Probe of Slaughterhouse Sought After Pig Repeatedly Electroshocked

PETA Cites Federal Report Showing That Workers at Lake Geneva Country Meats Shackled and Hoisted Fully Conscious Animal

For Immediate Release:
October 4, 2017

Contact:
Audrey Shircliff 202-483-7382

Armed with a damning U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report, PETA sent a letter today calling on the Walworth County sheriff to investigate and, as appropriate, file criminal charges against Lake Geneva Country Meats and the workers who electrically shocked a pig on the head multiple times—and subsequently shackled and hoisted the conscious, struggling animal.

According to the USDA record, Lake Geneva Country Meats’ operations were suspended on September 14 after a USDA inspector witnessed workers electroshocking a pig twice on the head. During the second shock, the animal was “vocaliz[ing] and thrash[ing] around”—in other words, screaming and struggling. A worker then shackled and hoisted the shrieking pig by one leg off the floor, and workers electroshocked him or her a third time, then shot the animal in the head with a captive-bolt gun. When the pig continued to cry out and look around, a worker shot him or her again. PETA notes that this incident may violate Wisconsin’s cruelty-to-animals statute, which states, “No person may treat any animal … in a cruel manner.”

“PETA is calling for a criminal investigation of this slaughterhouse and the workers who caused this pig to writhe and cry out in terror and pain as he or she was repeatedly, painfully electrically shocked and shot in the head,” says PETA Senior Vice President of Cruelty Investigations Daphna Nachminovitch. “There’s no difference between the terror and pain that this pig felt and how dogs or cats or the worker would feel if they were hoisted upside down by one leg and subjected to multiple electric shocks.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that the meat industry kills more than 115 million gentle pigs every year, that animals have the same central nervous system and sense of self-preservation as humans, and that the only way to prevent pigs, cows, chickens, and other animals from suffering in slaughterhouses is to go vegan.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.