2023-11-30 07:00:00
Reports of animal abuse on farms have unfortunately been repeated in recent years. The new case of the alleged “terror farm” (an expression used by the complainants), however, draws attention to details such as being owned by the mayor of the municipality in which it is located and because this pig farm has certificates of officially recognized animal welfare.
The investigation and complaint of this new case, “for alleged crimes of animal abuse and misleading “, have been carried out by the animal defense organization Animal Welfare Observatory (OBS, formerly Equalia NGO). In this case, the expression that the images presented by the complainants They can hurt the sensibilities of viewers. The video capture included at the top of this information, in this sense, tries to represent the content of the complaint without showing the harshness of the animals’ living conditions and the absolute unhealthiness of the filmed facilities.
The images released by the Animal Welfare Observatory (OBA) were taken at a pig farm located in Quintanilla del Coco, province of Burgosbetween June and September 2023. “This is the first time that images have been made public in a pig farm that has the Welfair animal welfare certification,” highlights this entity formerly known as Equalia ONG.
“Serious irregularities have been reported for alleged crimes of animal abuse and misleading ,” explains this animal defense entity, while this farm “made up of 5 warehouses with approximately 5,000 pigs” is “owned by the mayor of the municipality.” . The entity details that the complaint for these events “was presented at 9:17 on Monday 11/27 in the first instance court of Lerma, Burgos.”
The video released and the report of these images is certainly hurtful: “The investigative report shows extremely thin breeding sows, their spinal column being noticeable. Others have serious uterine prolapses and tumors in the breasts. The permanent presence in cages causes serious wounds. pus and gangrene due to friction with the bars. In the farrowing sow cages, a piglet trembles, it is stuck on the slatted floor. Dozens of piglets can be seen dying, others dead, even in an advanced state of decomposition and dismembered. Some have tumors and bleeding wounds. A worker drinks beer and pours some of it on some piglets. Fattening pigs suffer from inflammation in their legs that prevent them from moving, others suffer from serious hernias. A pig has a huge hernia, weighing about 7 kilos. of weight in the abdomen. It moves with great difficulty while dragging the hernia.
Detail of one of the animals from the reported farm, with a large hernia.
Animal Welfare Observatory
The description provided by OBS is long and shows the unfortunate conditions that can be seen in the video: “A pig has a large hematoma in its right ear. The images also show suppurating abscesses and rectal prolapses in dozens of pigs, others have wounds in Their skin is compatible with scabies. A large number of them have chewed ears and gangrenous lesions on their tails, a symptom of cannibalism.
The person who filmed this farm Quintanilla del Coco He details that he witnessed “a cannibalistic scene”: “Several pigs were eating another pig that was still alive. They bit the elbow of his front right leg, and it was bleeding. Even the water in the drinking fountain was dyed red.”
Human health is at stake
The place has a huge lack of hygiene. In the hallways you can see dozens of corpses in different states of decomposition, some cannibalized. The drinking fountains are often empty. Rats roam the bodies of caged sows, animal stalls, and feeding hoppers; The pigs’ feed is full of rat feces. Two large buckets are seen with piglet corpses, the rest of the placenta and abundant flies. Under the farm floor, manure infested by larvae and worms is observed. In the images, a cat can be seen feeding on a pig carcass inside the facilities. According to the animal protection organization, the presence of these animals on the farm implies a zoonotic risk of transmitting diseases to humans such as salmonellosis or leptospirosis.
The OBS indicates that “in the farm’s office, there is a rotten pig’s head, a dead piglet and remains of a spinal column next to beer bottles. In turn, on top of a desk are two ‘Welfair’ certifications. This is an independent animal welfare certification that seeks to guarantee the well-being of animals intended for consumption.
The Animal Welfare Observatory group indicates that “this is not the first time that farms certified by this seal have been exhibited; the poultry farms related to a Lidl supermarket supplier and reported in 2022 by the Animal Welfare Observatory lost their Welfair seal and one of them “is being judicially investigated for alleged crimes of animal abuse and public health.”
The facilities filmed are totally unhealthy and the conditions in which the animals live are evidently cruel and illegal.
Animal Welfare Observatory
The report captures the moment in which the pigs are loaded onto the truck towards the slaughterhouse. The operator in charge hits them repeatedly with a tool similar to a hammer and the electric prod. The managers and operators of the farm have been denounced by the Animal Welfare Observatory before the Lerma court (Burgos) for alleged crimes of animal abuse with aggravating circumstances of death, as well as the modality of action by omission.
The NGO Animal Welfare Observatory points out that with this complaint and the attached images “it demands the closure of the farm, the dismissal of the mayor and an exemplary sentence for the terrible management of the animals.” OBS has also denounced the meat company that allegedly manages the loading of animals and supplier to Lidl for the alleged crime of misleading regarding its public communications about a high level of animal welfare.
Julia Elizalde, campaign manager at the Animal Welfare Observatory, points out that this “terror farm is one of the most severe cases of animal abuse that we have witnessed so far.” “The suffering of the pigs on that farm is extreme, many suffer a slow and painful death. We demand immediate action from the institutions and companies involved by closing the farm. It is essential to attend to the last link in the food chain, since “This farm supplies a supplier to Lidl supermarkets. Therefore, we have collected 500,000 signatures demanding Lidl, as the first supermarket in Europe, to put an end to the animal scandal that is being revealed about farms related to its supply chain.”
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The reported farm is located in Quintanilla del Coco, Burgos.
Animal Welfare Observatory
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