How we slaughter pigs is horrifying
On an early morning in October, I was sitting in a hotel room in Los Angeles staring at my cell phone as live footage of pigs being gassed to death flashed across my screen. The footage was coming from hidden cameras I had placed the night before inside the Farmer John slaughterhouse in nearby Vernon, a meat packing plant owned by Smithfield Foods, the largest pork company in the world.
As a factory farm and slaughterhouse investigator, I’ve recorded the deaths of thousands of animals in California and brought numerous hidden violations to the public’s attention. But for years, animal rights activists in the U.S., including myself, have been unable to document exactly how pigs are rendered unconscious, and in many cases, die, in carbon dioxide gas chambers like the one used by Farmer John — until now.
Experience told me that whatever images streamed out of the chamber that October morning was going to be bad. But I wasn’t prepared for what I witnessed: pigs screaming, gasping for air, thrashing violently and desperately trying to escape as they slowly suffocated in a pool of invisible carbon dioxide gas.
Carbon dioxide gas chambers are in widespread use across Europe and Australia and have become increasingly common in the United States. Rather than stunning pigs one-by-one, the animals are herded into a cage that is then slowly lowered below ground. Since carbon dioxide gas is heavier than oxygen, when it’s added to the chamber, it sinks to the bottom, pushing breathable air up and out. On one of the days I was undercover at Farmer John, I observed the set point for carbon dioxide in the chamber to be at 90%.
Although administering high concentrations of carbon dioxide has long been known to cause pain, fear and distress in pigs before the loss of consciousness, slaughterhouses claim that the process is humane and in line with U.S. federal law, which requires that carbon dioxide gas accomplishes “anesthesia quickly and calmly.” On its website, for example, Smithfield Foods describes the use of gas as “painless.”
But it only takes viewing a few seconds of footage to know that’s not true. Rather, the growing popularity of gas chambers in U.S. slaughterhouses is due to another reason: efficiency. With the use of carbon dioxide, pigs can be asphyxiated in groups. The gas chambers used by Smithfield Foods in Vernon, for example, have been in use since 2019 and kill over 6,000 pigs daily.
Although a former federal prosecutor reviewed the footage, determined that the facility’s use of carbon dioxide violated the federal standard and reported the violation to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, no legal action has been taken against the pork producer.
Why not? Partly because the U.S. Department of Agriculture has wide discretion to interpret the definition of “quickly and calmly.” Coupled with the fact that the evidence of animal cruelty in gas chambers is concealed underground and cannot be seen without the use of cameras — which were not present in the chamber at Farmer John until I installed my own — it becomes easy to see why the department’s inspectors haven’t found Smithfield in violation.
Farmer John’s slaughterhouse has long been the focus of protest by animal activists and criticism from labor groups. In May 2020, the union that represents the workers at the plant demanded that the facility be shut down after a COVID outbreak infected 153 workers. In November, California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health fined the plant after determining it had not followed adequate COVID mitigation protocols. More recently, the plant was also fined by the Environmental Protection Agency for violations of the federal Clean Air Act.
In May 2022, Smithfield Foods announced it would close the Vernon plant in early 2023, citing “the escalating cost of doing business in California.” While this is welcome news for animal activists in the state, the shutdown won’t change the pork producer’s practices. With slaughterhouses all over the country, the company will likely just expand its operations in other states.
Here in California, however, the plant’s closure presents our state with an opportunity to re-evaluate where we stand on the use of gas chambers to suffocate thousands of sentient animals every day. Given this method is supposedly the most practical and humane method available, it also leads to a bigger question: Should we re-evaluate mass slaughter altogether?
To be sure, California leaders must support workers impacted by this closure and ensure they are able to secure new jobs. But there is no reason those jobs need to depend on animal cruelty. Farmer John is closing, and California can ensure that the property is never again used to torture animals, endanger workers or pollute our environment.
Researchers have long demonstrated that pigs possess cognitive capabilities similar to dogs and young children. They show self-awareness, form likes and dislikes, and experience happiness and fear. They’re smart, social and sensitive creatures and have a language to convey a wide range of messages between themselves and to us.
The message the pigs conveyed in the gas chamber footage is clear: They are in extreme pain, and they want to live. You don’t need the Agriculture Department to tell you that. You can see and hear it for yourself.