Feds See Conscious, Screaming Pig in Scalding Tank; PETA Seeks Slaughterhouse Cameras

For Immediate Release:
January 30, 2023

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Following a recent federal report documenting that a pig whose throat had been slashed was found screaming and thrashing in a tank of scalding-hot water before her throat was slit again at Robert Winner Sons Inc. in Yorkshire, PETA fired off a letter this morning to the facility’s owner, Brian Winner, calling on him to livestream video footage from the slaughterhouse in order to help prevent additional egregious violations of law. The group also asked him to report the workers involved in the incident to local law-enforcement officials and reassign those individuals to positions that don’t involve having contact with live animals.

PETA points out that previously at the slaughterhouse, a cow remained standing after being shot in the head, revealing a pattern of botched killings and animal suffering happening on Winner’s watch.

“This disturbing report shows that a pig endured the agony of having her throat cut before being dumped into scalding-hot water as she screamed in pain,” says PETA Vice President Daniel Paden. “PETA is urging Robert Winner Sons to livestream its slaughter operations and reminds everyone disturbed by this pig’s suffering that we can all help keep animals out of slaughterhouses in the first place by going vegan.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org; follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram; or listen to The PETA Podcast.

PETA’s letter to Winner follows.

January 30, 2023

Brian Winner

Owner

Robert Winner Sons Inc.

Dear Mr. Winner:

Given the recent U.S. Department of Agriculture report detailing that a pig whose throat had been cut was discovered screaming and thrashing in a tank of scalding-hot water before her throat was slashed again at Robert Winner Sons Inc., we ask that you immediately alter operations there in the hope of reducing animal suffering in your slaughterhouse. The fact that a cow remained standing after being shot in the head in a November 2021 incident at your facility underscores the need for changes.

Will you please publicly livestream video from all areas of the facility where live animals are handled? Workers would take their duty to handle animals lawfully more seriously if they knew that caring people were watching. As the world’s foremost expert on livestock welfare, Dr. Temple Grandin, writes, “Plants [t]hat are doing a good job should show what they are doing.” Your industry often complains that today’s consumers don’t understand how animals are raised and killed for food. You could help by enabling us to observe your workers moving countless individual animals—who value their lives as we value ours—off crowded trucks in all weather, attempting to stun them, slashing or sticking their throats, and bleeding them to death.

At the very least, will you reassign your staff responsible for these animals’ suffering to jobs that don’t involve having contact with any live animals—such as evisceration, butchering, and packaging—and report the involved personnel to your local law-enforcement agency for investigation for possible violations of the state’s anti-cruelty statute?

Thanks for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Colin Henstock

Investigations Project Manager