Bettencourt Dairies, an Idaho dairy farm, was caught on camera viciously beating cows with canes, jumping on their backs as they moaned in distress, violently hitting, stomping on, punching and kicking them in the face, dragging sick and injured animals across concrete flooring with chains attached to their necks and … sexually abusing the cows!
The images, captured on hidden camera by a Mercy for Animals investigator, led Idaho law enforcement to file criminal animal cruelty charges against multiple workers and a manager. Bettencourt says it has since installed its own cameras to watch employees.
Idaho’s dairy industry, on the other hand, responded by lobbying to make it a crime to film inside their facilities and they got it. Up to a year in prison and a $5,000 fine. A cold-blooded response, greed all the way. Idaho joins Iowa, Utah and Missouri in making it illegal to film on farms.
Paul Shapiro, vice president of Farm Animal Protection at the Humane Society said, “It’s now clearer than ever that the dairy industry will stop at nothing to hide its record of animal cruelty.”
That’s it for me. I don’t want any part of that. I’ll take my chances without meat and dairy.
Besides, the meat and dairy industry is unsustainable, not to mention agricultural operations, including animal feeding operations are reported to be the most common polluters of rivers and streams with antibiotics, pesticides, hormones, ammonia, nitrogen and phosphorus.
In the USA every year
10 billion land animals are slaughtered for food;
13 million finfishes, 40 million shellfish for food;
13 to ? million dogs, cats, primates, guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, and farmed animals for biomedical research/experimentation.
(Unreported: rats, mice, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates);
200 million animals are reported killed by hunters;
3 to 4 million cats and dogs killed in shelters; and the list goes on.
Worldwide, every year, the numbers are exponentially higher.
You guys have got the nerve, complaining about wolves and coyotes, considering the above numbers. In 2009, Alaska set out to kill 75 percent of its wolves so hunters would have more caribou to hunt.
Diane Daiute
Sweet Home