Australian Animal Rights Activists Release Video Showing Cruelty
Australian animal rights activists have released a video which shows live cows and sheep thrashing as they are hoisted by their hind legs and having their throats cut in Turkish slaughterhouses, the Australian media has said. Animals Australia, a federation of civil society groups that deals with animal welfare and animal rights issue, said the new footage was gathered during a recent investigation in Turkey, which it described as an “emerging market” for Australia’s live export industry. “The footage documents routine practices in facilities that receive Australian animals — cattle and sheep are hoisted by their hind legs before having their throats cut whilst fully conscious,” the activist group said.
The footage was shot covertly by two members of the group at three slaughterhouses in Turkey in late July and earlier this month. It was released in Australian parliament on Thursday.
The footage shows cattle strung up by one leg and having their necks hacked, without being stunned. It also shows sheep flailing on hooks as they are strung up for slaughter, and other animals being butchered against international slaughter standards. “This is a routine method that occurred in nine of the 10 abattoirs that we visited,” Animals Australia cruelty investigator Lyn White told reporters in Canberra.
One image shows a sheep having its throat cut and then standing up and scrambling in an attempt to escape from the slaughter platform.
White said the practices breach international guidelines, which stipulate animals must not be hoisted while conscious and slaughterers must be able to reach both sides of the animal’s neck.
“This is a relatively new market, we are sending about half a million animals to this market. This is a cruel and immoral trade and it should end,” she was quoted as saying by the Australian media.
The group is carrying out a campaign for a total ban on live animal exports. They won a temporary ban on cattle shipments to Indonesia in June after broadcasting similar footage shot covertly in the Southeast Asian nation’s slaughterhouse on Australian television, prompting public outrage. The new video is expected to put more pressure on the Australian government to address welfare standards for live exports, after allowing the trade to Indonesia to re-open.
Activists and government officials said they are unable to confirm that animals documented in the footage were Australian, only that Australian livestock was slaughtered at the Turkish facilities.
18 August 2011
SOURCE: TODAYS ZAMAN
