Animal Aid Are To Be Congratulated.

Animal Aid has released undercover video footage of Sheep being subjected a catalog of abuse at a Non-Stun lamb slaughterhouse in Yorkshire.

The footage was taken at Bowood Farms Ltd (Trading as: Bowood Yorkshire Lamb), The Abattoir, Busby Stoop Road, Thirsk, North Yorkshire, YO7 4EQ. T: 01845 587 177.

This has resulted in an investigation being launched by the Food Standards Agency with four employee's having their slaughter-mans licencees suspended and one employee being sacked.

I would like to personally send my thanks and congratulations to Animal Aid.

Going undercover in these circumstances takes a hell of a lot of balls, you could be in danger if you were discovered or if your personal details were ever revealed. The undercover investigators are brave, courageous, dedicated and caring individuals and they have my total admiration.

If you have not already seen it, here is the undercover video and underneath you will find the press release that they published on their website to accompany it together with links to Animal Aids Website.

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Animal Aid Press Release

THE FOOTAGE FROM BOWOOD YORKSHIRE LAMB SLAUGHTERHOUSE: AN ANIMAL AID STATEMENT

Animal Aid recognises that, given the existence of strong anti-Muslim sentiment amongst a section of the British population, there is a risk that some people will use the release of our new halal slaughterhouse footage to stir up hatred rather than to advance the cause of animal protection. As an organisation opposed to racism and bigotry, that would be an outcome we would detest. However, withholding release of the footage would be a betrayal of our key mission: to expose and combat animal cruelty.

Bowood Yorkshire Lamb is the tenth slaughterhouse in which we have filmed undercover since January 2009. As with the others, we didn’t know what we would find when our cameras were planted, including that it was a halal establishment – the first we have investigated. All the other nine were practising so-called ‘humane slaughter’. Two were Soil Association-approved, and another was accredited by the RSPCA’s Freedom Foods scheme. In eight out of the nine, we found serious welfare breaches, including animals being kicked, punched in the face, given electric shocks, burnt with cigarettes and thrown about prior to having their throats cut (see the footage here).

So we see that Bowood Yorkshire Lamb does not have a monopoly on violent and incompetent handling of animals. The feature that distinguishes it from the traditional ‘humane’ English slaughterhouse is that it kills animals without pre-stunning with electric tongs or by a shot in the head with a captive bolt. Jewish and Muslim religious authorities assert that death by the shechita or halal methods, without pre-stunning (many halal slaughterhouses do, in fact, stun first), is instantaneous and painless. A body of evidence demonstrates that this is not a credible position, and our new footage removes any remaining doubt. Rather than animals being treated with compassion and being uninjured prior to the fatal cut, we see them routinely treated with gratuitous violence and contempt. Additionally, many of the sheep in our film are not dispatched with a single clean cut but have their throats hacked at repeatedly with a knife that is either blunt or being used ineptly.

Compassionate people whatever their religious beliefs, or none, will be appalled by the treatment endured by these animals. But mainstream ‘humane’ slaughter, as we have seen, is also deeply problematic. We are unconvinced that the electric tongs, even when used properly, render an animal ‘instantly insensible’, as claimed. Rather, they might simply deliver an agonising, immobilising electric shock.

Animal Aid believes that attacks on halal and shechita ‘ritual’ slaughter methods, by people who refuse also to speak out against ‘humane’ slaughter, are often rooted in bigotry and hypocrisy. How many people, for instance, who become impassioned on the question of halal slaughter, are prepared to forgo their weekly curried chicken or lamb – made from dead animals killed by the halal method? Similarly, when visiting predominantly Muslim countries (e.g. Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco) how many refrain from eating meat for the duration of their stay?

By whatever method animals are killed, or whichever authority presides over the killing, there is no mercy in a slaughterhouse. The animals are traumatised. They don’t want to be killed but they are killed, and for no good reason. Meat, egg and milk production are pitiless, bloody activities that are predicated on industrial-scale animal exploitation and killing. And yet we can thrive without animal products. That is why Animal Aid urges people to adopt an animal-free diet.

Andrew Tyler, Director

Animal Aid

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