Breaking Exposé: Deer Confined to Barren Pens, Repeatedly Tormented for Velvet

PETA Footage Shows Deer Struggling as Antlers Are Sawn Off

Seoul — A new PETA investigation reveals that deer in the velvet supplement industry spend their lives confined to barren pens and that year after year, farmers saw off their antlers in a grueling process while the poorly sedated animals can still feel pain. Video footage from the investigation is available here. PETA has filed complaints with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.

In June 2023, PETA investigators visited four deer farms across South Korea. They documented that animals were forced to live in miserable conditions, including appallingly barren enclosures. Deer paced repetitively and licked and chewed on the metal bars of their pens—signs of frustration and severe psychological distress in a species who would normally roam over several miles in nature.

Farmers attempted to anesthetize deer by injection before cutting off their antlers, but they continued to move and breathe heavily—evidence that they were still conscious enough to feel pain. One deer required multiple injections over the course of an hour in order to be sedated, which indicated a stress-induced adrenaline surge. Farmers also stepped on deer’s faces while sawing off their antlers. One of them kicked the animals in the side, apparently to make them stand up.

Farmers reported that male deer are slaughtered when their antler production wanes after roughly 10 years and that female deer are killed when they can no longer breed.

“These deer spend a decade in a cramped pen, their bodies mutilated over and over in a terrifying and agonizing process until they’re sent to slaughter, all for a supplement for which there is no solid evidence of any benefit,” says PETA Senior Vice President Jason Baker. “PETA urges everyone to help end this suffering by never buying deer velvet supplements or anything else made from animals.”

In addition, after the antlers were cut off, investigators observed guests drinking fresh blood from the wounds. PETA points out that deer can carry a number of zoonotic diseases.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETAAsia.com or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

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