A Meat and Dairy Article from All-Creatures.org



Slash and Grab

From AnimalJustice
December 2023

The mother pig was sick and was suffering badly. But instead of getting care for her, she endured one of the most painful and horrifying deaths imaginable. Workers shot her twice with a bolt gun in the head, but it didn’t kill her. I watched in horror as she was sliced open while still moving, and one by one her piglets were ripped out of her womb and tossed onto a filthy concrete floor that was coated in blood and feces.

Just days after Animal Justice released this footage, Ontario’s ag gag laws (or “agricultural gag laws”) came into effect. The powerful meat industry pushes for these terrifying laws to keep rampant cruelty hidden away on farms, and it’s now illegal for me to expose abuse on hidden camera.

slash and grab

I am an undercover whistleblower with Animal Justice. While I must keep my identity a secret, I truly hope you’ll listen to my story. I worked on Paragon Farms, a massive pig factory farm in Ontario. I obtained this job and worked alongside other farm workers—except I was wearing a hidden camera.

On my very first day on the job, I witnessed an illegal c-section, a sickening procedure that the pig industry calls a “slash and grab”. A pregnant pig was sliced open while she was still alive and conscious. Her unborn piglets were ripped out from her twitching body, in hopes they would survive to be killed and sold for meat.

The mother pig was sick and was suffering badly. But instead of getting care for her, she endured one of the most painful and horrifying deaths imaginable. Workers shot her twice with a bolt gun in the head, but it didn’t kill her. I watched in horror as she was sliced open while still moving, and one by one her piglets were ripped out of her womb and tossed onto a filthy concrete floor that was coated in blood and feces.

Just days after Animal Justice released this footage, Ontario’s ag gag laws (or “agricultural gag laws”) came into effect. The powerful meat industry pushes for these terrifying laws to keep rampant cruelty hidden away on farms, and it’s now illegal for me to expose abuse on hidden camera.


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