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Our View: PETA is right this time

The Daily Republic
Published Friday, September 19, 2008

The video is unpleasant and at times, those of us not accustomed to such
things must look away.

Yet the several-minutes-long video of employees abusing hogs at a
corporate farm in Iowa is a telltale reminder that animal abuse is a
practice that's alive and well in the world of large-scale, corporate
animal operations.

The video was shot by PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
- and shows farm workers repeatedly hitting hogs with metal rods and
discussing the merits of jamming rods into the animals' hindquarters.
They slam piglets to the concrete to kill the weak ones, but instead of
killing them, many of the piglets just writhe in a bloody pile.

The tape was obtained through undercover work by PETA, which had two
investigators get jobs at the farm and work there for two months to
obtain footage.

We don't agree with PETA very often. The organization is against hunting
and fishing, activities that we find entirely acceptable here in South
Dakota. We enjoy giving PETA its say every so often, but again, we
rarely agree with the organization, which has taken on radical practices
to try to gets its point across in America.

The case of the pig farm near Bayard, Iowa, is different. Eight people
are shown directly abusing animals. Others discuss at length their
abusive practices, and at one point, a worker shouts to an undercover
investigator to "Hurt 'em! There's nobody works for PETA out here."

The employee continues: "I hate them. These (expletives) deserve to be
hurt. Hurt, I say. Hurt! Hurt! Hurt! Hurt! ... Take out your
frustrations on them." He then tells the PETA investigator to pretend
that one of the pigs has scared off a voluptuous young woman and then
beat the pig for it.

The farm is a supplier to Hormel Foods of Austin, Minn. - the famous
maker of Spam and other food products. To its credit, a spokesman for
Hormel called the recent incidents "completely unacceptable."

It's not an isolated incident. Six months ago, an investigation at a
cattle facility in California showed that animals were jabbed in their
eyes, shocked, kicked and, after their limbs were broken, dragged by
forklifts. It prompted a national recall of the beef that originated
from that plant.

We don't really know how all large animal operations work, but after
watching the video taken by PETA at the Bayard farm, we must
optimistically hope that it's not like that everywhere.

PETA is seeking prosecution of 18 people at the Iowa facility and we
have to say we're happy to hear that. Apparently, stringent oversight is
needed to ensure these practices aren't happening elsewhere.

Again, we and PETA do not often see eye to eye. Today, we do.