[Read prior article, USDA Fails to Stop Anal Shocking and Other Abuses of Slaughterhouse Animals.]

By Katerina Lorenzatos Makris on Examiner.com

One reason why “egregious” abuse of slaughterhouse animals continues is that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has failed to adequately train its inspectors, according to a report this month by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

During its three-month survey of slaughter plant inspectors, the GAO discovered that some inspectors do not take action against humane law violations such as workers applying electric prods to animals’ anuses and eyes and other sensitive areas, and “excessive” electric shocks and beatings.

The GAO report outlined a number of “weaknesses” in the USDA’s performance in enforcing humane laws and recommended methods for improvement, such as giving its inspectors more precise definitions of what constitutes abuse and what actions must be taken when it is found.

Inspectors ask for better answers to seven questions

GAO official Lisa Shames told a congressional subcommittee on government oversight this month:

“Incomplete guidance and inadequate training may contribute to the inconsistent enforcement of HMSA [the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1978]. Specifically, according to our survey results, inspectors at the plants we surveyed would like more guidance and training in [the following] seven key areas:

“1. determining when an animal is sensible or returning to sensibility (the law requires that animals be rendered insensible—that is, unable to feel pain—before being slaughtered)

“2. determining what, if any, action to take for a sensible animal on the rail

“3. determining what, if any, action to take for double stunning

“4. determining when the use of a driving instrument or tool becomes beating

“5. determining whether a specific incidence of electric prodding requires a suspension, regulatory control action, or noncompliance report

“6. determining whether electrical stunning of an animal fails to render and maintain insensibility

“7. assessing situations involving slipping and falling.”

USDA has no comprehensive strategy for humane enforcement

Shames, who is Director of Natural Resources and Environment for the GAO, said that her agency’s survey also found that the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), which is responsible for enforcement of the humane law, does not “clearly outline goals, needed resources, time frames, or performance metrics.”

FSIS lacks a “comprehensive strategy to guide HMSA enforcement,” she said.

Only one percent of inspectors' time devoted to humane monitoring

Although “inspectors are to devote 80 percent of their time to food safety inspection activities and 20 percent of their time to humane handling inspection and other activities,” said Shames, “our analysis of resources shows that this is not the case.”

“We estimated that the percentage of funds dedicated to HMSA enforcement has been about one percent of FSIS’s total annual inspection appropriation,” she said.

In 2008 that number rose slightly, Shames reported, after the discovery of severe abuses at a now-closed slaughter plant in Chino, California. Undercover reporters from The Humane Society of the United States provided officials with videos of abusive violations at the facility.

As a result the FSIS “directed the inspectors to increase the amount of time they devoted to humane handling,” said Shames.

Another problem Shames described is that “FSIS cannot fully identify trends in its inspection resources—specifically, funding and staffing—for HMSA enforcement, in part because it cannot track humane handling inspection funds separately from the inspection funds spent on food safety activities.”

USDA responds to and questions GAO's recommendations

Shames said that as a result of the GAO survey and recommendations:

“USDA recognized the need to improve the inspectors’ ability to identify trends in humane handling violations and work with academia, industry, and others to identify practices that will achieve more consistent HMSA enforcement.

“USDA also questioned whether the results of our survey of FSIS inspectors provide evidence of systemic inconsistencies in enforcement."

"We believe they do," she maintained, "and would encourage USDA to consider the views of inspectors at the plants who are responsible for daily HMSA enforcement.”