On Sept. 7, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) sent an official letter to Mississippi State University’s police department asking for an investigation into the university’s meat laboratory. PETA claimed laboratory workers fail to stun cows before killing them.
The letter indicated this conduct defies Section 97-41-1 of the Mississippi code which states, “If any person shall intentionally or with criminal negligence…torture, torment, unjustifiably injure…or cruelly beat or needlessly mutilate…any living creature, every such offender shall, for every offense, be guilty of a misdemeanor.”
PETA is armed with two U.S. Department of Agriculture records which outline the details of both incidences, which occurred on March 2 and Aug. 17.
The March report states an MSU team member using a “knock box” ineffectively stunned a steer, whose neck was then slashed while it was conscious.
The bleeding animal stood up and walked around for three minutes while workers fired a second captive-bolt shot into his neck and, finally, a third into his head.
In August, the USDA reported a team member initiated a captive-bolt shot into a cow’s head, and after the shot, the bovine was still standing, vocalizing and making eye movement. A worker then cut the cow’s throat while the animal was still fully conscious.
“PETA is calling for a criminal investigation of this slaughterhouse and the workers who caused a steer to stagger about with blood pouring from his neck,” said PETA Senior Vice President of Cruelty Investigations Daphna Nachminovitch. “There’s no difference between the pain and terror that these animals felt and the way that dogs or cats would feel if their throats were slit while they were fully conscious.”
However, the university claims PETA is distorting the information. MSU Chief of Communications Officer Sid Salter was reported in the Starkville Daily News saying the incidents were due to new equipment failing.
Salter said the meat laboratory, located on 850 Stone Boulevard, closed for a period after the incidents in order to find a solution. He said the school and USDA have now reached resolutions.
PETA attorney Melissa Wilson said the meat laboratory workers should still be held accountable.
“MSU’s misleading claims—which dodge responsibility for workers who repeatedly cut the throats of fully conscious cattle at its slaughterhouse—only demonstrate the necessity of PETA’s call for a criminal investigation, which we reiterate,” Wilson said. “MSU personnel—not the box where cattle are restrained while a bolt is driven into their skulls—are responsible for cutting into these animals’ throats while they could feel pain and while one was even still standing upright.”
Salter was quoted in the Starkville Daily News saying the knock box does subdue animals; however, there is “wiggle room.”
Wilson said while there is no humane way to kill animals, the workers should at least stand up to the law’s standards.
“There is no ‘wiggle room’ in the decades-old federal law that requires that cattle be stunned before their jugular veins are cut or the state law that bars humans from unjustifiably injuring an animal,” Wilson said. “There is no such thing as humane slaughter, but this slaughterhouse and its workers must meet at least the bare minimum standards of the law and ensure that cattle are unconscious before slashing their throats and hanging them up to bleed out.”
