The lawyer for a Vermont slaughterhouse that was ordered shut down for allegedly mistreating baby calves says the person who secretly filmed footage that led to the closure provoked a plant worker to mistreat the animals.
Officials shut down Bushway Packing Inc. in Grand Isle last month after the Humane Society of the United States provided a video showing days-old calves being dragged, kicked and repeatedly shocked with electric prods.
Lawyer Peter Langrock told the Burlington Free Press that the humane society’s investigator encouraged a plant employee to sprinkle water on a calf lying on the plant’s floor to increase the shock it would feel from an electric cattle prod.
The incident does not appear on the video, and the humane society denied the charge.
Note: Information for this report came from The Burlington Free Press.