No Mercy - Calf Farm Cruelty Exposed from Mercy For Animals on Vimeo.
This is one of the most disturbing stories that I have covered. It was revealed to the public on April 20th, 2011. The video was recorded during an undercover investigation by the animal advocacy group Mercy for Animals (MFA) at E6 Cattle Co, a cattle company located in the small town of Hart, in Castro County, Texas.
According to MFA for two weeks during March they documented how calves were being tortured to death. The video shows workers bashing calves in their heads with hammers and pickaxes. The calves were also being pulled by the ears during transportation; they were kicked, had opened wounds and did not receive medical attention. There is also video of a worker kicking a dying calf and stepping on its neck.
As I was watching this video it was hard for me to believe that people are capable of treating animals in such a cruel way. Most shocking of all was the response that I got from Kirt Espenson, the owner of E6 Cattle Co, when I called the company requesting comment on the alleged abuse. He said: “We take full responsibility of what happened here. All of the employees involved in the mistreatment of the animals have been terminated”. He blamed the abuse seen on the video on lack of training. He said that due to the snow and ice storms of February they were shorthanded and needed to get new people who were not trained for euthanizing the cows. He added that the company had been audited in the past and that they had gotten favorable certifications from three independent parties. Finally Espenson said, “I will do everything in my power to make sure this does not happen again”.
After I talked to him I had a gut feeling that something didn’t make sense. Espenson sounded very remorseful and admitted immediately full responsibility for the workers’ behavior on the video. Still, it was hard for me to believe that he had not known of the abuse until it was revealed by the undercover investigation. Later that day at a press conference in Dallas, members of MFA presented the video to the media. Eddie Garza, Texas campaign coordinator for MFA, said that on the video the owner himself is seen telling workers that some of the abused calves were still not dead.
MFA has turned the results of their undercover investigation to Castro County authorities. They are asking for the owner to face charges and that E6 cattle be shut down. Unfortunately, said Garza, this is not an isolated incident. MFA has done about a dozen undercover investigations around the country, all of them found evidence of animal abuse.
If you watch the video, I would like to know what you think.
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