Inherent Vice Star Joaquin Phoenix Calls Out Walmart For Inherent Cruelty In Its Pork Supply Following Mercy For Animals Investigation

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 3, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Joaquin Phoenix—award-winning actor and star of the upcoming thriller Inherent Vice—is teaming up with Mercy For Animals to expose inherent cruelty to animals in Walmart's pork supply chain. Narrating a powerful new undercover investigative video shot at a Seaboard Foods-owned Walmart pork supplier factory farm in Colorado, Phoenix makes an impassioned plea for Walmart to stop torturing pigs. The shocking hidden-camera video, which will be released today at WalmartCruelty.com, reveals a culture of cruelty and abuse at this Walmart pork producer, including the following:

• Pregnant pigs locked in tiny metal gestation crates unable to walk, turn around, or lie down comfortably for nearly their entire lives
• Workers slicing off the tails and ripping out the testicles of piglets using dull razors and their fingers
• Mother pigs afflicted with open wounds and pressure sores left to suffer without proper veterinary care
• Workers hitting piglets with rock-filled gas cans to force them into overcrowded walkways and transport trucks

Joaquin Phoenix and Mercy For Animals are calling on Walmart to immediately adopt new animal welfare guidelines, including prohibiting Seaboard Foods and its other pork suppliers from confining pigs in inherently cruel gestation crates—barren steel and concrete cages that make it impossible for pigs to move more than a step forward or backward or engage in even the most basic natural behaviors.

Phoenix joins a growing list of celebrities who have spoken out against Walmart's continued abuse of pigs, including Ryan Gosling, Kristen Bell, Zooey Deschanel, Emily Deschanel, Tom Morello, Kim Basinger, David Boreanaz, James Cromwell, and Bob Barker.

Confinement in gestation crates has been widely denounced as one of the most abusive factory farming practices in the world. In fact, gestation crates are so inhumane they have been banned in nine U.S. states and the entire European Union. Recognizing their inherent cruelty, over 60 major food providers, including McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Chipotle, Safeway, Kroger, Costco, and Kmart, have all demanded their suppliers do away with these cruel crates. Major pork producers like Smithfield and Hormel have committed to phasing out gestation crates, and Cargill is already 50 percent crate-free.

But Walmart's pork suppliers continue to condemn intelligent and social animals to a lifetime of misery and deprivation in gestation crates.

"Keeping highly intelligent and social animals confined in cages so small they can't even turn around for nearly their entire lives is blatant cruelty," said MFA's executive director, Nathan Runkle. "The time for Walmart to act is now. As the country's largest retailer, Walmart has the power and the ethical responsibility to help stop one of the cruelest factory farming practices by ending the sale of crated pork."

To view the undercover video, visit www.WalmartCruelty.com.

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SOURCE Mercy For Animals