Louisiana is under fire from an animal protection group for being the only state not to cite any slaughterhouses for violating federal humane slaughter laws in recent years.

The Animal Welfare Institute has asked the U.S. government to revoke Louisiana’s right to operate a meat inspection program, saying the state’s lack of enforcement history proves it isn’t protecting animals from suffering.

But state officials said Louisiana’s record proves the opposite: that slaughterhouses are doing their jobs by managing not to violate the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, which governs the treatment of farm animals up to and during slaughter.

From 2010 to 2015, the Animal Welfare Institute requested records from 25 states with federal approval to operate intrastate inspection programs, including Louisiana.

Every state but Louisiana reported violations during that period, with an average of 51 enforcement actions reported per state. Actions include issuing “reject tags” on faulty equipment, noncompliance records, suspension notices and permanent suspensions.

Louisiana also reported no enforcement actions for 2007-2009, according to the report. Louisiana didn’t respond to the institute’s earliest records request, for 2002-2004. Louisiana was the only state to receive an F in the study.

Dena Jones, Animal Welfare Institute farm animal program director, said she and her team were shocked to learn that state inspectors — who must be present when a facility slaughters animals — had seen no violations in recent years.

“The idea that they could have slaughtered probably tens or hundreds of thousands of animals in Louisiana in those 12 years (2002-2015) and never had one violation of humane handling is just impossible,” Jones said.

She said Louisiana records show that state inspectors are probably attending the slaughters and performing regular checks; they just aren’t reporting violations. “It’s like they’re ignoring it, but they’re going through the motions,” Jones said.

The study lists Louisiana as having 49 state-inspected plants, a number Jones said the institute got from U.S. Department of Agriculture data. But Veronica Mosgrove, state Agriculture Department spokeswoman, said Louisiana only has 15 slaughterhouses under state inspection.

Autumn Canaday, spokeswoman for the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, confirmed the state only has 15 slaughterhouses for farm animals, not including poultry — which don’t fall under the Humane Slaughter Act and weren’t considered in the institute’s study.

Mosgrove said Louisiana has fewer slaughterhouses than many other states and that might explain the lack of enforcement action. She said state-inspected facilities in Louisiana slaughter about 20,000 farm animals a year while other states might slaughter that many in a day.

She said inspectors attend each slaughter event and have cited certain plants for issues like sanitation and mislabeling; they just aren’t witnessing any evidence of humane violations. “If there were corrective action to be had, it would be taken,” Mosgrove said.

When asked whether the state had ever taken action on a humane violation, Mosgrove said it has no record of violations in at least the last 10 years, and maybe more, considering the state began operating its own inspection program in 1968.

She said each inspector is thoroughly trained on humane slaughter laws and is aware of his or her duty to cite offenders for violations. “Obviously we take it very seriously, and we require those slaughterhouses to take it seriously as well,” Mosgrove said.

Jones said the Animal Welfare Institute sent a letter April 4 to the FSIS asking that it terminate Louisiana’s meat inspection program. She said that, whatever the FSIS decides, she hopes the institute’s report inspires change.

“I hope that they will take this seriously and make sure that Louisiana starts complying with the federal directive on humane handling enforcement,” Jones said.

Canaday said the FSIS is reviewing the institute’s position on Louisiana’s program and is looking into the criteria it used to grade the state.

The FSIS oversees the state meat inspection program and provides up to 50 percent of program funding. State programs are required to enforce standards equal to or greater than federal law.

The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act says animals can’t be excessively prodded or overcrowded when commuting to slaughter; be held overnight without food; or be slaughtered while still conscious of pain.

There are three types of slaughterhouses in the U.S.: federally inspected, state-inspected and custom. Most are federally inspected and are allowed to sell between states. State-inspected facilities can only sell within the state. Custom slaughterhouses aren’t allowed to sell their meat.

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Online: https://awionline.org.