Iowa Select Farms Pig Abuse: Animal Rights Group Releases Gruesome Undercover Footage

Animal rights group Mercy For Animals has released ghastly undercover footage of pig abuse at Iowa Select, an industrial farm that supplies pork to Krogers, Safeway and Costco. The footage, which was shot between April and June 2011, shows Iowa Select workers casually throwing piglets across the room and using dull pliers to cut the tails off of young pigs. The preview's most disturbing images are of pigs that have suffered severe abscesses as a result of botched and infected neutering and birthing. Their skin is flayed away from painful-looking open sores, revealing bone, muscle and pus underneath. It depicts treatment significantly more brutal than that shown in undercover video of number-one pork producer Smithfield Farms' gestation crates released in December.

Iowa Select has issued a noncommittal statement indicating that they plan to investigate abuses at their factories. They say that they plan to discipline any employee who is found to have breached the company's "animal care" policies.

This shocking release comes just days after 41,000 Iowans petitioned against a bill, which has passed the Iowa House of Representatives and is now before the Iowa Senate, that would ban undercover filming of farms.

Nathan Runkle, the executive director of Mercy For Animals, said that the choice of an Iowa farm was not motivated by opposition to the pending bill, but that he hoped the video would attest to the folly of a ban on undercover farm filming. "We need more transparency in agriculture and food production, not less," he said. "As this new investigation graphically illustrates, with not a single federal law providing protection to animals on factory farms, and Iowa state anti-cruelty law largely exempting farmed animals, legislators should be working to enact laws protecting animals, not abusers."

Here's the preview video; be warned that many of the images depicted are extremely graphic and disturbing in nature:

Click here for more details on the video and the pressure it is putting on grocery chains.

Comments

[Sandy Rosenthal]

10:39 PM on 07/24/2011

Warning. "Ghastly undercover footage" is an understatement.

[Alison Vellas]

03:08 PM on 07/07/2011

Anyone interested in learning more about meat, dairy and egg production should check out ChooseVeg.com and MeatVideo.com, as well as Mercy For Animal's website, mercyforanimals.org.

[Bowfarmer]

08:00 PM on 07/03/2011

The reason these farms exist is because there are large numbers of people who want to pay as little as possible for their food. When you see meat in the supermarket at a few dollars a pound, it is impossible to raise animals in a humane way and sell their meat at those prices. Raising animals so that they have plenty of room to be themselves and to eat well is expensive. It's not possible to do this and to feed the billions of people who crowd into vast urban centers. You need thousands upon thousands of more small farms and a totally different food processing industry than what we have today. The meat processing industry is now concentrated in the hands of just a few corporations. If you are a small farmer with a handful of animals, in most states it is next to impossible to slaughter and get your product to market. Each town used to have an abattoir which could handle the produce of the local farmers. They don't exist anymore.
Mobile slaughterhouses with USDA inspectors are spreading to make viable the small local meat producing farm. But it will take huge numbers of people willing to spend what it costs to revolutionize agriculture so that it is a humane practice.
konorakuen.blogspot.com

[frank day]

10:39 PM on 07/03/2011

Or, we could stop eating meat.

Much simpler.

[jumbotron16]

07:44 PM on 07/04/2011

Do you have an intimate knowledge of how everything you eat is produced?

[Tim Kriz]

02:50 PM on 07/02/2011

The worst part about all of this is that with millions of dollars made from treating animals like this, the big livestock producing companies have successfully bought the votes needed to pass a bill into law making it a felony to secretly film at any location that raises pigs, cattle, chickens or any other animal used raised for consuming. What a sad and corrupt place we are told to be proud of living in. I think that we should castrate some of the senate and house that passed the bill, without anesthetic.

[Shackwacky]

12:19 AM on 07/02/2011

I gave up eating animal products almost three years ago and have never been in better health. We could stop this kind of abuse completely if more people gave up eating (unnecessary) meat and opted for healthy delicious vegetables and grains. Less people buying meat = less pain and suffering for our fellow animals. How can anyone justify eating pork after watching this? Or any of the many other "meats" that have been videotaped suffering and wounded for the sake of our plates? And funny how every single one of the meat eaters on this site only eat animals that they know have been humanely raised.....I think not.

[P Markham72]

12:48 PM on 07/02/2011

No less people does not equal less pain and suffering for your fellow animals. People having and using some dignity in doing things the right way equals less pain and suffering for animals. Fellow animals I don't know, I certainly don't put myself in the category of an animal. I certainly don't condone treating animals in a harsh way, but that doesn't mean I should stop eating meat. I'm all for going after the companies who treat them bad though.

[honeybear64]

01:16 PM on 07/02/2011

re: meat eaters who "only eat animals that they know have been humanely raised....­.I think not".

I think it's kind of rude to make assumptions about people you don't even know. Unless you know someone personally, and know for a fact that he/she eats meat/eggs/dairy from factory farms, I think you should take his/her self-description at face-value.

I, for one, eat meat, etc., ONLY from farms I've actually visited or have been visited by people I know and trust to verify the humane treatment of the animals, and I don't appreciate having a total stranger such as yourself "informing" me that I don't know where my food comes, when I most certainly do.

I would agree that trying to justify eating pork from such operations as the one depicted in this video is utterly inexcusable. But pork from the farms I buy from? - I have no problem with that all.

[frank day]

04:34 PM on 07/02/2011

Shackwacky expressed an opinion.

I agree with it. But you are entitled to yours.

Please show some respect. Your response was rude.

[xanxia]

12:22 AM on 07/01/2011

Poor animals....

[SanJoaquinValleyGrower]

10:08 PM on 06/30/2011

Two things:

1. If enough people started supporting this kind of farming instead,
http://extension.psu.edu/start-farming/news/2011/pigs-on-pasture,
then we wouldn't have these problems, now would we?

2. 3 months of video taping? Why couldn't MFA have gone to authorities with a couple weeks worth? Could it be that their goal is not to help farmers who are doing it right?

[wildisthewind]

11:19 PM on 06/30/2011

Well said as always.

[Alexa Dobson]

12:42 PM on 07/01/2011

You're in denial if you think that "farmers who are doing it right" compose any significant proportion of the meat production in this country.

3 months of video taping allowed MFA to capture the full range of abuses perpetrated at this factory "farm." If they'd gone to the authorities with just a week of footage you can be sure that the owners of the "farm" would have just claimed it's an aberration, new employees who haven't been properly trained, an accident, etc.

But this proves undeniably that torture of animals is standard business practice. It's clear that you prefer not to believe it, but your own refusal to see reality shouldn't impede other people's right to know the truth.

[jumbotron16]

01:06 PM on 07/01/2011

I don't think the original poster made any claims about what proportion of the meat industry is doing it right. I think he was simply making the point that you don't have to support industrial pig farming if you don't want to.

[wildisthewind]

02:42 PM on 07/01/2011

You tell him Alexa Dobson! SanJoaquinGrower clearly doesn't know anything about the realities of agriculture compared to someone like you! He's only a professional organic farmer coming from generations of experience, but you watched a 3 minute video and perused a a couple vegan websites, so that certainly makes you more than qualified to lecture him about the realities of farming.

[Tracee Collins]

09:40 PM on 06/30/2011

B O Y C O T T ! ! !

[jumbotron16]

03:29 PM on 07/01/2011

Yes, but boycott ALL industrially raised pork--not just this one company!

[frank day]

11:42 AM on 07/02/2011

YES! BOYCOTT ALL PORK PRODUCTS !!!!

No such thing as humane flesh eating.

[jumbotron16]

04:27 PM on 07/02/2011

humane (hjuːˈmeɪn)— adj
1. characterized by kindness, mercy, sympathy, etc
2. inflicting as little pain as possible: a humane killing

I'm pretty sure my flesh eating fits that description. :)

[Tracee Collins]

09:31 PM on 06/30/2011

Reposted:

This Howard HIll suggests the video was doctored, like his no-doubt friend, Breitbart, is fond of doing. WOWOWOWOWO­W!

I bet that acting teacher the pigs were provided with must be the reason the cost of meat's so high, huh? I mean, to teach alllll those thousands of piggies the various "stunt" shots they'd do, and the fake blood they'd hafta make come out at just the right time! The sows didn't have to do much acting, although they were mentioning they would have preferred a speaking--­or moving--ro­le to remaining standing in a little box all day. But hey, actors need work, huh? What can ya do?”

[Chad Wheeler]

06:03 PM on 07/01/2011

I have no watched this video so can't comment on it specifically but animal rights groups have been caught paying people to abuse animals on film.

[Waltfl]

09:31 PM on 07/01/2011

Citation needed.

[Waltfl]

07:54 PM on 06/30/2011

"...pigs that have suffered severe abscesses as a result of botched and infected neutering and birthing. Their skin is flayed away from painful-looking open sores, revealing bone, muscle and pus underneath."

Enjoy your meal, and take another zip of your high fructose corn syrup-soda. Then, keep wondering why you develop cancer, cardiovascular diseases, emphysema, arthritis, skin conditions, and immune deficiencies.  You are what you eat, my friend.

[P Markham72]

12:54 PM on 07/02/2011

Yeah, well we can all live a text book lifestyle both the reality is we're all going to die too. From what ever way, cancer, emphysema, car accident, murder or whatever. Do what makes you happy, you only live once. No matter how you eat.

[Waltfl]

03:11 PM on 07/05/2011

I only hope you protect yourself in the next harbor, sailor. Yes you could die from lightning. Still, wrap it up. When it comes to death, it's also a question about how and when.

[SherrySue]

07:35 PM on 06/30/2011

IOWA SELECT.COM 811 South Oak Street, PO Box 400, Iowa Falls, Iowa 50126, PHONE [phone], FAX [phone] Call them write, them, Fax them!!!!!! STOP THESE EVIL PEOPLE

[Jeff A - Seattle]

01:05 PM on 07/01/2011

Jeff Hansen,
President, CEO, Owner
Home Address:
1469 GLEN OAKS DR
WEST DES MOINES, IA
50266-6630
Part of Glen Oaks Country Club
[e-mail]
Main Office: 641-648-4479

Craig Hickethier - Owner
[e-mail]

Terry Town - Owner
[e-mail]

Howard Hill - VP Operations
[e-mail]

[Kelsey Wickel]

04:59 PM on 06/30/2011

The lack of sanity and cruelty in our food system is disgusting. Though the craziest, and scariest, part of it is that currently Iowa and Minnesota, among other states, are currently trying to pass a law to make it illegal to photograph and share these photos and videos that let us know what's going on in our own food system. WIth your help and signature, Slow Food USA is trying to petition against passing this bill. I signed, and you should too! http://bit.ly/mOOlxR

[SherrySue]

07:26 PM on 06/30/2011

Much more needs to be done besides signatures. This torture has to end now. This is the most disgusting abuse I have ever seen. We need to organize many people going to these farms and freeing these animals!!!!!

[jumbotron16]

07:45 PM on 06/30/2011

With all due respect, this is how pigs are kept in modern pig farms. This is not an aberration. It's torture, and it's abuse, but it's the norm, unfortunately.

[Chad Wheeler]

06:03 PM on 07/01/2011

Freeing them and then what? Where do they go? Where do they live? What do they eat? Who cares for them?

[jumbotron16]

03:52 PM on 06/30/2011

Responding to some of the posters below...who can look at this video and argue that a pig on pasture has it just as bad as a pig in a CAFO, because the pig on pasture also dies at the end of its life? You are going to die at the end of your life too. Does that mean you want to be locked up in a pen too small for you to turn around, suspended above a feces/urine lagoon, in a stinking building, for your entire life?

Yes I eat meat, Yes I understand that animals die in the process of growing crops, and I accept that, because it's reality, but that does not mean I am OK with the systematic torture of pigs. How childlike do you have to be to think that how a pig is raised doesn't matter, because it's going to die anyway? You must hate nature--every animal dies at the end there as well! Cruel, horrifying nature has death in store for every creature--and the vast majority of them die far before the end of their natural lifespans!

[frank day]

05:30 PM on 06/30/2011

You raised the animals yourself. You cared for them, you nursed them, you tended

to their needs and treated them with kindness.

You didn't separate yourself from the source of your food.

You made the hard decision to take their lives and use them as food and

didn't turn it over to someone else in a neat little sanitized way.

It isn't the decision I would make.

But I respect you for being honest.

[jumbotron16]

05:51 PM on 06/30/2011

Well, thanks, I guess. :)

[frank day]

10:47 AM on 06/30/2011

How about selling live animals and requiring people to slaughter their own meat?

I wonder how people's attitudes would change if they weren't alienated from the

process.

[KMAJ]

10:53 AM on 06/30/2011

Our ancestors did this regularly as well as many other cultures around the world, I am sure we would adapt.

The first couple months would still be pretty interesting. LOL

[Tracee Collins]

09:34 PM on 06/30/2011

LOL!! F n F

[jumbotron16]

03:38 PM on 06/30/2011

Well as a woman I'd probably stick with poultry. I have seen someone cut up a pig and it is quite a job.

[jewelled eye]

10:39 AM on 06/30/2011

this is disgusting. we have got to come up with a better way to treat living creatures. there is no reason why these animals have to be treated this way. to think these animals are being consumed by us in the conditions they are in. unbelievable.