A sheriff detective’s report of alleged animal abuse at a Shawano County farm indicates that the animal rights activist who secretly recorded the abuse had been hired at the farm to train and oversee the workers who allegedly engaged in it.
The video was made in August on the Birnamwood farm of Alan Andrus by Los Angeles-based Mercy for Animals. Portions of the video were released to the media this week.
Prior to that, the group had turned the video over to the Shawano County Sheriff’s Department for investigation.
The video was recorded by a man identified in the detective’s report as Jason.
Andrus told the detective he had hired Jason to work with the Hispanic employees, and oversee and train them because he was bilingual and fluent in Spanish, according to the report.
Andrus stated Jason told him he had experience working on large dairy farms and working with Hispanic workers, according to the report. Andrus also told the detective he was surprised that Jason did not try to correct or report to Andrus any poor workmanship.
Andrus stated he was also told by employees that Jason participated in questionable handling of the animals. They also said he was seen docking the tails of the cows, much like is shown in the video, but “the video is edited so that those actions were not captured on video,” the report states.
According to the report, the detective sought to question Jason, but the animal rights group would not make him available for an interview.
The Sheriff’s Department submitted the video to one local veterinarian and to Dr. Ellen Hooker, a field veterinarian in the Division of Animal Health at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
Both came to the conclusion that workers seen in the video at the Andrus farm needed to be trained to handle animals in a better manner, but that none of their activities rose to the level of prosecution for a crime.
The Shawano-Menominee County district attorney’s office this week issued a notice to the sheriff’s department that it would not prosecute, based on the veterinarians’ conclusions.
The detective’s report states that some of the acts in the video were “questionable,” but not criminal, according to the vets. That includes workers punching and kicking a downed cow to try and get it up on its feet, the report states.
Other acts were not quite what Mercy for Animals claimed, including, according to the rights group, a worker tying a rope around a downed cow’s neck and dragging her.
The downed cow had a leather collar. The rope was attached to the collar and the cow was pulled about five feet, with the pressure on the back of the cow’s neck rather than the front, “so it was not choked in any way,” according to the detective’s report.
The rights group also alleged a cow was stabbed with a needle at one point. But, according to the report, the video shows an employee removing an IV needle that is commonly placed in a vein prior to milking.
Mercy for Animals also alleged that workers twisted cows’ tails to deliberately inflict pain.
The detective’s report states that, according to a local vet, “lifting of the tail is an acceptable manner of moving cows.”
In an interview with the Leader Friday, Amy Stanton, an assistant professor and animal well-being specialist in the Department of Dairy Sciences at UW-Madison, said the actions shown in the video “are not routine management practices” and are not condoned.
She said the university offers a number of programs and resources aimed at providing “welfare-friendly” treatment of animals.
“Farmers in Wisconsin are interested in how to care for their animals to the best of their ability,” Stanton said.
Source: The Shawano Leader
