We returned to Escalon in 2015 and found serious violations of California law come to light during the course of visits conducted by Animals' Angels investigators.
What is most telling is that this appallingly cruel and criminal activity occurs out in the open, showing the auction's belief that it is above the law and that the law need not be followed.
On July 10, 2015, a downer calf was seen on the auction premises. Auction workers, in what can only be described as a cruel maneuver, tried pulling her up by her ear, and then her hind leg, but were not successful. Imagine the calf's agony at these brutal and hard-handed attempts which the workers should have known would never have succeeded. Despite the fact they could not get the calf up, and that she remained non-ambulatory, the calf was then put on a tarp and sold to a buyer. She was put in a wheelbarrow and loaded onto the buyer's pick-up truck. This is a clear violation of the statutes against auctions selling non-ambulatory animals as well as failing to immediately humanely euthanize a downed animal. One can only imagine why the buyer wanted to purchase such an animal in the first place.
On August 5, 2015, our investigators watched a non-ambulatory cow as it was unloaded from a trailer which had a sign on the side that said "Escalon Livestock Market/Big Mike Hauling." As soon as the cow was unloaded, the driver of the truck closed the gate to restrict view of the downer cow. The cow made desperate efforts to rise, but could not do so.
In response to the cow's inability to rise, the driver, along with an auction worker, used an electric prod on her and kicked her, in an apparent attempt to get her up. When this was unsuccessful, she was shot in the head.
However, the auction worker did not check to see if the cow really had been killed, did not check her reflexes, but instead tried to put her on the forks of a Bobcat. When the poor cow was hit with the forks, it became clear that she was still alive as she immediately reacted. She was struggling, and then we believe she was shot a second time (the gate blocked complete view of the second shot.) Having been successful on this occasion, the motionless cow was loaded onto the Bobcat's forks and dumped in the back of the premises.
This single incident on August 5th includes several violations of the general anti-cruelty statute, for the treatment this cow received before she was finally killed. No animal should endure what this cow was made to suffer, and California laws clearly prohibit this type of treatment.
On August 7, our investigators returned to the auction and saw a non-ambulatory Holstein bull calf, unable to rise, with obvious rapid and shallow breathing. An auction worker came up to the calf, and dragged him to a junk area outside the pens where the young calf was dumped on a garden hose. It was heartbreaking for our investigators to witness this calf vocalizing and struggling as he lay there unable to move. But we knew evidence was needed to show the authorities the auctions' actions towards the animals in their care. The calf remained there, in that condition, for three hours. During that time, other auction workers stepped over the calf, no one stopped to help or provide relief for the animal.
Then, immediately after the auction's barn manager saw our investigators filming, he had a conversation with one of the workers, who then began to remove the calf. At first the worker roughly lifted the calf by the skin on his back, but the barn manager told him to carry the calf, most likely afraid of being caught on camera "in the act" of such poor handling. The calf was then put in the bucket of a Bobcat and hauled away.
On September 14, 2015, Animals' Angels again submitted all of our evidence to the San Joaquin County District Attorney's Office, urging them to take this continued, egregious animal abuse seriously. To date, the District Attorney's Office has done nothing. No charges have been filed against Escalon Auction and thousands of animals passing through the sale every week continue to suffer.
