(WARNING: Video contains content that users may find disturbing.)
Today the group that released a video showing alleged animal abuse at Fair Oaks Farms held a press conference in Indianapolis and released another video.
The new undercover video shows workers at the Indiana dairy farm abusing adult cows while loading them into a milking carousel that visitors can tour at the popular agritourism destination.
Indiana Public Broadcasting was at the Animal Recovery Mission (ARM) news conference.
ARM’s Director of Investigations, A.J. Garcia, says the group is cooperating with police and the USDA,
but has not given them all their footage. He says they spent months working in multiple locations to
counter the argument that these are isolated incidents.
“There's hundreds, if not thousands, of dairy farms all across the United States, right? So we need to
show that the cruelty is again, happens everywhere, not just at this one location,” Garcia said.
Garcia said police have been provided all of the information about the group's undercover investigation this spring, and more videos will be released in the future.
He said an undercover investigator with the group who shot the new video received no training after being hired by Fair Oaks Farms, and he witnessed abuse on his first day on the job but did not take part in it.
After observing the abuse, that investigator reported it to his supervisors, but the employees who carried out the abuse were never reprimanded, Garcia said.
The video released Wednesday by ARM comes a week after the Miami-based group released video showing workers kicking and throwing calves at Fair Oaks Farms.
That and other video led to animal cruelty charges against three former employees.
The new https://vimeo.com/341672220" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; font-size: inherit; cursor: pointer; color: rgb(28, 167, 218);">video shows employees punching adult cows, striking them with poles and apparently breaking the tails of some uncooperative cows. During a farm tour including in the footage, a guide tells visitors that cows like the carousel, saying it's "a joy ride for them."
Fair Oaks says it fired the workers seen in ARM’s first video before the footage was released and the
company says an internal investigation is underway.
There is a "Pledge of Accountability" on the Fair Oaks Farms website. June 5th Fair Oaks released a video response to the first video Animal Recovery Mission put out. Fair Oaks Farms is the flagship farm for Fairlife, a national brand of higher protein, higher calcium and lower fat milk. Some retailers have pulled Fairlife products from their shelves, including Chicago-area grocery chain Jewel-Osco.
