"Our investigations are handled a little differently than what you would think of as a criminal investigation," Ernst said. The veterinarian at the facility, Alan Wildt, sent the inspector a short email stating he had visited the farm monthly for years and had "never witnessed any production practices that could be considered abusive." On the basis of that email and the phone calls, the inspector reported: "There is no proof the (abuse) claim can be verified so the docket is closed." Illinois state veterinarian Mark Ernst, who oversees the animal welfare bureau, said his inspectors do not have police powers and typically do not question fellow workers who might corroborate a whistleblower's account. In his report, he wrote that he spoke with a facility manager whose name was listed only as "Betty" and an owner "whose name eludes me at this time." In that phone call, facility executives denied the allegation. When the bureau fielded a 2013 whistleblower allegation that employees were hitting pigs with metal bars at the Win Production LLC hog confinement in Scott County, a state inspector's investigation consisted largely of a few phone calls. The number of animal welfare violations the bureau issued across all of these settings fell from 200 in 2005 to 29 last year, while referrals for prosecution dropped during that period from 22 per year to just one, state records show.
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The six inspectors in the Bureau of Animal Health and Welfare, down from 12 in 2005, must handle complaints about not just the mistreatment of livestock but also dead goldfish in dirty pet store tanks, dogs in kennel cages and filth in petting zoos. When the state receives an allegation of abuse, it is the job of an obscure and understaffed bureau in the Illinois Department of Agriculture to investigate. They are likely to embellish, industry representatives said, because they are angry at their bosses, upset about their experiences or simply trying to impress journalists.
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Facility operators also cautioned that former workers can be biased.
#As well as simply being too many. professional
Bloody its nose and punch a pig so hard it damn near popped its eye out." Pork industry representatives and Professional Swine executives told the Tribune they do not tolerate mistreatment and increasingly are taking proactive steps, including internal hotlines for workers to report problems. "He'd kick them," said Kelley Shannon, a former employee of a Professional Swine Management confinement in western Illinois.
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Some workers said their supervisors meted out punishment to speed up lame or unwilling pigs. Worker accounts of cruelty and torture arose in hog confinements across the state run by market-leading firms. They described employees abusing pigs for amusement and encouraging colleagues to take out their frustrations on the animals.
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In on-the-record interviews, Santorineos and more than a dozen other Illinois swine-confinement workers told the Tribune they witnessed fellow employees whip pigs with metal rods and gouge them with pliers and ballpoint pens to hurry the animals from one stall to the next or onto the trucks that took them to slaughter. Using worker compensation claims, court records and animal abuse reports filed with the state Agriculture Department, Tribune reporters for the first time pieced together a disturbing portrait of abusive treatment in pig confinements here amid lax scrutiny from the state. Baltimore Nonviolence Center: Whipped, Kicked, Beaten: Illinois Workers Describe Abuse of Hogs and no undercover stings have emerged from the state.