Feds Cite Local Slaughterhouse: Pig Found Conscious After Throat Cut

Pig Stands Up After Being Electrocuted—PETA Calls For Public Scrutiny, Operational Overhaul

For Immediate Release:
September 14, 2020

Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382

Following a U.S. Department of Agriculture report documenting that a pig at Wise Meat Packing near Campbellsville stood up after being electrocuted, stuck in the throat with a knife, and shot in the head, PETA has fired off a letter urging the owner to livestream video footage from the facility in order to help prevent workers from mishandling and abusing animals during slaughter. PETA also asked the facility to stop killing animals and switch to butchering only wildlife who’ve been accidentally killed in vehicle collisions.

“Publicly livestreaming slaughter operations—or ending them altogether—would help prevent more animals from experiencing agonizing, prolonged deaths,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “PETA is urging Wise Meat Packing to overhaul its facility immediately and encouraging anyone disturbed by this incident to help keep animals out of slaughterhouses everywhere by going vegan.”

PETA’s motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat,” and the group opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. PETA also asked Wise Meat Packing what actions it has taken against the worker responsible for the botched slaughter, such as reporting them to local law enforcement and reassigning them to a position that doesn’t involve contact with live animals.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.

PETA’s letter to Dennis Wise, owner of Wise Meat Packing, follows.

September 14, 2020

Dennis Wise
Owner
Wise Meat Packing

Dear Mr. Wise,

A U.S. Department of Agriculture report documented that a pig who had been electrocuted and whose throat had been stuck stood up, conscious, on all four hooves and was then shot in the head at Wise Meat Packing on August 19. We ask that you immediately make changes to your operations in order to reduce animal suffering at your slaughterhouse.

In light of the pain and terror that this animal endured, we’d like you to give serious thought to no longer slaughtering pigs. If you want to stay in this kind of business without causing animals to suffer needlessly, you could start exclusively butchering animals killed in collisions with vehicles and legally salvaged by customers who wish to eat their flesh, as state law allows.

We also ask that you publicly livestream video footage from all areas of your facility where live animals are handled. Your staff would surely take their duty to handle animals lawfully more seriously if they knew that people were watching. The world’s foremost expert on livestock welfare, Dr. Temple Grandin, writes, “Plants that are doing a good job should show what they are doing.” Members of your industry often complain that consumers today don’t understand how animals are raised and killed for food. You could shed light on this subject by allowing the public to observe your staff as they move animals—individuals who value their lives—off trucks in all weather extremes, attempt to stun them, slash their throats, and then bleed them to death.

What action, if any, have you taken against the worker responsible for this pig’s suffering? Have you reassigned them to a job that doesn’t involve contact with live animals—such as evisceration, butchering, or packaging—and reported them to your local law-enforcement agency so that they might be investigated for violating Kentucky’s anti-cruelty statute? We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Daniel Paden
Vice President of Evidence Analysis