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'Heartbreaking' footage of cow beating released
The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) has launched an immediate investigation after an animal rights group released footage showing a Northland sharemilker beating cows in a milking shed.
A screenshot of the video released by Farmwatch. Photo: Farmwatch
Farmwatch - which has released the footage through the Newsroom website - said it hid cameras in the shed earlier this year.
It alleges over a month-long period it recorded a male sharemilker routinely hitting and beating cows, at times with a metal pipe.
The group has not named the farm or the sharemilker, but said the footage has been handed over to MPI.
Farmwatch spokesperson John Darroch said this was happening on a daily basis and was clearly animal abuse.
"The way that he was running at the animals and screaming at them, and hitting them was quite terrifying to watch.
"They [the cows] were reluctant to go into the milking shed, and you could see they were constantly trying to get away from him ... which is just ... yeah, quite heartbreaking ..." he said.
Mr Darroch said MPI had received complaints about the sharemilker before Farmwatch started its investigation and it had failed to respond to these appropriately.
In a statement MPI said it began an immediate investigation into the footage as soon as it received it from Farmwatch last week.
It did not respond to questions about whether the sharemilker had been subject to animal abuse complaints in the past.
"As this is an active investigation, we cannot comment further at this stage," a ministry spokesperson said.
Dairy NZ - which represents dairy farmers - said the footage was disturbing, but this behaviour was not representative of the thousands of farmers that worked with cows every day, and were passionate about animal welfare.
"Cruel and illegal practices are not in any way condoned or accepted by the dairy sector as part of dairy farming. If a farmer treats their cows badly, they shouldn't be working in the dairy sector. It's as simple as that," Dairy NZ said.
A Northland sharemilkers' spokesperson said he was horrified to see the abuse inflicted on cows by the sharemilker.
Northland's sharemilker rep on Federated Farmers Damian Dixon said the footage was sickening and hard to watch.
"It's pretty horrific treatment of animals," he said.
"I just have a feeling there might be some underlying issues with that sharemilker and hopefully the Rural Support Trust will get involved and talk to him and see what's going on."
However, Mr Dixon said the abuse displayed in the video could never be condoned and in 19 years on dairy farms, he had never encountered such behaviour.
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