All of God's creatures have rights, a fact that most people don't seem to recognize. This includes both human and non-human animals, but not all of them can speak for themselves. As we continue to disregard the value of the lives of the billions of animals we eat, we also are destroying our air, land and water.
Eric Bailey, Los Angeles Times
May 2008
"Unfortunately, we believe this abuse is likely rampant across the country," Runkle said. "As long as these birds are treated like egg-producing machines, the abuse will likely continue."
Chickens crowd a cage at Gemperle Enterprises in Merced County.
These chickens will spend their entire lives inside a cage about the size of
a file cabinet drawer.
SACRAMENTO -- -- An animal protection organization is throwing back the
curtains on the West Coast's largest distributor of eggs, releasing a
hidden-camera video that shows chickens being mistreated by handlers and
locked in cages so small the birds can't spread their wings.
The footage, shot covertly by an undercover investigator with the group
Mercy for Animals, shows workers kicking and stomping on chickens and
snapping the necks of sick hens. It also shows birds left with untreated
wounds and crowded into cages, sometimes amid rotting corpses.
Officials with the animal protection group said the
video was shot this year at Gemperle Enterprises, a Turlock farming
outfit that supplies giant NuCal Foods Inc., the biggest supplier of eggs in
the western United States.
Nathan Runkle, executive director of the Chicago group, said animal
protection activists believe such abuse is probably the rule rather than the
exception for an industry that they contend puts profits ahead of humane
treatment.
"Unfortunately, we believe this abuse is likely rampant across the country,"
Runkle said. "As long as these birds are treated like egg-producing
machines, the abuse will likely continue."
NuCal Food referred calls to Chris Myles, a spokesman for the Pacific Egg
and Poultry Assn. Myles said the association condemned many of the "graphic
images and activities depicted in this film," calling them "in violation of
our high standards for animal welfare."
He said the vast majority of egg and poultry farms in California operated in
a humane and ethical manner.
The owner of Gemperle Enterprises said the animal group was using grainy and
suspect video footage to make accusations that run counter to the policies
and practices of his operation.
"What I saw on that video is not what our company does," said Steve
Gemperle, a second-generation owner of the egg producer. "We do not accept
any abuse of farm animals. It's against our values and morals."
Coming a few months after a similar video exposing mistreatment of cows at a
Chino slaughterhouse prompted a nationwide beef recall, the footage is being
made public today at a news conference to promote more humane treatment of
penned farm animals.
The California Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, which is on the
November ballot, seeks to ensure that farm animals are not kept in cages or
pens that allow them virtually no movement.
Mercy for Animals also is asking Merced and Stanislaus counties to launch a
criminal investigation into Gemperle Enterprises, which operates in both
counties. Although federal law does not regulate treatment of egg-laying
chickens, state animal-cruelty regulations prohibit the mistreatment of the
birds, Runkle said.
Over eight weeks in January and February, the group says, its investigator
worked as a maintenance worker for Gemperle Enterprises, which employs about
180.
The group said the video showed sick and crippled birds deprived of
veterinary treatment or proper euthanizing, and chickens deprived of food
and drink, lacking proper care, living in filth that included rotting
corpses and layers of feces.
Workers are seen on the video handling the birds so roughly that in some
cases the chickens suffered injuries described by the investigator as broken
bones and blunt trauma.
The birds are kept in mesh enclosures called "battery cages," sometimes more
than six to a space no bigger than the drawer of a filing cabinet, Runkle
said. Inside those close quarters, the fowl are unable to spread their wings
or move much at all, he said.
In a letter to the Merced and Stanislaus county district attorneys, Runkle
said the evidence supplied by the investigator "reveals a pervasive pattern
of neglect that blatantly violates the standard of proper care and attention
required for animals under California law."
The letter quotes animal health experts saying that injured poultry with no
hope of recovery should be euthanized immediately.
After viewing the footage, Dr. Ned Buyukmihci, a UC Davis emeritus professor
of veterinary medicine, told the group that the manner of treatment was
"cruel by any normal definition of the word" and violated the "norms of
conduct with respect to animal welfare and veterinary care," according to
the letter.
Runkle said the group chose to infiltrate Gemperle Enterprises at random.
For the owners of Gemperle, it marked the second time in little more than
two years that an animal rights group apparently gained surreptitious access
to one of their facilities and shot video. In 2006, an activist working
independently shot footage inside one of Gemperle's farms that was aired by
KGO-TV in San Francisco.
"They won't stop until they destroy animal agriculture," Gemperle said.
Gemperle said it was unclear whether the new footage truly was shot at one
of his family's farms, but said the mistreatment violated his company's
policies.
Number of animals killed in the world by the fishing, meat, dairy and egg industries, since you opened this webpage.
0marine animals
0chickens
0ducks
0pigs
0rabbits
0turkeys
0geese
0sheep
0goats
0cows / calves
0rodents
0pigeons/other birds
0buffaloes
0dogs
0cats
0horses
0donkeys and mules
0camels / camelids