What is a downed animal?

A downed animal, or “downer,” is an animal who is too sick, diseased or injured to stand and walk on his/her own. While downers are found in virtually every type of animal agribusiness enterprise, dairy cows are at the greatest risk of becoming downed because of the intense physical demands of the dairy industry.

Are there laws to protect downed animals from abuse?

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) adopted a regulatory ban on the slaughter of downed cattle for human consumption. However, several loopholes exist. First, the current regulations only apply to cattle-- leaving pigs, sheep, goats and other species of livestock unprotected. Second, this regulation allows cattle who go down after their initial ante-mortem slaughter inspection.

The Federal Humane Slaughter Act also prohibits the dragging of downed animals unless they have been rendered unconscious, but undercover investigations have repeatedly shown violations of this ban.

Finally, several states have passed regulations or laws governing the treatment of downed animals. Some states merely prohibit downed animals from being bought or sold, but others require that they be humanely euthanized. States with downed animal protection laws include California, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

What is the Downed Animal and Food Safety Protection Act?

The Downed Animal and Food Safety Protection Act, which Farm Sanctuary and other animal protection groups have repeatedly submitted before Congress, would require that all downed animals be humanely euthanized on site. It would further ban all downed livestock-sheep, goats and hogs, in addition to cattle-from being slaughtered for human consumption.

Why is the Downed Animal Protection Act needed?

Because animals who die before reaching the kill floor can not be slaughtered for human consumption, there is a strong profit incentive for livestock producers and meat packers to keep downed animals alive until they can be "processed." Documentation over the past twenty years demonstrates that many agribusiness enterprises will do whatever is necessary to get sick animals to the slaughterhouse, or will allow downed animals to endure unalleviated suffering for hours-sometimes days-so that no money is lost on their carcasses.

The Downed Animal and Food Safety Protection Act will not only help ensure that downed animals are not cruelly abused for the sake of agribusiness profits, but it will also safeguard consumer health by diverting seriously ill animals from the human food supply.

How are downed animals moved and treated?

Noncompliance reports by USDA inspectors and documented observations by undercover investigators continue to show downed animals being dragged with chains, pushed with forklifts, and shocked or beaten excessively with cattle prods, despite the fact that some of these methods are clearly prohibited by existing regulations. However, production pressures fueled by the economic concerns of agribusiness inevitably lead to this abuse.

Basic humane principles dictate that downed animals should be humanely euthanized on the spot, not subjected to stressful transportation or the agony of languishing for days to die on their own. The Downed Animal and Food Safety Protection Act provides the minimum level of regulation needed to close existing loopholes and ensures consistent, humane treatment for downed animals.

How many downed animals are there in the United States?

According to USDA, "Nobody knows the exact number [of downed cattle]; however, an estimate of 195,000 per year was obtained from a survey conducted by American Association of Bovine Practitioners (Hansen et. al., 1999) members." The incidence of downed pigs is estimated to range from .1 to .9 percent of the 103 million pigs slaughtered annually, or between 103,000 and 927,000 animals. There are currently no estimates available for sheep, goats or equine species.

How many downed animals are slaughtered for human food in the United States each year?

While there is no clear accounting for the number of downed animals used for food in the U.S., estimates prior to the USDA's regulation against the slaughter of most downed cattle ranged from 100,000 to 200,000.

It is worth remembering, however, that a loophole in the regulation allows cattle to be approved for slaughter on a case-by-case basis if they go down after their initial ante-mortem inspection. This means that in all likelihood, large numbers of downed animals, including cattle, are still entering the human food supply on a regular basis.

What inspection procedures are in place to protect consumers and downed animals?

Although downed animals are considered “suspect” and thus required to undergo pre-slaughter and post-slaughter inspection, USDA inspection methods are grossly inadequate. The pre-slaughter inspection typically takes just a few minutes to assess whether the animal is exhibiting blatant signs of neurological disease, and possibly to take the animal’s temperature. The post slaughter inspection typically involves looking at internal organs (i.e. kidney, liver) for signs of disease visible to the naked eye. These methods are inadequate to detect mad cow disease or the host of other pathogens that may afflict downed livestock.

Dr. Lester Friedlander, a USDA veterinary inspector for ten years, writes: “I have literally seen thousands of nonambulatory cattle (downers) being slaughtered, which, in my professional judgment, should have been condemned...USDA does not use any scientific or microbial testing to determine their true condition...In can tell you that CNS [i.e. central nervous system disease, which could include mad cow disease] animals are not carefully examined nor prevented from entering the food supply...In the absence of a clear policy prohibiting the use of downer animals for human food, I am concerned that CNS and other potentially transmissible diseases will be passed on to human consumers.”

The USDA has explicitly stated that it is acceptable for diseased animals to be used for human food. Slaughterhouse records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show that USDA has approved meat from downed animals suffering from numerous conditions, including gangrene, hepatitis, malignant lymphoma, and pneumonia.

If USDA surveillance efforts are not working, how did they find mad cow disease?

The single cow discovered to have mad cow disease in Washington state is likely the tip of the iceberg. Mad cow disease (or a variant of it) has existed in the U.S. for at least fifteen years, according to research published in 1993 by Dr. Richard Marsh of the University of Wisconsin, whose findings “suggest the presence of an unrecognized BSE-like disease in the United States.”

The discovery of a BSE-positive downer cow in Alberta, Canada in February 2008 is particularly troublesome, given the similarities between the Canadian and American cattle industries, and that livestock are frequently transported across the Canadian-American border. Like the United States, Canada has a ban on the use of cattle meat or byproducts in cattle feed, a measure which should have prevented this most recent case from occurring.

Why should a downed animal with a broken leg who is otherwise healthy be prevented from going to slaughter?

While a broken leg or other injury is easily identified, such injuries are often secondary to more serious, less visible health problems. Animals who are sick are far more likely to fall and become injured than healthy animals. Thus, we should not assume that injured animals are healthy. Instead, we should recognize that injuries are commonly secondary to a more serious problem, including illness.

What would happen if there were a ban on the slaughter of downed animals for food, and how can we detect illness, including mad cow disease, if downed animals are not sent to USDA slaughterhouses?

The vast majority of downed animals cases (between 75 percent and 90 percent) can be prevented with improved care and management on the farm and in transit. Removing the market for downed animals provides an appropriate incentive for livestock producers to be more attentive to their animals' health in order to prevent the problem in the first place. Improved animal care and management also allows for better detection of symptoms that may be indicative of mad cow disease or other illnesses.

What is mad cow disease?

Bovine Spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), widely known as “mad cow disease,” is a chronic, fatal disease affecting the nervous system of cattle. BSE belongs to a family of diseases known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) that afflict various animals, including humans. These diseases are caused by an unconventional and still poorly-understood transmissible agent. The most popular theory is that this agent is a prion-an abnormal protein. Unlike most food-borne pathogens, prions are extremely resistant to heat, irradiation and other common sterilization processes that would otherwise kill infectious agents.

Does mad cow disease affect humans?

Experimental and epidemiologic studies have linked the occurrence of variant Creutzfeld-Jakob disease (vCJD)-a fatal brain wasting disease affecting humans-to exposure to the BSE agent, most likely through consumption of food products derived from infected cattle. Both BSE and vCJD can take years to develop, and both are invariably fatal to victims.

How prevalent is mad cow disease?

Worldwide there have been more than 180,000 cases of mad cow disease since it was first diagnosed in 1986 in Great Britain. Since that time, the disease has been confirmed in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Switzerland. The disease was confirmed in Canada in May 2003 and in the United States in December 2003.