Still Moreno would cut. On bad days, he says, dozens of animals reached his station clearly alive and conscious. Some would survive as far as the tail cutter, the belly ripper, the hide puller. "They die," said Moreno, "piece by piece."
Though the abbatoir companies aren't taking this lying down; the plants in question have taken proactive measures to ensure that such an outrage does not recur. The measures include installing surveillance cameras to catch illicit videotaping and coercing workers into signing statements that they have never seen living animals where there shouldn't be any.