Capturing what really goes on
Here’s a great idea from our friends in Canada. Why not install cameras on factory farms and slaughterhouses? Advocacy group Animal Justice is calling for legislation requiring cameras inside farms and slaughterhouses to improve transparency, accountability and the humane treatment of animals in the agricultural industry. If the animals are not being abused as the meat industry says then they have nothing to worry about.
It’s been said that if slaughter houses had glass walls we’d all be vegetarians. It seems to us that installing cameras is a lot easier than making glass walls. According to an Animal Justice spokesperson, “Right now, the lives of farmed animals are kept hidden from the public, as animals are mainly housed behind closed doors on private property. Consumers don’t have the right to visit the farms that supply their food, so there is a severe lack of transparency about food production,”
Installing cameras would also reduce the need for animal welfare advocates to surreptitiously document farm animal abuse. Recently, Animal Justice has secretly recorded video exposing shocking abuse on a hog farm. The video, which it says was shot between April and June this year, shows pigs enduring abuse, injuries and neglect.
Animal Justice is calling for legislation requiring cameras inside farms and slaughterhouses to improve transparency, accountability and the humane treatment of animals in the agricultural industry. We think it would also protect workers from abuse. We think this a great idea and wish we could have similar legislation on this side of the border.
Do animals feel pain? Of course they do! Just ask yourself this question: if animals can’t feel pain, then why do researchers test pain medication on them? Then ask yourself another question: if animals don’t feel pain, then why do they scream or wince when they are hurt? Of course they feel pain and are capable of suffering.
It hurts to be sick, and animals are no exception. When animals are raised in factory farm conditions, they are usually crammed into small spaces, and held in very unhygienic conditions, such that diseases can run rampant. Sometimes these diseases spread from one factory to another causing a pandemic. Unfortunately farm animal disease pandemics plague our food system, destabilizing trade and markets and causing product shortages, and multiplying the amount of suffering that the animals themselves experience exponentially. 
This is serious. This could cost you your life! What if the medication your doctor gave you for an infection didn’t work? What if the second antibiotic didn’t work either? Blame the beef industry. According to a new study, sponsored by consumer and environmental groups, 23 out of 25 U.S. burger chains, including McDonald’s and Burger King, were found serving beef raised with the routine use of antibiotics.