Sanctuary Life
Ritual slaughter of Animals Labelling Petition Launched
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We don’t just rescue cats and dogs – campaigning against the enormous amount of cruelty in the animal world, especially in the farming industry, is a large part of our work.
Slaughtering lambs, sheep and goats by ritual slaughter has appalled us since we saw it done (and were unable at the time to prevent it) over thirty years ago. British and European law permits animals to be killed on religious grounds for Muslims and Jews – the criteria is that there must be no ‘unnecessary suffering’. The reality is that there is significant pain, fear and distress when the animal is forcibly restrained, it’s neck severed and it bleeds to death.
Prof. Bill Reilly, writing in the journal of the British Veterinary Association has called the practice ‘unacceptable’ and admits to ‘being appalled’ after witnessing this type of slaughter. We have ourselves seen the terror and fear in abbattoirs, the noise is chilling and indescribable.
A quarter of all meat in Britain now results from non-stun Halal or Kosher slaughter. Halal meat is on sale in most of the big supermarkets, it’s even in baby foods, despite many of the staff not having a clue what the word means and what has happened to the animal before it died.
Millions of chickens are slaughtered this way every year and it’s estimated that half of all lambs slaughtered are not stunned first. Professor Reilly claims that the reduced costs of slaughter without stunning first is one of the reasons it has become more prevalent.
Non-stunning slaughter of animals is done because of religious beliefs in Muslim and Jew communities. We agree with the former president of the British Veterinary Association that it should be kept to the minimum. That this ritually slaughtered meat is on offer daily in the food chain without customers knowing how the animal has died is completely unacceptable.
Millions of animals are dying by ritual slaughter without being stunned first and supermarkets have this meat on sale without making the information available to their customers.
If meat from ritually slaughtered animals was clearly labelled then those who want to eat it on religious grounds could do so. Our view is that the majority of people who knew how the animal had died would choose not to do so. They could buy meat from animals that had been humanely slaughtered.
We have launched a petiton to try to persuade supermarkets to label meat. This is a first step only. We have a mountain to climb in order to get non-stun slaughter banned although it has been proved that there is no justification for it on other (health and cleanliness of the meat) grounds.