Feds Suspend Calif. Meatpacker Pending Probe of Animal Abuse

USDA has suspended Westland Meat Co. of Chino, Calif., as a supplier to the agency's National School Lunch Program after the Humane Society of the United States posted on its Web site a video chronicling abuse of cattle at a supplier's slaughterhouse.

An HSUS member working undercover at Hallmark Meat Packing Co., also a Chino, Calif.-based company that is related to and supplies Westland, captured the footage, HSUS says.

"I am deeply concerned about the allegations made regarding inhumane handling … in a federally inspected slaughter establishment," said Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer in a statement. "I have called on the Office of the Inspector General … to conduct an investigation into this matter."

The video shows workers prodding downer cattle — apparently with electric prods — spraying high-intensity water through their noses and ramming them with the blades of a forklift. The workers reportedly were trying to get the cattle on their feet before a USDA inspector arrived for daily inspection.

USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service generally prohibits such abuse as well as the use of downer cattle, or non-ambulatory cattle, which pose a higher risk of carrying bovine spongiform encephalopathy and other diseases, and their tissue in human food.

Read the full CattleNetwork.com story here.