02.20.08
Protest for Pregnant Pigs
A Mercy For Animals volunteer in a human-sized gestation crate with a splint on her leg and scars on her face to represent the horrors that pregnant pigs suffer.
On February 5th, members of Mercy For Animals protested the Annual Ohio Pork Congress in Columbus. We were protesting the Pork Industry’s use of gestation crates–barren 2-foot wide metal stalls where breeding sows are forced to spend most of their adult lives before being slaughtered.
Sows in gestation crates are unable to walk or turn around and are forced to stand and lie on concrete slated floors covered in their own excrement for the duration of their four-month pregnancies. Barely able to move, the pigs develop crippling joint disorders, bruises, open soars, and lameness.
Pigs in Gestation Crates.
This protest is part of an increasingly successful movement to ban gestation crates in the United States. Florida, Arizona and Oregon have recently passed legislation outlawing the abusive confinement system. Major restaurant chains including Chipotle and Panera Bread won’t use pork from producers who confine pregnant pigs, and producers have been listening. Both the world’s largest and Canada’s largest pig producers — Smithfield Foods and Maple Leaf Foods respectively — are phasing out their use of the cruel crates.
Follow the jump for more pictures.
And here are pictures of our evening demonstration outside of their congressional dinner. Many of the Ohio Pork Congress officials watched us from inside the building.
Thanks to all of the Mercy For Animals volunteers who helped make the protest possible!
Follow the link for my blog on the additional cruelties of the hog farming industry.