Illegal Abuse of Animals Uncovered at Local Schools' Partner

Illegal Abuse of Animals Uncovered at Local Schools’ Partner

After PETA Calls for Investigation Into Fisher Ham and Meat Co., State Officials Discover Abusive Handling, Filthy Conditions, and More

For Immediate Release:
May 10, 2017

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Spring, Texas –

Following a PETA complaint, Texas officials launched an investigation into Fisher Ham and Meat Co., where inspectors found that workers repeatedly hit pigs on the head with “excessive force” to make them run to slaughter, confined pigs in a foot of standing water, dragged a lamb by the ear to the killing floor, and failed to dispose of “inedible products” properly, according to state documents recently obtained by PETA.

In response, PETA sent letters this morning calling on local school districts to reconsider their ties with Fisher. In recent years, the Aldine Independent School District in Houston sent the company checks for $974.32 (April 20, 2017), $7,298.80 (June 2, 2016), and $12,352.35 (July 23, 2015), and Spring Independent School District paid Fisher $2,724.70 (August 5, 2015).

“PETA is calling on local schools to stop spending thousands of dollars at a slaughterhouse whose workers have repeatedly hit animals and dragged them to the killing floor,” says PETA Senior Vice President of Cruelty Investigations Daphna Nachminovitch. “This violence toward thinking, feeling pigs is a reminder that the kindest thing that we can all do for animals is not eat them.”

PETA’s December 20 complaint to the Texas Department of State Health Services was based on a whistleblower’s report that workers at the company—which currently ranks 20^th in the U.S. for daily pig-slaughter capacity—physically abused animals and failed to dispose of their fluids correctly.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that in 2012, Harris County and state officials charged Fisher with letting bloody water from the killing floor overflow into roadside ditches, and complaints from neighbors of a “sickening” odor led to a separate investigation into violations of the Texas Clean Air Act.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.