultry.

A copy of the complaint is available upon request at 301-721-6446.

The Humane Society of the United States is the nation’s largest animal protection organization representing more than nine million members and constituents. The non-profit organization is a mainstream voice for animals, with active programs in companion animals and equine protection, disaster preparedness and response, wildlife and habitat protection, animals in research and farm animal welfare. The HSUS protects all animals through education, investigation, litigation, legislation, advocacy, and field work. The group is based in Washington and has numerous field representatives and offices across the country, including Sacramento, California. On the web at http://www.hsus.org.

East Bay Animal Advocates is a non-profit organization based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Exposing animal cruelty in modern agriculture is of utmost importance to EBAA. Through direct aid and education outreach, EBAA is dedicated to fighting and preventing animal abuse in California’s agricultural industry and beyond. On the web at http://www.eastbayanimaladvocates.org.