For Immediate Release
November 20, 2007
Investigators Reveal Cruel Conditions for Turkeys Being Trucked to Sara Lee Slaughter Plants
Animals’ Angels and United Poultry Concerns Urge Sara Lee Foods to Cover Turkeys with Tarps in Freezing Temperatures
Contact: Sonja Meadows (410) 848-3153 and Karen Davis (757) 678-7875
Two animal advocacy organizations – Animals’ Angels and United Poultry Concerns – are calling upon Sara Lee Foods to cover their trucks taking turkeys to slaughter in cold, windy weather. In January 2007, Animals’ Angels investigators followed a densely loaded turkey truck for 4 hours to the Sara Lee Foods slaughter plant in Storm Lake, Iowa. Despite frigid 16-Degree F temperatures, the truck afforded the birds no protection from the cold and wind. Photos show ice and snow on the cages and turkeys with broken legs, missing toes and signs of frostbite on their heads and feet. Some birds appeared to be dead. Others were crammed into broken containers and a large amount of blood appeared on top of one of the cages. Birds and cages were caked with feces.
Upon arrival at the slaughter plant, the turkeys sat for yet another 2 hours in the open cold as the truck waited in line to enter the plant.
Concerned with these findings, Animals’ Angels spoke with two Sara Lee employees about the turkeys’ exposure to the freezing cold and their frostbitten heads and feet. The men replied: “We cut those parts off.” They said the trucks were not tarped because the birds were all coming from within 15 miles of the slaughter plant. “This was hard to believe,” said Sonja Meadows, Executive Director of Animals’ Angels USA, “since our investigators had just followed one of their trucks for four hours and watched as the trailer waited in line for an additional two hours.”
The Sara Lee Corporation, with headquarters in Downers Grove, Illinois, sells its turkey products under brand names that include Hillshire Farms, Jimmy Dean, and Ball Park. It has plant operations in Minneapolis and Eden Prairie, Minnesota and in Sioux Falls, South Dakota as well as in Iowa. The company presents itself as warmhearted and ethically responsible: “Integrity is more than just being a good person and treating others as you would like to be treated. Integrity is about doing the right thing in every circumstance,” according to Sara Lee Executive Vice President, Theo de Kool, on the company’s Website at http://www.saralee.com/AboutSaraLee/OurMission/OurValues.aspx?id={442447AE-7F3A-4D89-9789-99D6DBFBC0AF}
“We applaud Sara Lee’s commitment to doing the right thing in every circumstance,” says United Poultry Concerns President Karen Davis. “The circumstance in which these turkeys are being trucked to slaughter has got to be made right. Sara Lee should cover their turkeys with tarps. On the Eastern Shore where United Poultry Concerns is located, I often see trucks taking chickens to slaughter with boards on both sides of the cages when the temperature drops.”
Turkeys and chickens subjected to temperatures below freezing are susceptible to painful frostbite and severe cold stress – hypothermia – in which body temperatures fall dramatically. Birds become more or less comatose and mortality increases as dehydration and exhaustion overwhelm the birds’ ability to warm themselves. Ventilation enabling the birds to breathe can be severely reduced under all temperature extremes, especially for birds packed tightly in the transport cages.
As well as Sara Lee and other privately owned companies, the U.S. Department of Agriculture should intervene directly to rectify this very serious and yet easily resolved animal welfare problem affecting hundreds of millions of birds each year in the U.S.
In 2006, following a legal petition filed by several animal protection groups including Animals’ Angels, the USDA reversed its decades-long policy of excluding farmed animals from protection during long-distance truck transport – yet, egregiously, the USDA continues to ignore the nearly 10 billion turkeys, chickens and other birds being trucked to slaughter every year in this country.
However, Sara Lee does not have to wait for USDA to act. Animals’ Angels and United Poultry Concerns are calling upon Sara Lee Foods to show compassion to the company’s turkeys and to live up to its own prized standards by covering the birds with tarpaulins, sideboards and/or other protective devices in freezing temperatures.
Contact Sonja Meadows at 410-848-3153 and Karen Davis at 757-678-7875.
To view our Website alerts, please visit www.animals-angels.com and http://www.upc-online.org/saralee/index.html
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Animals’ Angels USA is an international organization with fulltime investigators working in the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe on improving conditions for farm animals primarily by trailing livestock trucks on highways and visiting markets, collecting stations and slaughterhouses. Address: Animals’ Angels USA, PO Box 949, Gambrills, MD 21054. For more information, please visit www.animals-angels.com.
United Poultry Concerns is a nonprofit organization that addresses the treatment of domestic fowl in food production, science, education, entertainment and human companionship situations and promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl. Address: United Poultry Concerns, PO Box 150, Machipongo, VA 23405. For more information, please visit www.upc-online.org
United Poultry Concerns, Inc.
PO Box 150
Machipongo, VA 23405-0150
757-678-7875
FAX: 757-678-5070
www.upc-online.org
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