These records routinely expose inhumane treatment of animals at slaughter facilities and are critical to our efforts to educate the public and hold the agency accountable to enforce what minimal legal protections farm animals have.
Pigs confined in a slaughterhouse truck. (Photo credit: Nom
d'util via Wikimedia Commons)
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will now be required to
post records related to animal treatment in U.S. slaughterhouses on
its website, following a lawsuit from two animal welfare nonprofits.
The Animal Welfare Institute and Farm Sanctuary sued the USDA in
2018, alleging the federal agency was failing to disclose
information related to federal animal cruelty laws that should be
publicly accessible through the country’s Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA).
This January, U.S. District Court Judge Marian Payson approved a
settlement that requires the
USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service to publicly
post records dating back to January 2017 on its
website — a move the nonprofit plaintiffs say will add
transparency to an otherwise well-guarded industry.
“This is the biggest step in improving government transparency at
slaughter since the USDA began disclosing these records pursuant to
FOIA,” said Erin Sutherland, staff attorney for AWI’s farm animal
program. “Thousands of slaughterhouse records are now readily
available to concerned citizens and animal advocacy groups who wish
to monitor USDA enforcement without waiting months or even years for
the department to respond to FOIA requests.”
According to
court documents, the USDA did not proactively disclose
documents relating to the enforcement of the Humane Methods of
Slaughter Act and the Poultry Products Inspection Act — records that
can reveal cruel and abusive treatment of animals at slaughter
facilities nationwide.
Some examples of documented animal abuse include incidents of
workers throwing chickens and improperly using electric stun devices
on pigs and cattle, and transporters leaving trucks full of animals
unattended for hours in painfully hot weather, according to AWI.
Emily von Klemperer, general counsel for
Farm
Sanctuary, added that public accessibility to the
agency’s records helps ensure that animals won’t unlawfully suffer
without accountability.
“These records routinely expose inhumane treatment of animals at
slaughter facilities and are critical to our efforts to educate the
public and hold the agency accountable to enforce what minimal legal
protections farm animals have,” she said.
In another
lawsuit against the USDA, AWI and Farm
Sanctuary seek to make the agency address the systematic
mistreatment of poultry animals at slaughter, which can undermine
food safety and meat quality [Investigatio
Reveals the True Horror of 'High Speed' Chicken Slaughter].
Much of the information that fueled this lawsuit was obtained from
documents now publicly accessible as a result of this recent
settlement, the groups said.