In response to Tyson Foods’ announcement on October 12th that it will launch a new animal welfare audit program for its supply chain, The Humane Society of the United States president and CEO, Wayne Pacelle, released the following statement:
“Audits are valuable if farm inspectors ask the right set of questions. We’ve not suggested that Tyson contractors are denying food to animals or intentionally abusing them, but that they are denying them enough space to even turn around. Tyson’s announcement would mean more if the company was getting its pork from farmers who do not confine sows in crates that immobilize the animals.”
The HSUS filed a complaint last May with the Securities and Exchange Commission, arguing that Tyson’s emphatic animal welfare assurances were hollow, given that the company lacked any meaningful audit program. That action came after an HSUS undercover investigation documented cruelty to pigs at a Wyoming pig farm that was supplying animals to Tyson. While Tyson has today announced an auditing program – which it somehow suggested it already had in place months ago – the company’s declaration today omits mention of the most pressing animal welfare issue of the day: the extreme confinement of pigs in gestation crates. The HSUS urges Tyson to follow Temple Grandin’s recommendation to end its use of gestation crates. The company is rapidly becoming an outlier by having no timetable to phase out its use of crates in its supply chain.
The HSUS’ SEC complaint alleges that Tyson violated federal securities law with its widely-distributed statements about animal welfare. Tyson’s statements were made in response to an HSUS undercover investigation at Wyoming Premium Farms, which, during the time of the investigation, was supplying pigs to Tyson Foods. A video from the undercover investigation revealed prolonged suffering of pigs, including virtually immobilized animals locked inside two-foot wide metal cages called gestation crates and severe abuse of mother pigs and piglets by workers. In response to the video, Tyson distributed statements that deceptively described its animal welfare policies. The HSUS’ complaint to the SEC alleges that Tyson’s claims to audit its suppliers under the pork industry’s “Pork Quality Assurance Plus” program were false, because that program has absolutely no enforceable animal welfare standards.
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