Citations, Disciplinary Action for Contractor, Property Owner That Hosted Deadly Trauma Training Exercise
For
Immediate Release:
June
27, 2012
Contact:
David
Perle 202-483-7382
Virginia Beach, Va. -- Following April 2012 complaints filed by PETA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Virginia Beach Zoning Administration (VBZA) have taken disciplinary action against several of the parties responsible for a cruel Coast Guard trauma training drill that took place earlier this year in Virginia Beach. As seen here in video footage narrated by Oliver Stone, instructors from military contractor Tier 1 Group cut off goats' legs with tree trimmers, stabbed the animals with scalpels, and cut into their abdomens to pull out their organs—while the animals were conscious enough to moan and kick. The USDA has now cited Tier 1 Group for violating the federal Animal Welfare Act for not providing the animals with adequate anesthesia—the second such violation that Tier 1 has committed in the last two years.
In addition, the VBZA has sent a letter of warning to the owner of Pungo Airfield, the Virginia Beach property where the training allegedly took place, notifying him that these exercises are not permitted there and that legal action may be pursued against him if such unauthorized activities are conducted on the land in the future.
"Each year, the U.S. military secretly shoots, stabs, mutilates, and kills thousands of animals in cruel training exercises that are ineffective, against military guidelines, and—as these disciplinary actions show—sometimes downright illegal," says PETA Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo. "PETA will continue to urge the military to completely replace these archaic exercises with the superior human-like simulators that are widely used around the world."
For more information, please visit PETA.org.