USDA shuts slaughterhouse amid welfare concerns
US officials have shut down a slaughterhouse that supplied government food programmes after an undercover video allegedly revealed “sickening” animal cruelty.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) suspended operations at California-based Central Valley Meat Co on Monday, after receiving video footage shot undercover at the plant by welfare group Compassion Over Killing. Reports in the Associated Press stated that the footage showed dairy cows, some of which could not walk, being repeatedly shocked, kicked and shot.
Compassion Over Kiling executive director Erica Meier told local press: “The horror caught on camera is sickening. It’s alarming that this is not only a USDA-inspected facility, but a supplier to the USDA.”
The USDA has launched an investigation and said it is willing to take further action if the allegations are proven to be valid.
