Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)

In 2007, two animal advocacy organizations – Animals’ Angels and United Poultry Concerns – called upon the Sara Lee Corporation to cover its trucks taking turkeys to slaughter in freezing weather.

Our campaign grew out of an investigation by Animals’ Angels on January 25, 2007 when investigators followed a truck loaded with turkeys on the road for four hours to the Sara Lee slaughter plant in Storm Lake, Iowa.

The truck was uncovered, exposing the turkeys to bitter cold and icy winds. Snow and ice stuck to the metal transport cages in which the turkeys were huddled.

Read more about this investigation…

Upon arrival at the plant, the turkeys sat for another two hours in frigid 16 degrees Fahrenheit temperatures. Evidence of the investigation was presented to Sara Lee with the recommendation to start using tarps or insulated panels to protect the company’s turkeys from the cold. UPC and Animals’ Angels issued a press release, and our campaign was covered by the Des Moines Register and the Storm Lake Pilot Tribune.

Sara Lee told Animals’ Angels and UPC: “Sara Lee and its suppliers use insulated panels on trucks to protect the animals during colder weather.” However, insulated panels were not in use during the 2007 investigation. In 2008, UPC and Animals’ Angels decided a follow-up investigation was warranted. The aim of the February 2009 investigation was to find out if any improvements had been made.   

Animals’ Angels investigators documented conditions at the plant on February 3-4, 2009. Inside the fenced premises, they saw two barns with open fronts. The sides and the back of these barns were covered with tarps that protected the turkeys – caged in trailers parked inside the barns – from the weather. When the trailers were moved from the barn to the slaughter plant entrance, the turkeys were exposed to the elements for 1-2 minutes. 

On all loaded turkey trucks that arrived at the plant the cages were covered with insulated panels. Trucks backed up to the barns, dropped off the trailers with the turkeys inside, picked up empty trailers and left. Threatened with arrest by police for “harassing trucks,” Animals’ Angels terminated the investigation with intent to file a complaint, noting the investigators weren’t illegally interfering, just watching the plant and the trucks.

Read more about this investigation…

Based on the observations, it appears Sara Lee has responded to the recommendations of Animals’ Angels and UPC, since during the investigators’ unannounced visit, significantly improved weather protection was provided for the turkeys slaughtered at the Storm Lake plant on February 3-4, 2009.

What Can You Do? 

Tell Sara Lee you appreciate the company’s apparent response to pleas that it protect its turkeys from exposure to freezing weather by equipping its transport trucks with insulated panels – and closing the panels – enroute to the company’s slaughter plant in Storm Lake, Iowa, as documented on February 4, 2009.
 
Say you are glad that, instead of the turkeys being forced to sit outside the slaughter plant entrance in the freezing cold – as the were forced to do in January 2007 – the turkeys in February 2009 were held in a covered barn.
 
Urge Sara Lee to adopt a companywide policy at the national and international level requiring that all birds trucked to the company’s slaughter plants be afforded protection from cold weather in the form of insulated panels like those observed by investigators in Storm Lake, Iowa in February 2009. Request a written response to your letter.  

Contact:
 
Brenda C. Barnes, Chairman, CEO
Sara Lee Corporation
3500 Lacey Road
Downers Grove, IL 60515
Phone: 630-598-6000
Fax: 630-598-8653
 
You can also leave a message for Sara Lee at:

http://www.saralee.com/ContactUs.aspx 

Please support the work of Animals Angels

Sonja Meadows

Executive Director

Animals’ Angels USA

410-848-3153

www.animals-angels.com

 

Animals’ Angels is a 501 (c)(3) non profit organization incorporated in Maryland. All donations are greatly appreciated and tax deductible. 

 

Thank you!

Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | Leave a comment »

On their website, http://www.hormelfoods.com/responsibility/process/default.aspxhttp://www.hormelfoods.com/responsibility/process/default.aspx  Hormel declare that they ensure animal welfare:

“Hormel Foods is committed to reducing the impact our day-to-day operations have on the environment and ensuring animal welfare.

This year we recognized the need to formalize how we report our responsible business practices. While we have always operated in a responsible way, we formally established our focus on:

• Energy
• Solid waste
• Water
• Air emissions
• Animal welfare
• Animal husbandry”

As you are intelligent people, we suggest you view the footage on the following link and then decide:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1755841/hormel_supplier_caught_abusing_mother_pigs_and_piglets/?cd=44fe83cba1a99834b71e76a0141270c900500002346868usa

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Hormel worker caught abusing mother pig and piglets on tape!!!

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1755841/hormel_supplier_caught_abusing_mother_pigs_and_piglets/?cd=44fe83cba1a99834b71e76a0141270c900500002346868usa

Indeed, this is what the brutal pork industry is all about!  It is happening at every factory pig farm and slaughter house in the country; there is no such thing as humane slaughter, organic meat, or killing with compassion.  Pigs are animals with a higher intelligence than dogs.  And how horrified are we about those in other countries who treat dogs and cats this way? These animals are aware of their surroundings; they are sentient beings who experience emotional as well as physical pain and suffering.  The abuse and cruelty to which they are subjected is unconscionable, perverse and outrageous!!!  And we call ourselves civilized?

Many of the people who work in slaughterhouses and on factory farms are sadistic perverts who consider these animals as unfeeling, degraded objects of scorn; in fact it is clear that many who work in such places actually enjoy the opportunity to brutalize, to maim, to torture… and you can be sure, these individuals do not leave those tendencies at the slaughter house when they go home.  

Our language is filled with expressions denoting the view we have of these intelligent animals: “dirty pig”…which denotes sexual as well as physical filth; “to pig put”, “eat like a pig” (an entirely human quality, expressing gross over-indulgence, and so forth and so on), all of which project human failings/”sins” (gluttony) on these unfortunate animals.  For just a few moments of gustatory pleasure, we are complicit in and willing to subject other living beings to pure Hell and to take away their precious lives.  Can you live with that thought? Are you able to eat the flesh of another living being that has endured such suffering, with a clear conscience? Every time you swallow that mouthful of flesh you are ingesting the Karma and all the sadness and misery that the animal has endured. The animals’ flesh is moreover, filled with hormones, anti-biotics, and drugs to prevent illness and promote growth…and that’s what the consumer is eating.  Any wonder why cancers, heart disease and other “life-style” illnesses are on the increase, in spite of all the medical advances?

But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that portion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.

~Plutarch, C.A.D. 46-C

And so, it is not just Hormel that we need to boycott, but the entire industry, one that systematically engages in the abuse of intelligent, living, feeling beings and also destroys our environment by contributing to greenhouse gasses and polluting our waters and air with the waste from this hideous cruelty.

There are acceptable vegan substitutes for every pork and other animal product on the market…and no reason whatsoever that could ever justify the hideous and inhumane treatment of these unfortunate creatures. Remember, if you don’t eat it, they won’t kill it!

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1755841/hormel_supplier_caught_abusing_mother_pigs_and_piglets/?cd=44fe83cba1a99834b71e76a0141270c900500002346868usa

Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | Leave a comment »