Mary Cummins of Animal Advocates

Another Day, Another Animal Transport Tragedy: Farm Sanctuary Mobilizes to California Accident Site

More than 10 billion land animals are slaughtered for food in the United States each year. The vast majority of those animals are not born at the same location as the slaughterhouse; instead, the animals we slaughter for food must be transported there. In addition, many of these animals are transported from one facility to another during their lives prior to slaughter. For instance, it is common for a dairy calf to be born on a dairy, then transported to an auction house, then transported to a ranch to be bottle-fed for a couple of months, then potentially back to the auction house, then to a feedlot, and then, finally, to the slaughterhouse.

Calves at a livestock market.

Each of these journeys is fraught with certain terror and potential peril. Farm animals may be legally transported up to 28 hours without being given any food or water or being allowed off of the trailer. Further, there are no protections that prevent transporters from cramming animals tightly into trailers, giving them no room to move, turn around, or lie down. Animals are piled into double-stacked trailers or jammed tightly into crates for hours upon hours, subjected to the elements — heat, cold, rain, snow, wind — without relief or protection. When these animals are finally relieved of the misery of transport, they often confront an even greater terror: the slaughterhouse.

Meanwhile, in addition to all of the other horrors associated with transport, the risk of traffic accident during transport is great (as we documented in a 2006 report). Transport trailers risk accident from all of the same causes as any other vehicle, but the risk is increased because many of the transports occur overnight and often cover great distances. Drivers who are often paid by the mile are incentivized to drive faster than is safe with their overloaded trailers. All of these factors lead to a higher risk of traffic accident, resulting in immense trauma, significant injuries, and a high death toll for the terrified animal passengers.

A transport truck on its side following an accident in Palmdale, CA, in September.

Late last month, our Southern California Shelter staff responded to reports of an overturned cattle transport truck in the high desert. The double-decker truck had been hauling about 168 Holstein calves, male and female, who were all approximately three months old. The calves were en route to a feedlot in Kern County to be fattened up for slaughter. While navigating a traffic circle, the truck crashed, sending the truck and trailer filled with calves onto their sides. The truck driver was not injured, but many of the calves were not as fortunate.