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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: And welcome back George Norie with Gail Eisenetts. As an

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Speaker 2: author and winner of the prestigious Albert Schweitzer Medal for

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Speaker 2: Outstanding Achievement and Animal welfare. Gyale is the chief investigator

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Speaker 2: for the Humane Farming Association. Her book is called Out

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Speaker 2: of Sight, An Undercover Investigators Fight for Animal Rights and

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Speaker 2: her own survival.

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Speaker 3: Gail, Welcome to the program.

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Speaker 4: Thanks George, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 2: How did you get involved in fighting for animal rights?

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Speaker 4: Well, it's a kind of long story, but.

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Speaker 3: You're on for two hours, don't worry.

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Speaker 4: About Oh okay, Well, it took quite a while to

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Speaker 4: get involved in the animal protection movement because it was

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Speaker 4: a bird It was just a small movement back in

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Speaker 4: the nineteen eighties when I started. But I hired on

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Speaker 4: with the largest animal protection organization in the country at

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Speaker 4: the time, and I did all sorts of investigations into

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Speaker 4: all sorts of crazy things like dog fighting and cock

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Speaker 4: fighting and slaughterhouses and dog racing and Santa Ria animal

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Speaker 4: sacrifice things like that. But everything changed one day when

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Speaker 4: I had a complaint come across my inbox from an

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Speaker 4: anonymous source who said that he worked in a slaughterhouse

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Speaker 4: down in Florida. It was largest slaughterhouse in the southeast.

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Speaker 4: And this may sound grizzly, but he said he was

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Speaker 4: a USDA employee, and he said that the cows at

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Speaker 4: that slaughterhouse were having their head skinned while they were

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Speaker 4: still fully conscious. And he was really really worried about

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Speaker 4: the workers because it was extremely dangerous for the workers,

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Speaker 4: and he was really upset about the poor cow. So

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Speaker 4: I investigated his complaint, and I figured out who he was,

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Speaker 4: and he was ultimately fired by USDA, the agency that's

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Speaker 4: supposed to enforce humane regulations, and because he was a whistleblower,

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Speaker 4: and the other workers were issued a gag order and

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Speaker 4: no one was to speak with me. But I was

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Speaker 4: able to corroborate the fact that many, many, many cows

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Speaker 4: at that slaughterhouse were having their heads skinned while they

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Speaker 4: were still fully conscious. So that was the beginning of

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Speaker 4: it all. And that plant, mysteriously, as soon as it

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Speaker 4: came out that this was going on, that plant mysteriously

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Speaker 4: closed down and went out of business.

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Speaker 2: You know what's interesting, Galas we would never think of

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Speaker 2: abusing our pet dog or cat but nobody thinks about

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Speaker 2: the slaughterhouses where they're making you know, pork and beef

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Speaker 2: and all that.

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Speaker 4: That's definitely true. That's kind of why I wrote both

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Speaker 4: of my books. The first one was called Slaughterhouse and

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Speaker 4: then exposed violations of federal laws inside slaughterhouses, and the

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Speaker 4: second one is called Out of Sight, which is a

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Speaker 4: memoir to get this information out to the public, because

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Speaker 4: I feel like Americans have a right to know what

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Speaker 4: the animals suffer to get to their dinner tables. And

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Speaker 4: I've had an extraordinary amount of challenges in getting this

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Speaker 4: information out because outside of radio, the media wants to

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Speaker 4: keep this issue very very quiet.

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Speaker 3: Well, we won't.

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Speaker 2: Are Are you more concerned about the abuse of animals

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Speaker 2: in general or those specifically that are used for food.

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Speaker 4: Well, I am concerned about all animal abuses, but my

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Speaker 4: work in the last thirty years has focused on farm animals,

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Speaker 4: so I'm concerned with both. But my area of expertise

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Speaker 4: is in farm animal production.

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Speaker 5: If you had your your others, if you had your

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Speaker 5: ability to make a magic wish, would you wish that

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Speaker 5: no animal was killed for food?

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Speaker 4: Well? I don't really go there. I mean, I just

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Speaker 4: let people make their own personal choices when it comes

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Speaker 4: to eating eating animal products. But there are wishes that

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Speaker 4: I would have that would make the process less violent.

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Speaker 4: For example, I'll just give you a little background. Sure,

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Speaker 4: in the last few decades, we've seen great consolidation in

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Speaker 4: the slaughter industry, and that means that thousands of small

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Speaker 4: to mid sized slaughterhouses have been forced out of business

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Speaker 4: by just a handful of these giant mega slaughterhouses. And

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Speaker 4: that means that we're killing more animals and fewer plants.

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Speaker 4: And that means that production line speeds in the plants,

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Speaker 4: the rate at which they process the animals, has increased dramatically.

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Speaker 4: And what I would wish is that line speed, line

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Speaker 4: speeds would be reduced and instead, just this week, the

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Speaker 4: Trump administration announced that it's planning on increasing line speeds

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Speaker 4: from what they already are.

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Speaker 2: Just on the average, in an average slaughterhouse, how many cattle,

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Speaker 2: for example, are killed each day, Well, I.

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Speaker 4: Can give you an hourly rate, because they vary as

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Speaker 4: to how many hours they slaughter. But cattle they kill

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Speaker 4: at a rate of three hundred and ninety per hour.

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Speaker 4: But hogs, for example, they kill at a rate of

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Speaker 4: one thy one hundred and six hogs every hour per line,

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Speaker 4: per slaughter line, and that means one hog every three seconds.

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Speaker 4: But that's not fast enough for the meat industry. They

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Speaker 4: want to go faster. So Trump administration is lifting that

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Speaker 4: cap on line speeds and now industry can kill hogs

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Speaker 4: as fast as it wants to. That means, like right now,

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Speaker 4: some of them are are slaughtering at fourteen something fourteen

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Speaker 4: hundred and something per hour, which means they have to

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Speaker 4: kill a hog every two point five seconds. And just

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Speaker 4: to give you another example, the viscera line speeds in

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Speaker 4: poultry plants, which is basically the slaughter line speed used

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Speaker 4: to be one hundred and forty birds per minute, and

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Speaker 4: now it's being changed to be one hundred and seventy

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Speaker 4: five birds per minute. That's three birds per second.

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Speaker 2: And that would include chickens and ducks and things like that.

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Speaker 4: Well, that's that figure is basically for broiler chickens, meat chickens.

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Speaker 2: Yes, without being too gruesome, How do they kill how

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Speaker 2: do they slaughter these animals?

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Speaker 4: Well, there's a thing called the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act,

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Speaker 4: and it requires it was past sixty seven years ago,

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Speaker 4: and it requires that all farm animals except poultry be

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Speaker 4: humanely handled and rendered on conscious before they're they're bled

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Speaker 4: and butchered. So for hogs, for example, they either stun

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Speaker 4: them with an electrical jolt that is supposed to suppose

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Speaker 4: to render them unconscious, but doesn't always do that, and

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Speaker 4: then they slit their throat. They they shackle them and

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Speaker 4: slit their throats and bleed them out and into the

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Speaker 4: scalding tank they go to be dehaired or else they're

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Speaker 4: using CO two gas now, which is which is quite cruel.

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Speaker 4: They put they load them into these what they call gondolas,

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Speaker 4: and they go down into a CO two area, and

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Speaker 4: the hogs react rather adversely to that. They they gasp

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Speaker 4: and they scream and they convulse. So that's not exactly

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Speaker 4: the most humane method either.

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Speaker 2: What do you say about the individual Gale who works

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Speaker 2: at the plant?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I spoke with and met many many

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Speaker 4: workers over the many decades, and in fact, I spoke

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Speaker 4: with individuals who spent a combined total of three million

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Speaker 4: hours on the kill floor alone. This is just in slaughter,

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Speaker 4: and they definitely, it definitely took a toll on those workers.

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Speaker 4: They became so desensitized and they took out their anger

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Speaker 4: and frustration on their spouses and with alcoholism and ending

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Speaker 4: up in jail carrying firearms and things like that. But

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Speaker 4: that's because the people that I spoke with were at

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Speaker 4: plants where violations were occurring and the animals were supposed

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Speaker 4: to be stunned and they weren't, and they were fighting

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Speaker 4: with the animals as they were going into the scalding

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Speaker 4: tank alive or being skinned alive as far as cows go.

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Speaker 4: So they were very outspoken. The people that I spoke

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Speaker 4: with were extremely forthcoming and telling me about the atrocities

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Speaker 4: they committed, because it was kind of like the floodgates

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Speaker 4: burst open and they wanted to tell me everything that

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Speaker 4: was going on. It was really sad.

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Speaker 2: How many major slaughterhouses are there in the United States

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Speaker 2: right now?

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Speaker 4: There are about eight hundred and something. Yeah, but there

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Speaker 4: used to be many more, and and now there are

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Speaker 4: only eight hundred, which accounts for why lione speeds are

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Speaker 4: so fast. There's really only a handful of giant megaslaughterhouses.

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Speaker 4: I mean, one slaughterhouse that I visited many years ago

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Speaker 4: killed I think it was about one hundred forty four

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Speaker 4: thousand pigs a week, and that was years ago. They've

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Speaker 4: increased their line speeds now, and they'll be increasing their further,

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Speaker 4: I'm sure because of this new Trump administration policy change.

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Speaker 4: But today now they slaughter thirty five thousand hogs a day,

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Speaker 4: so you can imagine what it takes to do that

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Speaker 4: many hogs in one day.

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Speaker 2: Let's talk about the intelligence of the animal for a second, Gale.

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Speaker 2: Are they aware of what's happening?

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Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely, they're terrified. I just ran an account the

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Speaker 4: other day of a hog that was being loaded into

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Speaker 4: the gondola to go down into the pit of Co

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Speaker 4: two and it was just shaking. Its legs splayed out

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Speaker 4: and it was shaking. It was so scared. Hogs are

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Speaker 4: are supposed to be as intelligent as dogs, so they're

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Speaker 4: very intelligent and they're very aware. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Well, I like the fact that you don't question whether

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Speaker 2: people should be eating meat or not, but the way

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Speaker 2: it's done. But is there a truly humane way to

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Speaker 2: kill an animal?

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Speaker 4: Is That's a great question. I don't think I can

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Speaker 4: answer that. I don't really know. All I know is

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Speaker 4: that I document violations that are occurring and trying to

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Speaker 4: educate the public about what's happening, because jeez, the public

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Speaker 4: has a right to know, and nobody wants to tell them.

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Speaker 2: I know, I personally have cut down on my meat

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Speaker 2: consumption dramatically because of just thinking about these things. And

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Speaker 2: it's changed my attitude, and uh, it's changed my taste woods.

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Speaker 4: I think, yeah, yeah, once you know, yeah, to take action.

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Speaker 4: You know, knowledge is power, And I mean we now

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Speaker 4: kill more more paltry broiler poultry in one day than

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Speaker 4: we did in the entire year of nineteen thirty. We

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Speaker 4: kill nine billion, more than nine billion birds a year

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Speaker 4: in the United States.

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Speaker 2: I'm really up a creek if I pull out a

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Speaker 2: carrot and it starts yelling at me, help me, help me.

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Speaker 2: Is there an agency they've been cutting back everything in government.

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Speaker 2: Is there an agency still around that looks into this.

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Speaker 4: Yeah? The US Department of Agriculture is supposed to enforce

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Speaker 4: the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. I'll tell you they

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Speaker 4: The law was passed. I think it was sixty seven

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Speaker 4: years ago. I think I said that already, come to

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Speaker 4: think of it, and it was zero budgeted. The Humane

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Speaker 4: Methods of Slaughter Act was provided zero funds to enforce it.

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Speaker 4: So only after my first book, Slaughterhouse came out and

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Speaker 4: I was able to convince a Washington Post reporter to

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Speaker 4: do a front page story on the atrocities taking place.

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Speaker 4: That's the first time money was ever appropriated to enforce

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Speaker 4: the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, and that was in

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Speaker 4: two thousand and one. The law had been on the

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Speaker 4: books for forty three years and it had gone totally unenforced.

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Speaker 2: Give us a list of the animals that have been

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Speaker 2: slaughtered that are going through this process. You mentioned hogs, beef, cattle, chickens.

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Speaker 3: What else do we have out there?

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Speaker 4: I mean you have everything. You have turkey's, goats, sheep, ducks, lamb, yeah, lamb,

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Speaker 4: a little bit of everything. And I mean I can

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Speaker 4: I can tell you that before we got any funding

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Speaker 4: for the enforcement of the Humane Methodsist Slutter Act, virtually

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Speaker 4: every person, without exception of the people that had spent

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Speaker 4: a combined total of three million hours on the kill floor,

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Speaker 4: including workers and meat inspectors, they all admitted to engaging

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Speaker 4: or observing live animals being strangled, beaten, boiled, skinned and

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Speaker 4: dismembered while fully conscious.

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Speaker 2: Gale kind of pain us a picture on the kinds

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Speaker 2: of abuses that have been out there.

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Speaker 4: Oh sure, Well, one plant in Iowa that I investigated

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Speaker 4: was lowering the electric current on the stunning device because

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Speaker 4: it was bruising the meat. So they were just shocking

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Speaker 4: the animals for the fun of it. And the animals

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Speaker 4: were being were alive when they had their throats slit,

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Speaker 4: which is against the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. And

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Speaker 4: they were being immersed into a scalding tank, alive and

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Speaker 4: fully conscious. Another plant, a huge beef plant in Washington State,

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Speaker 4: the caws weren't being properly stunned, and hundreds each day

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Speaker 4: were being skinned and dismembered while they were fully conscious.

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Speaker 4: And we have three and a half hours of videotape

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Speaker 4: showing more than one hundred violations of different sorts. But

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Speaker 4: just to give you an example, I have a little

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Speaker 4: list of the things that went on that went on

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Speaker 4: and probably still go on. But this has happened before

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Speaker 4: any funding was appropriated for enforcing the Humane Slaughter Act.

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Speaker 4: Workers told me that they routinely pounded away at cow's

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Speaker 4: heads with ineffective stunning equipment because they use a what's

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Speaker 4: called a knocking gun to knock the animal unconscious. Repeatedly

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Speaker 4: shocked hogs with defective stunning equipment gased hogs that screamed,

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Speaker 4: gashed and shook their heads, beat hogs with shackles and

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Speaker 4: lead pipes, drag disabled animals with meat hooks in their

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Speaker 4: mouths orses, or with cables around their necks. There aren't

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Speaker 4: too many more. I won't tell you too much more, George.

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Speaker 4: They put electric prods in animals anuses, eyes, and mouths

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Speaker 4: and held them there, and they skinned the heads, bellies,

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Speaker 4: sides and rumps, removed the legs, ears, horns, and tails

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Speaker 4: of cattle who were still fully conscious.

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Speaker 3: Are these work sadistic?

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Speaker 4: They are just trying to keep up with the line speed.

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Speaker 4: I mean some of the workers were sadistic. Some of

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Speaker 4: the workers were shocking hogs just to watch them jump

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Speaker 4: in the air. Some of them were chasing them into

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Speaker 4: the scalding tank alive just for the fun of it.

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Speaker 4: But a lot of them are are just We're just

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Speaker 4: trying to keep up with the line speed, not stop

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Speaker 4: the line speed. They were required to skin cows alive.

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Speaker 4: I have a quote that's that says it all. It

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Speaker 4: says this is from a beef plant. I've seen thousands

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Speaker 4: and thousands of cows go through the slaughter process alive

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Speaker 4: since I've been at the plant. I've been up to

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Speaker 4: the side polar where they are alive. That's where they

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Speaker 4: pull the skin down. A machine that pulls the skin

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Speaker 4: peels the skin off the cow. The legs are gone,

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Speaker 4: the hide is stripped out down to the neck. There.

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Speaker 4: If I see an animal alive, animal, I cannot stop

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Speaker 4: the line because the supervisors have told us that you

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Speaker 4: can work on a cow that's alive.

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Speaker 2: I bet in the old days, if a farmer wanted

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Speaker 2: to kill his cattle, he just shot him in the head.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's probably a lot more humane or a lot

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Speaker 4: less inhumane.

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Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at

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