Complaint of abuse
Atlantic Stockyard owner Sean Firth feels he’s being unjustly targeted
The Department of Agriculture is looking into an alleged incident of animal abuse at Atlantic Stockyards after a cow was prodded with a cane.
A complaint of abuse has been filed against Atlantic Stockyards by a national protectionist organization called Animal Justice.
The complaint, lodged with the Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), stems from a video recorded by a Halifax woman Dec. 3. It allegedly depicts a worker prodding a cow with a cane as it is being loaded onto a truck at the stockyards.
However, after viewing the video, stockyard owner Sean Firth adamantly disagrees that any abuse took place and says he maintains an “open-door policy” with authorities when it comes to animal protection,
“The SPCA through the Department of Environment have free access to my facility at all times, as do the CFIA,” Firth said. “They can come here at anytime during the day or night … they are always welcome.”
Anna Pippus, a British Columbia lawyer and director of farmed animal advocacy for Animal Justice, said in the written complaint that the cow in question had been “… aggressively jabbed with a cane in her sensitive underside, punched in her engorged udder and shoved multiple times with a metal gate, all while workers yelled at the distressed animal.”
The woman who recorded the
event, a member of Nova Scotia Farm Animal Save, asked that her identity not be revealed for fear of retaliation, Pippus said.
But Firth said the video does not properly portray the situation, nor does it show the degree of treatment described in the complaint.
“It’s not an animal abuse situation by any stretch. There was no punching there that I saw.”
He said the activity involved a normal procedure that is “sometimes necessary” to move cattle forward while being loaded onto a truck.
“We try to be as gentle as possible at all times,” Firth said.
Nova Scotia law prohibits abusing animals while federal law prohibits beating animals or otherwise causing them undue suffering during transportation.
Pippus said such abuse occurs every day on farms, and at live auctions and slaughterhouses across the country but most often goes unobserved or overlooked.
“Just because something is common doesn’t make it acceptable,” she said.
Firth said he has been involved in animal agriculture since 1983, is a graduate of the former Nova Scotia Agricultural College with a degree in animal science and has spent 15 years as an extension officer with the Department of Agriculture.
“I’m not some neophyte who doesn’t know what he’s doing,” he said.
Given his position, Firth said it would be “nonsensical” for him to be involved with animal abuse and his only motivation is to provide a service to farmers in Atlantic Canada “and do it properly.”
“I’ve been targeted by these people since the fall,” he said, of Nova Scotia Farm Animal Save members who peacefully protest outside the facility on auction days.
“I’ve been exemplary in my patience. I’ve tried to educate them, initially. That’s not what they’re there for, that’s not what they want,” he said. “They want to remove animal agriculture from the face of the earth and I’m a public auction, so I’m an easy target.”
Chris van den Heuvel, president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture based in Truro, said his assessment of the video is that the workers were not using a cattle prod and did not “attack” the cow but were “simply moving the livestock along.”
“I have been through the sale barn on numerous occasions as a buyer and a seller,” Van den Heuvel said. “In all occasions I have seen excellent husbandry practices and care for the animals.”
He said the CFIA regularly inspects the stockyard facilities, “particularly during a sale event” and that the federation “stands firmly” behind it.
A spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture said staff is checking into the complaint, although an investigation has not yet been initiated.