DENVER (AP) – A recently released undercover video showing pigs being abused at a supplier to the world’s largest meat producer also highlights practices that are still common but slowly being changed in the pork industry.
The video shows pregnant female pigs confined to metal cages barely bigger than their bodies and piglets squealing while being castrated.
Los Angeles-based Mercy for Animals released it in the hopes pushing Brazilian-based JBS to prohibit the practices.
Ten states have passed laws that either ban the use of or phase out the use of gestation crates or stalls, which are used on estimated 75 percent of pig farms in the United States.
Among them is California, where voters this fall will be asked to ban the sale of pork from pigs confined to the crates or their offspring. Massachusetts voters passed a similar ban in 2016 that will take effect in 2022.
