![\"Merritt](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.animals24-7.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Picsart_24-10-24_19-12-20-445-e1729822386679.jpg?ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n LONDON, U.K.;\u00a0 BERKELEY,\u00a0 California\u2013\u2013<\/strong>Two expos\u00e9s broadcast in two days of \u201chumane\u201d farm certification failures in the United Kingdom put the spotlight on similar failures in the U.S. that so far have not drawn much mass media attention.<\/p>\n The question raised in each case: \u00a0can animal farming on an economically significant scale ever really be \u201chumane,\u201d\u00a0 no matter whose animal welfare standards are purportedly in effect,\u00a0 and no matter who is entrusted with enforcing those standards?<\/p>\n Original \u201cRed Tractor\u201d logo.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe United Kingdom\u2019s largest pork supplier has launched an independent review into its animal welfare policies and livestock operations after claims staff were abusing piglets at a farm run by the business,\u201d\u00a0 the BBC revealed on May 19,\u00a0 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cCranswick, \u00a0based in Hessle in East Yorkshire,\u201d\u00a0 the BBC explained, \u00a0\u201csuspended using Northmoor Farm in Lincolnshire after covert footage, \u00a0filmed by the Animal Justice Project,\u00a0 appeared to show workers holding piglets by their hind legs and slamming them to the ground, \u00a0using a banned method of killing the animals known as \u2018piglet thumping.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Banned in the United Kingdom,\u00a0 that is,\u00a0 under the Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing Regulation.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cPiglet thumping\u201d to kill runt pigs remains routine and almost unchallenged in the U.S. and Canada.<\/p>\n \u201cAccording to the Animal Justice Project,\u201d\u00a0 the BBC said, \u00a0\u201cother footage appeared to show the botched killing of a sow that left the animal screaming. \u00a0Another sow was also apparently shown being beaten with metal bars.\u201d<\/p>\n Agreed the Red Tractor certification program a week earlier,\u00a0 on May 12,\u00a0 2025,\u00a0 \u201cThe footage shows unacceptable treatment of pigs. \u00a0The farm\u2019s Red Tractor certificate has been suspended while our independent investigation takes place.<\/p>\n \u201cThe disregard of the standards shown by the workers in the footage,\u201d\u00a0 a Red Tractor media release continued, \u00a0\u201cdoes a disservice to an industry which works hard to uphold animal welfare requirements. \u00a0The farm will remain unassured if Red Tractor is not satisfied these standards are met.\u201d<\/p>\n But why did it take an undercover Animal Justice Project videographer to catch the gross violation of standards that the Red Tractor program itself supposedly polices?<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Only two days after reporting the Red Tractor program failure to detect standards violations,\u00a0 the BBC on May 21,\u00a0 2025 revealed that,\u00a0 \u201cA fish farm on the Isle of Skye has been suspended from an animal welfare scheme,\u201d\u00a0 in this case the Royal SPCA Assured project, \u00a0\u201cafter campaigners filmed videos allegedly showing \u2018systemic cruelty\u2019 to salmon.<\/p>\n Explained the BBC,\u00a0 \u201cAnimal rights campaigners from the Green Britain Foundation said the footage from the Mowi farm at Loch Harport showed the fish being beaten and suffocated to death.<\/p>\n \u201cThey urged the RSPCA to suspend the company\u2019s 54 other salmon farms in Scotland, \u00a0which are still certified under the charity\u2019s Assured labelling scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n Mowi told the BBC that it is \u201cfully co-operating with the RSPCA,\u201d\u00a0 but contended the Green Britain Foundation video had been \u201cmisconstrued.\u201d<\/p>\n The Green Britain Foundation responded that it had captured \u201cmore than 18 incidents of animal cruelty across multiple days in March 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n Direct Action Everywhere founder Wayne Hsiung.<\/strong><\/em> Mused Simple Heart blogger Wayne Hsiung on May 30,\u00a0 2025,\u00a0 contemplating a U.S. failure of humane certification,\u00a0 \u201cWhat if our efforts to improve animal welfare have backfired?\u201d by creating a \u201chumane certification\u201d industry that really does little more than \u201cgreenwash\u201d animal industry cruelty that increasingly appears to be both endemic and unavoidable.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is the question posed by the\u00a0latest open rescue\u00a0by Direct Action Everywhere,\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0Hsiung wrote,\u00a0 as a Direct Action Everywhere founder who is no longer part of the organization,\u00a0 \u201cat a Certified Humane supplier of goat milk to Whole Foods, \u00a0Vera Dairy in Stratford, California.<\/p>\n \u201cThe rescue found dead baby goats\u00a0illegally piled up by the dozens at the farm,\u201d\u00a0 Hsiung recounted.<\/p>\n But \u201cWhen activists presented evidence of these abuses to the industry and government officials responsible for animal welfare,\u201d\u00a0 Hsiung continued,\u00a0 \u201cthe officials\u2019 response was to\u00a0arrest\u00a0five activists for rescuing two sick baby goats from the farm \u2014 and do nothing about the animal abuse.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cVera Dairy,\u201d\u00a0 Hsiung charged, \u00a0\u201cis just the latest example of a supposedly humane farm failing to live up to its own standards. \u00a0Last year, \u00a0Farm Forward\u00a0found\u00a0cows festering with cancer eye at one of California\u2019s most prominent organic dairy farms.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2021, \u00a0PETA\u00a0exposed\u00a0workers stomping on injured turkeys at a Global Animal Partnership certified farm in Pennsylvania. \u00a0And back in 2016, \u00a0teams that I led found numerous egg farms raising hens in Certified Humane sheds where thousands of birds were being illegally caged and\u00a0cannibalized.\u201d<\/p>\n These were scarcely isolated cases.\u00a0 ANIMALS 24-7<\/strong> has helped to expose many more.<\/p>\n \u201cPETA and Animal Rising have chosen to\u00a0protest\u00a0animal welfare certification programs,\u201d\u00a0 Hsiung acknowledged. \u00a0\u201cIn the worst case, animal welfare programs are worse than ineffective. They actively\u00a0cover up the cruelty.\u201d<\/p>\n Adele Douglass<\/strong><\/em> But Hsiung declared himself optimistic that \u201cthe enforcement problem in animal welfare is being fixed. \u00a0We are wising up to the lies told by people like Adele Douglass of Certified Humane,\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0Hsiung said.<\/p>\n Hsiung thus indicted the founder of first the American Humane Certified program,\u00a0 and then,\u00a0 two years later,\u00a0 Certified Humane,\u00a0 after Douglass felt that American Humane had become too accommodating to factory farmers.<\/p>\n Both American Humane Certified and Certified Humane,\u00a0 which debuted in February 2003,\u00a0 were formed,\u00a0 Douglass recounted a decade later,\u00a0 after \u201cI went to England and met with the Farm Animals division of the Royal SPCA to learn about their program.\u00a0 The Royal SPCA had written standards for farm animals and had created a separate organization, \u00a0Freedom Foods, \u00a0to find farmers who would meet those standards, \u00a0then purchase the products from these farmers and label the product Freedom Foods, \u00a0and sell the product at retailers in the U.K.\u201d<\/p>\n The initial Freedom Foods approach failed,\u00a0 evolving into the RSPCA Assured scheme of today,\u00a0 which operates much like Certified Humane.<\/p>\n Certified Humane has from inception relied on unannounced independent third party inspection to enforce humane standards.\u00a0 But periodic inspections,\u00a0 no matter how frequent and how unannounced,\u00a0 cannot catch every violation.<\/p>\n When violations are discovered and exposed,\u00a0 certification schemes,\u00a0 including the RSPCA,\u00a0 American Humane Certified,\u00a0 Global Animal Partnership,\u00a0 Certified Humane,\u00a0 and similar entities tend to become the first line of public defense for the companies involved.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWhen we exposed mass cannibalism at a Certified Humane egg farm in October 2016,\u201d\u00a0 charged Hsiung, \u00a0\u201cDouglass\u2019s organization\u00a0wrote\u00a0there was \u2018no evidence\u2019 of aggression at the farm and that our video was \u2018staged.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cThey never bothered to correct themselves when the company at issue admitted on the stand, and in\u00a0documents\u00a0they were compelled to disclose to us in court, \u00a0that shockingly high mortality rates (20.3%) at their facility were driven by the animals pecking one another to death, \u00a0i.e., cannibalism.<\/p>\n \u201cThe animal welfare movement for many years stood by Douglass and Certified Humane,\u201d\u00a0 Hsiung recalled.\u00a0 \u201cThe Humane Society of the United States [now called Humane World for Animals] was listed as one of their most prominent supporters. \u00a0But HSUS eventually dropped their endorsement. \u00a0Now, \u00a0animal welfare organizations are\u00a0suing\u00a0Certified Humane for fraud instead of supporting them.\u201d<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Detailed Jessica Cejnar Andrews for Redwood Voice Community News<\/em> of the first of two such cases,\u00a0 on October 10, 2024,\u00a0 \u201cA Sacramento-based nonprofit organization,\u201d\u00a0 Legal Impact for Chickens,\u201d \u00a0combating factory farming and animal abuse in the poultry industry, \u00a0is suing Alexandre Family Farm alleging \u2018rampant cruelty\u2019 at their Humboldt and Del Norte County dairy operations.\u201d<\/p>\n The Legal Impact for Chickens complaint,\u00a0 wrote Andrews,\u00a0 \u201ccontains the same cruelty allegations that another organization, Farm Forward, \u00a0\u00a0outlined in a report,\u201d\u00a0 entitled Dairy Deception: Corruption & Consumer Fraud At Alexandre Family Farm<\/em>,\u00a0 \u00a0released on April 11,\u00a0 2024.<\/p>\n John Millspaugh.\u00a0 (Farm Forward photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Farm Forward filed a class action lawsuit against both Alexandre Family Farm and Certified Humane on March 10, 2025.<\/p>\n Explained Farm Forward director of education John Millspaugh, \u00a0\u201cThe new civil case alleges that Alexandre and Certified Humane falsely represented Alexandre products as \u2018humane\u2019 while Alexandre engaged in shocking and widespread acts of animal cruelty.<\/p>\n \u201cFor example,\u201d\u00a0 Millspaugh accused, \u00a0\u201cFarm Forward\u2019s investigation found that Alexandre staff poured salt into the eyes of hundreds of cows, \u00a0sawed off the horns of more than 800 cows through tissue laced with nerves without any pain management, \u00a0cut off a cow\u2019s teat with an unsanitized pocketknife, \u00a0dragged a cow who was unable to walk across concrete, \u00a0for years provided no routine veterinary or hoof care management, and transported sick, injured, and lame cows to auction rather than treating or euthanizing them.<\/p>\n Calf hutch.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/em>(Farm Forward photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe lawsuit also reveals new findings of an independent investigator,\u201d\u00a0 Millspaugh continued,\u00a0 \u201cpreviously unknown to Farm Forward, \u00a0who visited Alexandre during the period covered by our investigation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe investigator found calves in barred hutches who were covered in feces, \u00a0urine, \u00a0and mud, \u00a0many of them standing in pools of waste rising above the calves\u2019 hooves, \u00a0the slurry completely covering the only area where the calves could lie down.<\/p>\n \u201cIn clear violation of Certified Humane standards, \u00a0calves in these hutches could not set one foot outside, \u00a0had no access to an exercise area, \u00a0and were left in hutches for a full month longer than the eight week maximum allowed by Certified Humane.<\/p>\n \u201cThe investigator, \u00a0who has observed many calf hutches on many farms, describes the hutches as the least sanitary the investigator had ever seen.<\/p>\nCan \u201chumane\u201d farming standards ever actually be enforced?<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nRed Tractor-approved farm abused piglets<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nRoutine & almost unchallenged in U.S. & Canada<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nCruelty to salmon<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
(Direct Action Everywhere photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\u201cWhat if efforts have backfired?\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cJust the latest example\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
(Humane Farm Animal Care photo))<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\u201cWe are wising up\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Inspection failures<\/h2>\n<\/a><\/p>\nCannibalism<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nLegal Impact for Chickens<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nFarm Forward<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cNew findings of an independent investigator\u201d<\/h2>\n