Jamie Lee Curtis Against Ohio Dairy Cow Abuse

A recently released undercover video of sadistic abuse at the Conklin Dairy Farms Inc. in Plain City, Ohio is generating colossal shock waves in the media and farming communities across North America.  The undercover video, filmed by Mercy For Animals during roughly a one month period in late April to May, 2010, shows diary farm workers beating cows with crowbars, punching calves in the face, stabbing animals with pitchforks, holding down newborn calves and stomping on their heads. The video is extremely graphic and goes far beyond rough handling into sadistic criminal violence against animals.

One Conklin Dairy Farms Inc. worker identified in the video, Billy Joe Gregg Jr., was quickly fired from the dairy and has been charged with 12 counts of cruelty. The Conklin Dairy Farms, even though owner Gary Conklin is pictured kicking downed cows, released a statement that explained “We will not condone animal abuse on our farm. We have launched our own internal investigation into this matter and will be conducting interviews with everyone on our farm who works with our animals."

The Conklin Dairy Farms, although quick to dismiss one violent employee, bears total responsibility for creating a workplace environment where such sadistic violence is normal. This is not the work of one ‘bad apple’, but seems to be systemic of the factory farming industry where there is little accountability within a company or within the larger legal system for violence against animals. The Mercy For Animals' video depicts more than just one-rogue employee abusing animals.

American actress Jamie Lee Curtis and her husband Christopher Guest have penned an open letter to Gary Conklin and the Workers of the Conklin Dairy Farm on Huffington Post, asking the now infamous dairy farm to take this moment and change the way they do business and treat their animals.

We challenge you to have the courage, as the brave person who filmed this did, to open your doors and your hearts. Become the standard for safety and kindness and actually change -- change your mental state and spend the rest of your lives, and the lives of your descendants, trying to make your farm the leader in humane, clean, loving treatment of the very animals you profit from. You have the opportunity. Certainly more than those helpless victims of your sick, tortured abuse. Can you hold an open news conference and truly accept the responsibility, really accept it and be willing to implement change?

Visit: http://www.mercyforanimals.org/ohdairy/

Read Jamie Lee Curtis' full letter here.

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