Animal Earth Human

A video taken at the Chino facility prompted schools nationwide to pull beef from their menus.
By Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 16, 2008

San Bernardino County prosecutors on Friday filed felony charges against a former Chino slaughterhouse manager who allegedly used cruel methods to force ailing cattle into the slaughter box. The charges follow last month’s release of a video showing treatment of animals at the plant, which led to schools nationwide pulling beef from cafeterias.

In what prosecutors called unprecedented charges, Daniel Ugarte Navarro, 49, of Pomona faces up to eight years and eight months in prison if convicted of five felony counts of animal cruelty and three misdemeanor counts of illegal movement of a non-ambulatory animal. Navarro, who was a head pen manager at Hallmark Meat Packing, was shown using forklifts, electric prods and high-pressure water hoses to force cows to their feet in the video surreptitiously shot by the Humane Society of the United States.

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“It makes your stomach turn to see what they did to the cows in this situation,” Dist. Atty. Michael A. Ramos said at a news conference Friday. “We want to send the message that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated.”

Authorities also filed three misdemeanor counts against Navarro’s assistant, Luis Sanchez, 32, of Chino. Sanchez faces up to three years in prison if convicted. Hallmark fired Navarro and Sanchez last month after the video’s release.

Neither Navarro nor Sanchez appeared at their arraignments Friday afternoon at a Chino courthouse. Warrants were issued for their arrest.

Reached at his home Friday, Sanchez, a father of two, said he regretted his actions and that he was only following orders.

“I did it because they ordered me to. I obeyed them; if not, I lost my job,” Sanchez said in Spanish. “I knew it was illegal but they obliged me to do it.” Sanchez said he is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico and that he worked at Hallmark for six years before he was fired last month. He is not represented by an attorney.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture last week suspended inspections at Hallmark, which in effect closed the plant. The USDA inspector general is investigating the case, but this week several members of Congress also called for an independent federal investigation of the safety of food the USDA supplies to schools.

Hallmark was the second-largest supplier of ground beef to the National School Lunch Program, which provides commodities and cash subsidies to schools.

The Humane Society presented the video to the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office Dec. 19, officials said. Chino police department Rural Crime Task Force detectives, who are trained in humane treatment of cattle, conducted investigations at the plant and interviewed witnesses to verify the Humane Society’s allegations, according to police reports.

Ramos said investigations were continuing and that his office was also cooperating with the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Police identified in the video 11 instances of alleged illegal activity between Oct. 11 and Nov. 9 of last year. The actions were documented by a Humane Society investigator working undercover at the plant. He shot footage with what was described in police reports as a pen camera attached to a button on his chest.”

In one scene, where Navarro is shown using a paddle to hit a non-ambulatory cow in the face and eye, detectives determined “it is obvious by the video that Navarro is attempting to get the animal to her feet and subsequently to the kill floor to be slaughtered,” according to police reports.

Cattle that cannot walk on their own are banned from the human meat supply because they are at higher risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease.

In voluntary interviews with the police, Navarro appeared to be “minimizing his role in the improper handling of the live animals by saying that it was Sanchez who had mistreated a cow by pulling it with a chain,” according to police reports. Navarro seemed to have a good understanding of state and federal regulations on the treatment of cows, investigators wrote in the report.

Navarro told Chino police that a former owner of the plant, Donny Hallmark, instructed him to use techniques such as forcing animals up with the forklift or holding water hoses to the nostrils of cattle.

In four instances, the videos showed so-called “downer” cattle being executed after workers were unable to force them to their feet, police reports indicate.

Those cows did not enter the human food supply. In another instance, however, a cow that had collapsed was shocked with a cattle prod until it eventually stood up and entered the slaughter box, according to the reports.

Authorities are also considering action against the management of Hallmark for alleged unfair business practices, Ramos said.

“For so many district attorneys, animal cruelty issues are very new,” Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, said Friday. “It’s a process. . . . Today we heard that he treats it as a serious issue.”

The plant may not reopen until a plan for corrective action is submitted and approved by federal authorities.

School districts nationwide have pulled suspect beef from their cafeteria menus, although the USDA has said no evidence was found that so-called downer cattle had entered the food supply.

victoria.kim@latimes.com

Times staff writers Daniela Perdomo and Tami Abdollah contributed to this report

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-beef16feb16,1,5071848.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

By Nathaniel Popper
Wed. Feb 13, 2008

Over the past few decades, kosher meat producers have learned what many others in the industry know: The broad expanses of rural Argentina and Uruguay have everything needed to make great beef, with a stable climate and seemingly endless pastures for grazing. The labor is cheap, and the open pastures on which the cows are raised mean that much of the meat can be marketed with those increasingly alluring tags of “natural” and “free range.”

As a result, a majority of Israel’s beef — and a large portion of America’s kosher meat — now comes from South America. In recent years, every major American kosher meat producer has set up a South American operation.

There is just one, big problem: the way the animals are killed. A majority of the South American slaughterhouses producing kosher meat use a method known as “shackle and hoist,” whereby the cow is pulled up into the air by one of its hind legs and then dropped onto the ground before its throat is slit. The method is illegal under most conditions in the United States, but remains popular among kosher producers elsewhere because it allows the cow to be upside down when it is slaughtered — as is required by Israel’s chief rabbis, the final authorities on kosher meat entering the Jewish state.

The method will be given a public airing this week with the release of a video taken by the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. According to exclusive information given to the Forward, the video was shot in late October 2007 by an undercover investigator during two days of kosher slaughter at a plant in Uruguay. PETA has not yet released the video, but a copy was given to the Forward, which has been investigating the practice since last fall. In it, the animals can be seen hanging from a single leg, struggling in the air and bellowing. Once the animal is put on the ground, it is shown writhing and being restrained by multiple workers who step on it and prod it before the cut.

“It is in a category by itself for badness,” said Temple Grandin, an American animal rights expert who has advised many kosher meat companies, referring to “shackle and hoist.”

“It’s cruel to the animals and it’s dangerous for the employees,” Grandin added.

PETA raised controversy in the past with undercover videos from kosher plants, sparking some to accuse it of anti-Jewish bias — a charge PETA has denied. In this case, PETA appears to have come to an issue already being pursued behind closed doors by certain kosher authorities. Over the last year, the Forward has learned, America’s largest kosher supervision agency, the Orthodox Union, has been concerned enough about “shackle and hoist” slaughter to begin a quiet campaign to have the Israeli rabbinical authorities change it.

“It’s not the kind of system that we want to have, that we would be proud of,” Rabbi Menachem Genack, the CEO of the Orthodox Union’s Kosher Division, told the Forward.

The Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Judaism passed a ruling in 2000 calling the “shackle and hoist” method a “violation of Jewish law.” In anticipation of the new revelations, the organization reiterated its opposition at a meeting earlier this week.

The plant shown in the PETA video is located in Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo. According to Orthodox Union authorities, the kosher plant in question produces meat for Israel. The Orthodox Union’s top expert on South American meat, Rabbi Seth Mandel, says that even within the problematic realm of “shackle and hoist,” the new video shows an unusually bad case.

“Not only is it unusual — this would not be allowed to go on in plants [slaughtering] for the U.S.,” said Mandel.

Despite the concerns of the Orthodox Union, the organization still certifies kosher plants in South America that use “shackle and hoist”; indeed most kosher meat entering the United States from South America is produced using the method, according to Genack. Genack said change has been slow to come because the Israelis are the major market force in South America and thus dictate the standards of meat production in the region.

“This will not succeed unless we have the support of the Israeli companies, and that requires a push from the chief rabbis there,” Genack said.

The willingness of the Orthodox Union to continue to allow “shackle and hoist” has already drawn fire from PETA.

“I think it’s shameful,” said Aaron Gross, a PETA consultant who has worked on the organization’s projects involving kosher slaughter. “Anything they’ve been doing to improve the situation, I applaud. I just wish they would do it more publicly.”

Over the last year, Genack said, he has had numerous private talks about this issue with both Rabbi Yona Metzger, the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, and Rabbi Shlomo Amar, the Sephardic chief rabbi. In late 2007, Metzger and Amar convened a meeting of rabbis in Israel to discuss the issue, according to people involved. Afterward, Genack said he received a letter in which he was assured that the Israeli chief rabbis were looking to change the practice. Just last week, Genack said he spoke with Metzger on the phone about pushing for change.

Partially at Genack’s insistence, the chief rabbis invited a veterinarian who specializes in kosher slaughter, Rabbi I.M. Levinger, to attend their meeting last fall. Levinger told the Forward that the issue was discussed, but that the chief rabbis were hesitant to commit to anything.

“They want to see what they can reach with recommendations,” Levinger said. “I feel that this will not be much, I am afraid.”

PETA has said that they have tried to speak with the Israeli chief rabbinate in the past, but have not heard back. When reached by the Forward on Tuesday, the head of the Israeli chief rabbinate’s import division, Rabbi Ezra Harari, said he was not familiar with the issue and declined to comment.

Rabbinical authorities say that the chief rabbis mandate that cows be upside down because the blood drains faster and the animal cannot fall on the knife.

The current PETA campaign builds on the publicity the group garnered with an undercover video released in 2004 from America’s largest kosher slaughterhouse, AgriProcessors, which is located in Iowa. AgriProcessors is the only kosher meat producer in America that is certified to export meat to Israel. The company uses what is known as a rotating pen to meet the Israeli standard that the animal be upside down when it is slaughtered.

AgriProcessors’ use of the rotating pen was criticized in 2005. Ironically, it is the rotating pen — a mechanized corral that holds the animal while it is flipped over — that many animal rights activists see as the best alternative to the “shackle and hoist” method in South America. In fact, in South America, AgriProcessors has led the way, being the first and only kosher company to install a rotating pen in its slaughterhouse, according to the Orthodox Union. This has earned it praise from PETA.

“I think it’s great that AgriProcessors has taken that step,” said PETA’s Gross. “It shows you how bringing this stuff out in the open motivates change.” AgriProcessors did not respond to requests for comment.

The kosher rush into South America began in 1950, according to the Israeli chief rabbinate. Today, close to 60,000 tons of meat come into Israel each year from South America.

South America’s biggest draw is its cheap labor, which is also a primary reason that companies opt for the “shackle and hoist” method. The technique relies on little technology but a comparatively large number of laborers to restrain the cattle.

Most American companies use their South American product for processed meats like salami and bologna — a choice driven in part because the cows are raised on grass, which does not make the meat as fatty as corn-fed American beef. Recently, though, grass-fed beef has taken on its own allure with the explosion of demand for free-range meat. Both kosher authorities and animal rights activists say that before the slaughtering begins, conditions in South America make for more pleasant living conditions than in America, where most cattle are confined to feed lots for their entire lives.

“In Uruguay, the animals are blessed,” said Mandel, the rabbi who oversees meat production in South America. “They are lolling outside — plenty of grass to eat. There is nothing to mistreat them — until the day they are loaded on a truck.”

That final step — the “shackle and hoist” — was common in America in the early 20th century, when labor was cheaper and before Congress passed the Humane Methods of Livestock Slaughter Act.

In American kosher slaughterhouses today, the Orthodox Union mandates standing slaughter, which it promotes partially for humane reasons.

The Israeli animal rights group, Concern for Helping Animals in Israel, has recently written to both chief rabbis questioning whether the South American practice could be compatible with Jewish law.

The letter, which was written by Rabbi Adam Frank, an activist with the organization, asked: “Since less painful and more humane methods of animal restraint and treatment exist and are used in the kosher slaughter process, is the Shackling & Hoisting of a conscious animal an unnecessarily cruel practice, thus defining it as prohibited under Jewish law?”

Officials with Frank’s organization said they have not heard back from the chief rabbinate.

The conflict between factory farming practices and Islamic law is leading many Muslims to eat more vegetables
by Maura R. O’Connor

For the vast majority of Muslims, eating meat has always been an unquestionable God-given right. The Qur’an states, “Eat of that which Allah hath bestowed on you as food lawful and good, and keep your duty to Allah in Whom ye are believers.” Indeed, some Muslim leaders and scholars have argued that because Allah allows animals to be consumed by humans, it is actually prohibited to make an ethical decision not to eat them. “You cannot make what is halal (’lawful’) into haram (’unlawful’),” they say. But interestingly, the spread of factory farming across the globe in recent years has caused many Muslims to make the unorthodox decision to become vegetarians and inflamed debates about Islamic dietary laws among scholars and religious leaders.

Islamic law says that in order for meat to be considered halal, very specific procedures must be followed. Muhammad forbade “the beating or the branding of animals” and also forbade “cutting off animals’ tails and other mutilations.” A person must recite the name of Allah over the animal before it is killed, and the animal’s throat must be cut in order to ensure a quick and relatively painless death. Factory farms, which employ all varieties of inhumane methods for raising and slaughtering animals, do not comply with these standards. Furthermore, Muslims are not permitted to eat carnivorous animals, yet many factory farms feed animal remains to livestock.

Websites addressing this conflict between factory farming and Islam are numerous, and some go into rather gruesome detail in order to determine what is or is not lawful. “Is it permissible to give animals an electric shock before slaughter, and is it permissible to eat them?” one concerned Muslim asked on islamonline.com. A mufti, or interpreter of Islamic law, responded, “Indeed, giving an animal a high-voltage electric shock is a severe torture for it. However, if the electric charge is low so that it does not torment the animal, then it is all right to use it. In addition, if the animal is still alive after the electric shock, it can be slaughtered and eaten. But if it dies from the shock and then has the throat slit, it is impermissible to eat it.”

Pro-vegetarian Muslim websites include islamicconcerns.com, which provides free “vegetarian starter kits” and lists pro-vegetarian fatwas (Islamic legal pronouncements). PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has also created a website that deals with religious faith and vegetarianism and includes a lengthy section devoted to Islam (www.jesusveg.com/6.html). These websites argue that beyond the technical violations of Islamic dietary laws, factory farms, with their intense cruelty to animals, contradict fundamental Islamic principles. “The beautiful religion of Islam has always viewed animals as a special part of God’s creation,” islamicconcerns.com says. “The Qur’an, the Hadith, and the history of Islamic civilization offer many examples of kindness, mercy, and compassion for animals.” Perhaps the current surge in Muslim vegetarianism is the next chapter in that history. And of course eating veggies is not without its benefits in the afterlife—even Muhammad supposedly said, “For [charity shown to] each creature which has a wet heart [i.e., is alive], there is a reward.”

WHAT MUSLIM DIETARY LAWS SAY

1. It is haram (unlawful) to beat, mutilate, or brand animals.

2. An animal must be killed by slitting its throat with a knife, severing the windpipe, gullet, and the two jugular veins without actually severing the head. The Prophet said, “Allah has prescribed goodness (ihsan) in everything. When you sacrifice, sacrifice well. Let you sharpen your knife and make it easy for the animal to be slaughtered.”

3. Muslims are strictly forbidden to eat the flesh of carnivorous animals.

4. The name of Allah must be invoked over each animal before it is killed.

WHAT FACTORY FARMS DO

1. Animals in factory farms are extremely overcrowded and therefore prone to stress related behaviors, including cannibalism and fighting. Preventive measures such as debeaking young chickens, dehorning cows and castrating them without the use of anesthetics, and lopping off turkey’s toes are industry standards. Incidents of cruel beatings and torture of animals by factory farm employees are also widespread.

2. Cows and other animals in factory farms are killed using electric shocks to cause grand mal seizures and paralysis so that their throats can be easily cut. A second method is called “captive bolt stunning,” in which a “gun” is set against the animal’s head and a metal rod is shot into the brain. Reports indicate that ineffective slaughter methods in factory farms often lead to conscious animals being dismembered in the production lines.

3. In factory farms, animals that are natural herbivores are fed slaughterhouse waste, including fat, blood, meat, and bone meal. Sheep are fed chicken byproducts, and dairy cows are given feed with ground pork bones in it. “Animal cannibalism” is also common, with cows being fed the blood and meat of other cattle as protein supplements (this practice can result in the spread of mad cow disease if brain tissue is consumed).

4. Unless they are Muslim-operated, this law is never observed in factory farms. However, even those Muslim factory farms that claim to produce lawful meat recently came under scrutiny when it became known that some of them recite the name of Allah only once at the beginning of the day to serve as a single blessing for the thousands of animals to be killed.

http://www.wie.org/j28/islamic-veg.asp

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2008-02-14-animal-tests_N.htm

A Chinese researcher injects a monkey with an experimental solution at a laboratory in Guangzhou, China.

Three U.S. agencies have signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” to begin developing new methods besides animal testing.

By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY

An ambitious program announced today by a coalition of government agencies could lead to the end of animal testing to evaluate the safety of new chemicals and drugs.

Three agencies — the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Toxicology Program and the National Institutes of Health — have signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” to begin developing the new methods. The collaboration is described in a paper in today’s edition of the journal Science.

The agreement is a “milestone” says Martin Stephens of the Humane Society of the United States. “We believe this is the beginning of the end for animal testing. We think the (conversion) process will take about 10 years.”

The agencies acknowledge that full implementation of the shift in toxicity testing could take years because it will require scientific validation of the new approaches.

Using human cells grown in test tubes and computer-driven testing machines, the scientists will eventually examine potentially toxic compounds in the lab rather than injecting them into mice, rats and rabbits and waiting to see if the animals die.

The EPA has already begun evaluating 300 chemicals using the new methods. The first phase should be finished this year, says Robert Kavlok, director of the National Center for Computational Toxicology.

Thousands of chemicals can be tested at one time in this way, a great advance over slow, expensive animal testing. It’s done in a 3-by-5-inch glass tray with 1,536 tiny wells, each a fraction of a millimeter across, says Christopher Austin, director of NIH’s Chemical Genomics Center.

A few hundred human cells grown in a test tube go into each well. Then, guided by a computer, the testing machine drips a different chemical into each well. After some time has passed, the machine shines a laser through each well to see how many cells remain. A computer analyzes the toxicity of each compound based on how the cells react.

For comparison, it’s taken the EPA 30 years to rigorously test 2,500 potentially toxic compounds, says Elias Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health.

All the data produced will be put into a public database. “We think it is very important for the entire public worldwide to have access to these very precious experimental results,” says Kavlock.

It’s the fruit of work begun in 2005 by EPA and the National Toxicological Program to speed up toxicological testing. That resulted in a report by the National Research Council last year laying out how it might be done.

To convert from animal to lab testing, the federal agencies will start with compounds previously tested on animals to confirm that the cell-based tests are accurate, says Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute.

This won’t mean that animal testing will disappear overnight, but it signals the beginning of the end, says Zerhouni.

February 11, 2008 11:29pm
Article from: AAP

A COALITION of more than 800 international animal rights groups have targeted the Federal Government and Australia’s billion dollar live animal export business.

Handle With Care (HWC) announced at a meeting in Sydney it planned to step up its efforts to end live animal exports from Australia.

Animal activists highlighted the treatment of livestock during and after long-distance transport to other countries.

Coalition member Animals Australia returned from an overseas investigation last December with video footage of live Australian sheep being sold to locals and then stuffed in the boots of cars.

“Right throughout the Middle East I have seen no indication that there is any feeling for the animals - that they understand, that they bruise, they break bones, that they feel fear or terror,” Animals spokeswoman Lyn White told ABC television.

Meat and Livestock Australia spokesman Scott Hansen said the organisation visited many recipient countries of Australian animals to train locals in how to properly handle livestock.

He also said shutting down the $1.8 billion-a-year industry that employs 13,000 people in rural areas would cripple their livelihoods.

“We are disappointed that this coalition of animal welfare groups have failed to take into account both the investment and the progress being made by the live export industry,” Mr Hansen told the ABC.

Ms White countered that people in recipient countries believed they had the right to abuse imported livestock and would continue to do so as long as Australia exported live animals.

Handle With Care spokesman Hugh Wirth said the coalition would seek a meeting with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

“We’ve got no choice now but to talk to the prime minister about it, if he will receive us, and that will be a test of the government’s intentions,” Mr Wirth told the ABC.

Federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke has supported the industry since taking the job after last year’s federal election.

His office told the ABC that industry and government would continue to work hard to improve animal welfare outcomes in export markets.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23198949-29277,00.html