Video of more downer cows in MD & three other states
As promised, here's the undercover video from the Humane Society of the United States on downer cows at auctions in Maryland, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Texas.
According to HSUS, the video of the downers was shot in April and May and shared with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer last week at a face-to-face meeting. HSUS said that Schafer pledged to look into the issue.
This video isn't quite as gruesome as the one involving Westland/Hallmark where downer cows were being poked, prodded, pushed and pulled by forklift into pens for slaughter, but it does make you worry about what might be making it into our food supply.
In the investigation, HSUS found:
At the Livestock Exchange (LSX) in Hereford, Texas, HSUS investigators videotaped two downed cows left in the parking lot for four hours. Neither cow could lift her head. They were still alive in the parking lot at closing time. HSUS had received a complaint from a passing motorist about live, downed cows at LSX hanging from their legs by chains attached to a front-end loader.
At the Westminster auction in Maryland, HSUS investigators documented a downed cow abandoned outside of the auction barn, left to suffer through the night. HSUS investigators contacted agents with the Carroll County Humane Society. An officer expertly ended the cow’s suffering.
At the Greencastle Livestock Auction in Pennsylvania, HSUS investigators documented a calf only days old who was unable to stand and left to die.
The HSUS is urging the USDA to close a loophole that allows some downer cows to be slaughtered for consumption. Says HSUS, "Until this loophole is closed, producers and middlemen in the supply chain have a financial incentive to push sick and injured animals to the brink — and in many cases to torture them beyond the brink — in attempts to turn them into profitable beef. Until the federal government steps in to assume firm jurisdiction, the food supply will be subject to the patchwork vagaries of local and state regulation, which can mean no oversight at all."
