ARAN Reveals Shocking Cruelty to Pigs at Irish Breeding Facility

Animal Rights Action Network has just released heartbreaking undercover footage obtained directly inside an Irish pig breeding facility in Ireland. The footage made front page headlines in The Irish Sun newspaper (although the paper gave the impression it was their investigation when in fact it came from ARAN and the employee who documented the coverage), either way we are happy it got headlines for the pigs and exposed people who eat meat to what goes on behind the scenes! The Irish Star newspaper also covered our story in fair good detail along with the Irish Independent. All Irish newspapers wanted our investigation so they could feature it as an exclusive. Many radio stations including Today FM, Newstalk, Highland Radio, RTE farming show, Dublin’s 98FM, 4FM and more, along with the story been mentioned on TV3 news during their newspaper reviews.

The horrific footage shows cruelty to pigs, including a grown adult pig, which, in the video appears to be prolapsing, (her insides hanging out from her anus). The pig is repeatedly hit forcefully over the head, crushing her skull as she screams in pain, whilst continuing to be violently hit with a sledgehammer by the employees at the facility. One employee that works there, claims this way of killing the animals is an every day occurrence and is the normal way to do so at the facility—although not legal by any standards—this way of killing the animals helps to save costs without calling for a vet to ‘humanely’ kill the pigs that the facility feels they cannot sell onto slaughterhouses in Ireland and abroad. During the investigation many baby piglets have been found dead with their skulls all bashed in, ironically killed in the very same way. This way of killing pigs that are unwanted violates Irish animal welfare laws. ARAN has furnished the Department of Agriculture in Dublin with the findings of the investigation, after a lengthy meeting with department officials nothing yet has came about. The Gardai are now investigating the matter further.

Some other footage obtained inside the facility include:-

• Workers were seeing smashing the head of a live grown adult pig whom appears to be pro-lapsing with a sledgehammer, the animal continues to take the blows of the hammer whilst screaming in pain, before she eventually drops to the ground and convulses, all this been watched by employees of the facility.
• A Truck full of dead baby piglets whilst another grown pig lies dead for up to two days as stated by the investigating employee.
• Dead piglets lie among live piglets.

Grown adult pigs confined to tiny farrowing crates, the pigs cannot move whilst their piglets gather around.

"Every time we pull back the curtain on slaughterhouses or their animal factories, we reveal atrocities that would make most people lose their lunch," says Stephan Wymore, ARAN campaign coordinator. "The horrendous abuse documented at this facility clearly violates Irish animal welfare law, and we’re asking that these people and this company be held accountable."

The problem? ARAN is against the killing and exploitation of all animals and believes that the killing of animals is morally and ethically wrong. Most animal welfarists argue that the animal rights view goes too far, and do not advocate the elimination of all animal use or companionship, this would be the situation with the killing of animals and animal welfare, it means we can kill the animals but in a less violent way? We say try telling the animal that. Animal welfarists may believe that humans have a moral responsibility not to cause cruelty (unnecessary suffering) to other animals. Animal rights advocates, such as Gary L. Francione and Tom Regan, argue that the animal welfare position (advocating for the betterment of the condition of animals, but without abolishing animal use: see veganism) is inconsistent in logic and ethically unacceptable.
At one time, many people denied that animals could feel anything, and thus had no interests. Many Cartesians were of this opinion, though Cottingham (1978) has argued that Descartes himself did not hold such a view. On the other hand, sympathy for animals is not new. Victorian era dramatist W. S. Gilbert remarked, "Deer-stalking would be a very fine sport if only the deer had guns."[7]
An additional critique regards animal welfarism in practice, arguing that welfarists demonstrate disproportional concern for some species of animals over others without providing rational/scientific justification for such preferences - this goes by the term Speciesism. E.g., some critics say the movement favors companion animals over commercial animals, wild over domestic animals, or mammals over birds/reptiles/fishes. For example, the welfare movement commonly opposes anesthetized declawing of pet cats by veterinarians, but rarely contests the unanesthetized toe cutting of commercial birds by poultry workers. The critique is that much animal welfarism, in practice, is as prejudicial as an anthropocentric anti-welfarist view.
The movement is also open to criticism for targeting mostly those practices for cosmetic reasons, rather than ones of genuine welfare. For example, the debeaking of hens is unsightly, but is used to prevent cannibalism. Welfarists though, often point out that there would be no cannibalism among the hens if they weren't kept in such stressful environments to begin with.