After PETA obtained U.S. Department of Agriculture documents revealing that over a two-day period, 91 pigs slowly froze to death on trucks while exposed to temperatures as low as minus 27 degrees at the Smithfield Foods slaughterhouse in Crete, the animal rights group sent a letter today to Saline County Sheriff Alan Moore requesting a criminal probe and charges under Nebraska’s Livestock Animal Welfare Act.
The USDA investigated the facility after receiving a letter from PETA and agency officials found that every pen inside the barn in which animals are left before slaughter contained pigs who sustained frostbite lesions as large as a foot in diameter. The documents obtained by PETA through a Freedom of Information Act request also reveal that Smithfield workers did not unload pigs for more than an hour roughly a third of the trucks that arrived during two days of extremely cold weather
“If anyone left dogs to freeze to death, they would face multiple felony charges of cruelty to animals, and pigs suffer the same way and are also protected by law,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “PETA is calling for a criminal investigation into the horrific fates of the pigs at Smithfield, as pigs have the same capacity for suffering as the animals we share our homes with.”