Feds See Six Cows Shot Repeatedly; PETA Seeks Slaughterhouse Cameras

For Immediate Release:
November 21, 2022

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Following a recent federal report documenting that a bull who had been shot twice in the head remained conscious—the latest in a string of six similar violations since August 2021—at the Randolph Packing Company Inc. slaughterhouse in Asheboro, PETA fired off a letter this morning to the facility’s manager, Craig Hamlet, calling on him to livestream video footage from the slaughterhouse in order to help prevent additional egregious violations of law.

“These disturbing reports show that six cows endured agonizing pain because workers had failed to render them unconscious with a single shot, a disturbing pattern at Randolph Packing Company,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “PETA is calling on this facility to livestream its slaughter operations publicly—and reminds everyone that the only humane meal is a vegan one.”

PETA also asked Hamlet to report the personnel involved in the incidents to local law-enforcement officials and reassign those individuals to positions that don’t involve having contact with live animals.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

PETA’s letter to Hamlet follows.

November 21, 2022

Craig Hamlet

General Manager

Randolph Packing Company Inc.

Dear Mr. Hamlet:

Given the recent U.S. Department of Agriculture report detailing how a bull suffered after being shot twice in the head—the latest in a string of similar violations—at Randolph Packing Company Inc., we ask that you immediately change operations there in the hope of lessening animal suffering at your slaughterhouse.

Will you please publicly livestream video from all areas of your facility where live animals are handled? Workers would take more seriously their duty to handle animals lawfully if they knew 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 referenced in the federal reports to jobs that don’t involve contact with any live animals—such as evisceration, butchering, and packaging—and report the involved personnel to your local law-enforcement agency for investigation into possible violations of the state’s anti-cruelty statute?

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Colin Henstock

Investigations Project Manager