It is hard to watch.
The non-profit agency promoting care for farm animals Mercy for Animals Canada released a secretly filmed video from inside Canada’s largest factory dairy operation.
The 2014 hidden camera video shows dairy cows being severely beaten with canes and chains, punched, kicked, and lifted into the air by chains around their necks. It also shows rather nasty injuries which would appear to be untreated.
As a result of the video, two former workers at Chilliwack Cattle Sales were sentenced yesterday by a British Columbia provincial court.
One man was fined $4,000 and will serve 20 days in jail on weekends. The other was fined $7,000.
Last month three other former workers were sentenced to a total of 127 days in jail on various animal cruelty charges, This marked the first time in Canadian history that former factory farm workers had been sentenced to jail for animal abuse exposed through an undercover investigation by an animal protection organization. In December 2016, also stemming from this investigation, Chilliwack Cattle Sales and one of its owners were convicted of animal cruelty and ordered to pay fines totalling almost $350,000.
The cruelty exposed through Mercy For Animals’ footage prompted the British Columbia agricultural minister to amend the B.C. Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act to incorporate the Dairy Code of Practice.
Mercy for Animals is now calling on other provincial governments to add the Dairy Code of Practice into their respective animal cruelty legislation. Giving the Dairy Code of Practice the force of law will require the dairy industry to follow basic minimum standards for animal welfare and help prevent many of the worst abuses documented at Chilliwack Cattle Sales.
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