Every year, millions of cows, pigs, goats, sheep, and other animals are funneled through livestock markets on a stressful and terrorizing journey that often ends at the slaughterhouse.

 A new Mercy For Animals undercover investigation has exposed criminal cruelty to animals at livestock markets across Mississippi. Using a hidden camera, MFA’s investigator documented:

    - Workers violently kicking, punching, beating, and shocking animals

    - Goats, sheep, and pigs being callously picked up by their ears and necks

    - Workers pulling tails and carelessly dragging animals by their hair

    - Animals routinely denied food, water, and proper veterinary care

During the investigation, Mercy For Animals alerted law enforcement authorities to violations of Mississippi’s anti-cruelty laws at these livestock markets and presented a detailed legal petition and meticulously compiled evidence of the animal cruelty violations. Following an investigation by local law enforcement, affidavits were filed with the court to initiate criminal charges against the managers and workers involved in this intolerable animal abuse.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time MFA has uncovered criminal animal abuse at livestock markets. In 2012, an MFA investigator documented an ongoing pattern of cruelty, egregious violence, and severe neglect at Ontario Livestock Sales, one of the oldest and largest livestock auctions in southern California. Law enforcement charged the owner and seven employees with a total of 21 counts of animal cruelty. 

These cases graphically illustrate the cruel, inhumane, and illegal abuses that farmed animals are all too often subjected to at livestock markets across the country. It’s long past time for this blatant animal abuse to be stopped.

Please join us in calling on the national Livestock Marketing Association to crack down on animal cruelty by requiring auctions to install video monitoring systems that live stream to the Web, ensuring animals have access to food and water at all times, providing proper veterinary care for sick and injured animals, and implementing a comprehensive training and auditing program to prevent abuse. Sign the petition below.

Thank you.