USDA: No Animal Should Suffer Like This at a Slaughterhouse

A bull was shot in the head once. He remained standing and conscious.

He was shot again. Still conscious.

After a third attempt failed, it took a fourth shot before the bull finally lost consciousness.

This wasn't footage secretly captured by an animal advocate. It was documented by a U.S. Department of Agriculture inspector at Buck N’ Bull Meatworx, a slaughterhouse in Bowie, Texas.

According to the USDA report, the facility failed to properly restrain the bull and did not have backup stunning equipment readily available when the first attempts failed. Those are not minor procedural lapses. They are basic safeguards meant to prevent an animal from enduring prolonged, avoidable suffering.

The Animal Legal Defense Fund and Animal Partisan have since filed a criminal complaint against Buck N’ Bull Meatworx and its owner, Richard Bowden, alleging violations of Texas's cruelty-to-livestock law.

No animal should be put through this because a slaughterhouse failed to take even basic precautions. And this case should force action far beyond one facility in Texas.

Federal law already requires protections against needless suffering during slaughter, and USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service is responsible for enforcing them.

But inspectors already juggle food-safety and animal-handling duties, and USDA has acknowledged that staffing constraints can undermine humane-handling oversight. Protections cannot depend on stretched inspectors catching every failure.

Slaughterhouses must be prepared to act immediately when stunning fails. USDA should require proper restraint, trained workers and readily available backup stunning equipment — and impose meaningful consequences when repeated or egregious failures leave animals conscious and suffering.

None of this makes slaughter humane. It is not. Nor should enforcing minimum protections against suffering be mistaken for endorsing the cattle industry or the killing of animals for food.

It simply recognizes an urgent reality: Animals who are already facing slaughter should not also be subjected to prolonged, preventable suffering because basic safeguards fail.

And this is especially urgent now. The Trump administration is actively working to rebuild the U.S. cattle herd, expand processing capacity, and make it easier for ranchers and meat processors to grow. 

The administration is even putting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars toward expanding independent and regional cattle slaughter facilities.

If the Trump administration is going to push policies that could put more cattle into the slaughter system, it has an even greater responsibility to ensure those animals are not subjected to preventable suffering. 

Animal protections cannot be treated as an inconvenience or an afterthought in the rush to expand meat production.

Please sign the petition urging USDA and its Food Safety and Inspection Service to strengthen and consistently enforce federal protections for animals at slaughterhouses nationwide.

The petition to USDA reads: No animal should be left conscious and suffering because a slaughterhouse failed to take basic precautions. Strengthen and consistently enforce federal protections against animal suffering at slaughterhouses nationwide. Require proper restraint, trained personnel, and immediately available backup stunning equipment, and impose meaningful consequences when repeated or egregious failures cause prolonged, preventable suffering.

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Source:

https://aldf.org/article/animal-groups-refile-complaint-over-alleged-texas-slaughterhouse-cruelty/

Photo credit ALDF