He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him
The closure of slaughterhouses in the United States due to the coronavirus epidemic is having even more "dramatic" implications for millions of farm animals which, no longer able to be slaughtered in the plants and killed for food, are culled or, as they say in jargon "depopulated" at home. And this despite the increase in demand for meat recorded by the US food bank in this period of lockdown. All with techniques and methods that animal welfare associations have defined as "inhumane". Methods would also include crushing the pigs upside down into the ground and covering the chickens with water-based foam to choke them.
"Up to 10.069.000 market pigs will have to be euthanized between the weeks ending April 25 and September 19, 2020, resulting in a serious emotional and financial toll on pig farmers"
It reads in the document issued by the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC).
As The Guardian also reports, it is estimated that over 10 million hens have already been culled due to "overcrowding" and the closure of slaughterhouses, due to the very high rates of Covid-19 infection among the workers of the 40 plants that had to stop due to the epidemic. Most of these have been or will be smothered with a water-based foam, similar to fire fighting foam.
The same fate will affect, by September, over 10 million pigs for the same reason, but with abatement "techniques" ranging from gas to "blunt force trauma", but also shooting with guns or anesthetics. These techniques would be authorized by the American Veterinary Medical Association in "limited circumstances". The AVMA also lists stopping ventilation, which induces organ failure when temperatures rise rapidly, as an appropriate form of euthanasia.
Daybreak Foods Inc. recently used carbon dioxide saturation to euthanize 61.000 laying hens in Minnesota. Other airlines may choose to cover their flocks in a layer of foam, which blocks the birds' airways and gradually suffocates them. These measures are necessary "to keep everyone safe, including all of our people and all of our chickens," Daybreak Foods CEO William Rehm said in an interview with Reuters.
Moreover, faced with overcrowding, farmers are presented with two options: limiting the growth of their animal populations (through induced abortions or decreasing food to limit the physical size of the animals) or so-called "depopulation".
All these euthanasia, now, however, are now creating another logistical problem: how will farmers be able to dispose of all animal carcasses with plants that transform animal biomass that are also closed or at 50% of their capacity?
“Landfill disposal requires airtight trailers with absorbent liners. Burial requires adherence to state and federal water protection regulations, which can be quite difficult. Composting requires massive amounts of carbon in the form of wood chips. And open-air combustion carries a heavy cost to the environment and to human health: a single pig, for example, can release three kilos of particulate matter into the atmosphere.
The producers are appealing to the government for help, asking for at least one billion dollars in aid, even blackmailing it by holding "hostage" thousands of pigs who are threatened to end their lives if the contributions are not obtained. In short, this pandemic is now showing more than ever all the contradictions of the intensive meat industry which cannot and must not return to the way it was before.
Why doesn’t the news of mass animal killings show footage of the killing or piles of dead pigs?
The news should stop airing B-roll of live pigs provided by industry
Here’s a photo I pulled from the Iowa Pork Producers Association webinar from last week https://t.co/WNGOrGEFxk pic.twitter.com/Y6JD3Fin3Z
- Jay Shooster (@JayShooster) May 4, 2020
“Even if it leads to a horrible and wasteful mass waste of animals - the mighty meat industry is demanding a bailout from the federal government. Join us in telling USDA that taxpayer dollars and government bailouts should help farmers improve practices, diversify and shift to sustainable plant-based agriculture, not support animal abuse and mass slaughter. " This is the appeal and the petition launched by the American association
Fonti: Reuters /The Guardian /HarvardPolitics/ Mercyforanimals
