The welfare of farm animals at slaughter in the United Kingdom is a major concern for OneKind supporters and many members of the public.
Undercover filming by Animal Aid between 2009 and 2012 exposed a catalogue of carelessness and cruelty in English abattoirs that shocked the nation, and the campaign for CCTV and independent monitoring in all UK slaughterhouses – to help vets to see what happens in the stunning and slaughter areas when they cannot be present – continues.
The UK governments recently asked the Farm Animal Welfare Committee (FAWC) for an opinion on the effectiveness of methods of on-the-spot and unobserved monitoring of slaughterhouse processes including unloading, lairage, animal handling, stunning and killing processes. The review is being carried out by the FAWC standing committee on Welfare at Killing, chaired by Professor Henry Buller, and the aim is to provide advice towards the end of this year.
FAWC says:
“There is significant interest from various groups in the use of CCTV in slaughterhouses. Hence Government interest in whether current inspection and monitoring protocols (e.g. Official Veterinarian, Animal Welfare Officer, Standard Operating Procedures, raised platforms, viewing windows etc) would be supplemented by the use of CCTV.
“There is also interest in which methods of inspection and/or supervision are better suited to live monitoring, verification and/or audit of animal welfare in the slaughterhouse. Day to day monitoring can identify welfare problems in real time and initiate immediate reaction. Verification and audit can check compliance either at the time of the inspection or using recorded data and will be more useful as proof than in solving immediate problems.”
As part of the process, the committee is seeking views from stakeholders in a short term consultation running from 7 April to 16 May. While it has been circulated directly to a limited list of organisations, OneKind has confirmed that the FAWC would like to see it widely disseminated. So if you have knowledge of the slaughterhouse industry, please have your say here.
OneKind wants to see CCTV systems in all slaughterhouses, with rules about checking and retention of footage, defining which areas must be covered, and providing clear technical guidance on quality so that it can be used as evidence in court, if necessary. We are open-minded about whether legislation is the best route to achieve this, but the important thing is that it needs to happen, and soon.