HSUS, other groups sue Trump administration for speeding up chicken slaughter
Some slaughterhouses that receive a waiver can increase slaughter speed by 25 percent, to a rate of up to 175 birds per minute—that’s nearly three birds being killed per second. Photo by Kharkhan_Oleg/iStock.com
A coalition including the Humane Society of the United States today sued the Trump administration for allowing chicken slaughterhouses to dial up the breakneck speeds at which they kill birds.
The increase, announced in 2018, allows slaughterhouses that receive a waiver from the administration to increase slaughter speed by 25 percent, to a rate of up to 175 birds per minute—that’s nearly three birds being killed per second. Slaughtering animals at this rate is not only inhumane, it makes working conditions even more dangerous for workers and compromises the safety of the food that Americans put on their table.
When the change was announced, federal regulations already allowed slaughterhouses to kill chickens as fast as 140 birds per minute. At such high speeds, workers struggling to keep up with the rapidly moving slaughter lines grab the birds and slam them into shackles, injuring the animals’ fragile legs. Some birds miss the throat-cutting blade and enter the scalder—a tank of extremely hot water—alive and fully conscious, resulting in a terrible, inhumane death. The fast speeds also jeopardize the food supply, as birds who are treated inhumanely are more likely to be badly bruised or die due to causes other than slaughter, which would make them unfit for consumption under current food safety regulations.
Conditions in slaughterhouses are also brutal for workers who are forced to toil extremely fast, shoulder-to-shoulder, performing repetitive motions in cold, slippery conditions and using dangerous equipment. According to Labor Department data, injury rates for poultry workers are 60 percent higher than the national average for all private industry, and illness rates are more than five times as high. In fact, a recent investigative report found that many of the plants the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is now allowing to run at faster line speeds have a history of serious accidents, including deaths. And just last month there were fatal worker accidents at two chicken slaughterhouses operating at increased speeds.
The agency knows fully well the pitfalls of operating slaughter lines at these lightning speeds. In 2014, under the Obama administration, FSIS considered a similar increase and decided not to implement it after concerns were raised by animal protection groups and worker safety organizations. Unfortunately, under the Trump administration, the same agency chose to sweep these concerns under the rug and did an about-face.
Our lawsuit, filed with a coalition that includes Animal Outlook, Mercy for Animals, Government Accountability Project and Marin Humane, questions the agency’s failure to adequately explain this about-face, and argues that before making its decision, the FSIS failed to provide Americans with advance notice, as is required under law, and the opportunity to comment on the change. It also argues that the agency, in implementing this change, didn’t comply with federal law that requires it to consider the environmental impacts of its decision.
What is also alarming is that this is not the first time that the administration has acted to deregulate animal slaughter—last year, FSIS finalized a federal rule that allows some pig slaughterhouses to operate without any limits on the speeds at which they kill pigs. It also turned critical duties related to inspections over to company employees, who are under enormous pressure and vulnerable to firing if they flag problems.
We cannot allow this pattern of deregulating animal slaughter to continue. Most animals raised on factory farms already suffer immensely during their short lives. Chickens used for meat are genetically manipulated to grow at an unnaturally fast rate, are crowded into barren warehouses, and when they reach slaughter weight at approximately six weeks of age, they are violently caught by the legs and shoved into tightly packed cages to be trucked to slaughter. During transport, many birds die from extreme temperatures and the trauma experienced during catching and crating. The least we can do is not further exacerbate the suffering they already endure at the end of life.
With this lawsuit our coalition is putting the Trump administration on notice: the American public is watching and will not stand for increased cruelty in the food supply chain. Increasingly, consumers are demanding that animals raised for food be treated more humanely, and food corporations are responding to that demand by implementing their own animal welfare reforms. We will not allow our government, working to please a few greedy outliers in the food industry who care only about fattening their bottom lines, to buck that trend.
Ya no podemos permitir tanta crueldad a los animalitos necesitamos un mundo
ya sin violencia y un trato digno a los animalitos
People who are cruel to animals should be in JAIL!! LAWS FOR CRUELTY!!!
LETS SPEED UP GETTING RID OF THAT SELFISH GREEDY DISGUSTING DEMENTED HEARTLESS SOULLESS EVIL BASTARD! 🤬🙋♂️👿💁♂️👹🙅♂️💚✌️✊🏼🌱
I’m kind of agreeing with you now (after he did this he lost my support).
This disgusts me as living in the country raising my children & grandchildren we have had both pigs & chickens & I have been surprised to find how smart both of these animals really are! For example a pig we had loved to lie in the sunshine he could climb a nearly 5 foot tall gate to escape his pen anytime he pleased but he KNEW he wasnt supposed to be out & he had bionic hearing he would hear is coming either on foot or our vehicle which he obviously knew from others in the neighborhood & we would see him lying in the pasture sunning yet by the time we got to his “pen” he was back in it, like he had never NOT been there all along! He wasnt going to get caught being loose! We also had a chicken named Scratchy that would run along behind you wherever you went she went, she would chase my grandson Kaden around & around the yard in his power wheels tractor just bc he was her boy! We had a rooster who had full spurs, he was mean as heck, he terrorized half this town’s kids that came to swim in our pool when they were young, I had to keep a broom close by every door we had to “swat” him away from getting into mischief! He was black with a red Crest & gobbler, we had a pug & jack Russell mix a Jug named Hank William’s Jr & Hank was solid black but always wore one of many red Tshirts that said Bone Collector on them Hank & that Rooster loved each other they had a daily ritual I wish I had filmed it I would have won a lot of money with it I am sure! They would both put their heads down low in the grass eye ball to eye balls rear ends up, stinky eye staring each other down & then Hank would bark & run that circle thing Pug’s are famous for, & up in the air would go the rooster & the rooster would fly like he was gonna spur Ole Hank he would circle round best he could after Hank but he couldnt ever catch that dog, Hank was quick! & then they’d go back to the stink eye position & start again! They would do this for 15-20 mins in the morning & the evenings then the rooster would fly up & sit on the fence & roost a nap. That rooster could’ve used them spurs to slit Hank open had he really wanted to, he could sneak up on ya like a shadow & scare the dead skin cells right off of ya! So dont ever think those animals are dumb & have no.idea what is happening to them. We are ALL GONNA DIE, so they are bred & sacrificed to feed the human race, that’s understandable but they dont have to be killed in an inhumane way! Their deaths should be swift & without suffering! Same way you or myself would hope to go if we had the choice. The way the Trump Administration has just approved is wrong, it’s wrong for the animals & it’s wrong for the safety of the workers doing the jobs. That needs to be changed! Immediately.
This is totally unacceptable! To think that tax dollars fund a department, in the USA, that makes such animal brutality LEGAL, needs to be a crime in itself!
In spite of all fifty states having anti animal-cruelty laws, the fact remains that if a PROFIT BUSINESS is the abuser, then, the cruelty is legal: “In fact, if one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people.”–Ruth Harrison, Animal Machines
As a society, we live according to societal indoctrination, right or wrong, and the public has not been indoctrinated to consider the VICTIMS of the food industry. Most people will be horrified with this vile practice, but they blindly and unconsciously support it, if they continue to accept societal indoctrination of animals-as-food.
My heart felt gratitude to all who work tirelessly on behalf of all the victims of the human PROFIT industry.
Progress always involves increase of speed. Speed of information, speed of cars, speed of planes, speed of trains, speed of space travel, speed of food harvesting, both plant and animal. As human population increases, speeds will continue to increase. The rates of production in all manufacturing endeavors are always trying to improve efficiency and reduction of cost for the benefit of consumers. Increased speed at which product gets processed, chilled and packaged are important in food safety. You want to process and package food as quickly as possible to reduce probability of contamination. No responsible producer increases speeds if it is negatively going to affect food safety or employee safety.
I agree chickens should be slaughtered humanely. First, they should allowed to pick their last meal. Then, their clergy should be called in for last rites and spiritual support and guidance. They should be given a final visitation from friends and family, and allowed to see a lawyer to put their affairs in order. Lastly, all stays, pardons, and commutation of sentencing should have been exhausted.
This is totally unacceptable! To think that tax dollars fund a department, in the USA, that makes such animal brutality LEGAL, needs to be a crime in itself!
In spite of all fifty states having anti animal-cruelty laws, the fact remains that if a PROFIT BUSINESS is the abuser, then, the cruelty is legal: “In fact, if one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned to the last by otherwise intelligent people.”–Ruth Harrison, Animal Machines
As a society, we live according to societal indoctrination, right or wrong, and we are not indoctrinated to consider the VICTIMS of the food industry. Most people will be horrified with this vile practice, but they blindly and unconsciously support it, if they continue to accept societal indoctrination of animals-as-food propaganda.
My heart felt gratitude to all who work tirelessly on behalf of all victims of the human PROFIT industry.
This is unbelievable, trump administration would let anything be killed, murdered or slaughter. They are all interested in the money and take bribes from the poultry industry as well as taking from other industries that donate to them or bribe them.
This is unbelievable, trump administration would let anything be killed, murdered or slaughtered. They are all interested in the money and take bribes from the poultry industry as well as taking from other industries that donate to them or bribe them.
Stop breeding animals for despicable people to eat. Stop the slaughter