Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) investigators recently obtained graphic hidden-camera footage that was taken inside Harris Beef in Selma, California. The shocking video reveals how cows are systematically restrained and killed with a slice to the throat while fully conscious. Workers administer a bolt gun shot to the forehead to incapacitate the animals before butchering them.
Harris Beef is the meat processing plant for the infamous Harris Ranch, the largest feedlot on the west coast, which is a site, and particularly a smell, etched into the memory of millions of travelers on California’s Interstate 5. Notably, it’s also a beef supplier to the big box titan Costco, which was also criticized in light of a grizzly exposé last month, which revealed the cruelty behind the company’s signature $4.99 rotisserie chicken.
The first footage from inside the Harris Beef facility to be released publicly reveals practices which investigators claim fall well-short of the expectations of Californians, who overwhelmingly supported trailblazing animal welfare reforms in 2008 and 2018.
DxE footage also shows employees working in close proximity to one another, in spite of there being a well-publicized COVID-19 outbreak at this plant last year.
DxE alleges that the slaughter process depicted amounts to criminal animal cruelty, and it filed a complaint with local and state officials on Tuesday. DxE will be following up the investigation with related demonstrations across the state throughout the month of March.
“The public is shocked when they discover the truth behind their Costco beef,” Priya Sawhney, a DxE spokesperson, said in a statement. “We must hold our government officials accountable to the will of the people, and the people don’t support animal cruelty.”
On its website, in a section misleadingly named ‘Animal Welfare,’ Harris Ranch Beef boasts that it is one of the most advanced plants in the nation, reveling in sharing the fact that following a recent expansion, it now is able to increase processing capacity to between 1,050 and 1,150 head of cattle per day in a single shift.
