Florida Decides Not to File Cruelty Charges Against Cypress Foods

	Anonymous for Animal Rights, Israel

The Florida State Attorney's Office decided in mid-September not to file criminal animal cruelty charges against Cypress Foods, Inc., after the company declared bankruptcy in January and left more than one million chickens to die on two separate egg farms, including one with 200,000 birds in the Sunshine State.

State Attorney Bernie McCabe decided that there was no evidence of criminal wrongdoing despite the fact that between 2,000–4,000 chickens died of starvation on the Pasco County, Florida egg farm, and the rest of the 200,000 birds had to be euthanized. Chief Assistant State Attorney Bruce Bartlett said that the office concluded, after looking over bankruptcy documents and finances of Cypress CEO and owner James R. Biggers, that the animal deaths had more to do with a market downturn than criminal negligence. If Biggers had been convicted on the charges, he would have faced up to five years in prison.

The decision has left animal welfare activists in a state of shock. Gene Bauston, president of Farm Sanctuary, which had pressed the state attorney to file charges, told The St. Petersburg Times, "We're extremely disappointed that State Attorney Bernie McCabe did not file charges....The bottom line is there were hundreds of thousands of birds starved here. They were [Biggers's] birds. They were his responsibility."

Added Paul Rebein, a Tampa-based attorney who worked for Farm Sanctuary in the case: "To our knowledge, this [is] the largest case of animal cruelty in the history of the United States." The decision not to file charges, Rebein says, is "an infamous injustice," and running out of money is no defense for animal cruelty.

"The starvation at Cypress Foods is merely one example of the lack of accountability for the suffering of factory farm animals in emergency situations," notes Dr. Michael Appleby, vice president, The HSUS Farm Animals and Sustainable Agriculture section. "While one cannot predict an individual natural or economic disaster," Appleby adds, "industrial animal agricultural companies can still create contingency plans that would provide for their animals in the wake of any disaster, whether a hurricane or a market fluctuation."

The disaster that befell Cypress Foods is an indictment of the factory farming system, which does not make allowances for animals' natural behaviors, such as foraging for food and water when none is provided. Because most producers do not have contingency plans for disasters, the onus falls on external entities, such as state agriculture agencies and animal protection organizations, to provide relief to abandoned animals.

The HSUS advocates emergency planning to care for the needs of farm animals who are at risk in disasters. It is also painfully evident that the concentration of thousands of animals on one farm precludes prompt individual attention to the animals affected by disasters. Decentralizing factory farms by promoting the proliferation of small family farms would lessen the numbers of animals impacted by a localized disaster.

Susanne Abromaitis is a researcher in the Farm Animals and Sustainable Agriculture section of The HSUS.

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