Calls for criminal probe into New Jersey slaughterhouse after repeated welfare violations
Animal activists are urging the Salem County Prosecutor to investigate a meat facility where a bull was left conscious for over six minutes during a botched slaughter.
Animal rights activists are urging a county prosecutor to launch a criminal investigation into a New Jersey meat processing facility, following evidence of three animal welfare violations within a 13-month period.
The U.S. Agriculture Department report into operations at Puro Alentejano Iberian Pork Corp. near Salem showed that a bull remained conscious and cried out after three shots to the head before a worker cut the thrashing the animal’s throat on May 15, 2025.
On June 3, 2024, workers shot a boar in the head four times, leaving him crying out and bleeding from at least one hole in his head between the blasts, before he was finally rendered unconscious, and on February 29, 2024, a worker repeatedly electrocuted a conscious piglet, the department reported.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which obtained the report, sent a letter to Salem County Prosecutor Kristin J. Telsey, urging her to investigate and pursue criminal charges against the employees responsible for the killing, which lasted more than six minutes.
“A crying bull endured multiple blasts to the head and the agony of having his throat slashed while he was still conscious in yet another botched killing at the notorious Puro Alentejano Iberian Pork Corp.,” said PETA Vice President of Legal Advocacy Daniel Paden. “PETA is calling for a criminal investigation on behalf of this bull and urges everyone to please go vegan to help spare others from suffering in slaughterhouses.”
PETA also asked Telsey to file charges related to two additional incidents at the facility that occurred in 2024 and had been previously reported by the organization.
The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, which requires that animals be “rendered insensible to pain by a single blow … or other means that is rapid and effective, before being shackled, hoisted … or cut.” However, this law intended to prevent suffering doesn’t apply to all animals. Chickens, turkeys, ducks, and fish, who make up the vast majority of animals slaughtered in the U.S., are excluded.
On 15 May, an inspection by the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) documented that a worker at Puro Alentejano Iberian Pork Corp. fired a 9 mm captive-bolt pistol at a bull's head, but the animal remained conscious, “bellowed loudly,” and “backed out of the knock box.”
Roughly six minutes later, a second shot was applied. The bull vocalized again and began breathing heavily. A third stun was then administered, but the bull continued to vocalize and blink in response to touch. Despite still showing signs of consciousness, an employee began cutting the bull’s neck. The animal vocalized and moved its feet. The captive-bolt device had jammed and had to be unjammed and reloaded before a fourth shot was delivered. Only then did the bull appear unconscious.
“Given that the FSIS has not initiated a criminal prosecution of a licensed slaughterhouse for inhumane handling since at least 2007, charges under state law are these victims’ only chance at a measure of justice,” Colin Henstock, PETA’s Associate Director of Project Strategy, wrote to Telsey.
Henstock says incidents like this are far from isolated. “Federal records show, time and again, that they happen regularly,” he writes. But even with perfect enforcement of slaughter regulations, he argues, the system remains fundamentally flawed.
“Ultimately, even if all animals used for food were properly stunned and equally protected under the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, they’d still be raised in misery,” he writes. “Slaughterhouses would still violently kill beings who value their lives just as we value ours.”
Henstock describes life for most farmed animals as “a hellish existence,” where they are packed by the thousands into cages or crowded warehouses with no access to fresh air, sunlight, or the chance to express natural behaviors. “Then they’re packed into trucks destined for the slaughterhouse,” he adds.
He warns that animals suffering right now cannot wait for policy reform. “Animals are scared and suffering, and they can’t wait for the authorities to protect them,” he writes. “We can help them by making better food choices and not consuming meat, dairy, and eggs.”
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