Efforts to improve animal welfare in Turkish slaughterhouses start to pay off
In
the past year, Eyes on Animals has made great
efforts to try to improve animal welfare in slaughterhouses in Turkey.
We inspected new slaughterhouses and returned to slaughterhouses we had
visited before to check whether they had made the improvements
we advised them to do. We had meetings with Halal Certification
Labelling organizations to discuss the option of stunning the animals
before slaughter and to urge them to put pressure on the slaughterhouses
that carry their label to improve animal welfare. We gave lectures at
the universities of Istanbul and Ankara about animal welfare to
veterinary students. This brought us many valuable contacts and made
it possible to organize a two-day seminar at the Istanbul faculty of
Veterinarian Medicine on ‘How to Reduce Suffering During Slaughter’. The
seminar was attended by over a 100 people, many of whom
play an important role in the Turkish meat industry. And last but not
least: we launched a ‘Halal Slaughter Watch’
website in English and Turkish,
to educate, inform and share good practices with those involved in
Halal slaughter. For this website we received compliments from Temple
Grandin, a well-known professor in animal sciences in the US who
also works as a professional livestock facility designer and consultant
on livestock behavior, handling and animal welfare.
Improving animal welfare in Turkish slaughterhouses is a project that takes time and patience, but our efforts are
already starting to pay off. EonA director and inspector Lesley Moffat would like to highlight the following success:
“Many
slaughterhouses in Turkey use trip boxes to make cattle fall down to be
able to put a chain around their hind leg and
hoist them upside down to make it easier to cut their throat at
slaughter. These trip boxes cause major panic and the hoisting that
follows is extremely painful for the animals. Two Turkish companies
manufacturing slaughterhouse equipment for Halal slaughterhouses in
Turkey and throughout the Middle East both sent 3 representatives each
to our Seminar in Istanbul to learn how to improve welfare at
slaughter. One of these companies we had already convinced to stop
producing the trip-floor restraint boxes. They now only sell rotational
and upright restrainers, which do not require live-hoisting with
chains on a leg. The other company decided to stop producing trip-floor
boxes right after our seminar. They said Eyes on Animals convinced them
to do things differently and that they will replace their
restraint boxes with upright restrainers. They are getting guidance
from a Belgian company we put them in contact with, that knows a lot
about building proper equipment that keeps stress to a minimum.
This
is significant to me because it does not only
mean help for animals now, but also in the future. We are preventing
that these boxes be sold in the future. We are preventing that they
further be installed in slaughterhouses all over the Middle East!
And we are "cleaning up and educating" these companies so that their
equipment causes less stress and pain. For every slaughterhouse that
buys better equipment, it means less suffering for the hundreds
of animals killed in each plant each day.”
Dr. Ellen Eser, who did her PhD on animal welfare at Turkish
slaughterhouses, gave trainings on animal welfare at transport and
slaughter for the BSI Schwarzenbek institute and is now an official
veterinarian in Germany, assisted EonA in many inspections. During the
seminar in Istanbul she provided the trainings on animal welfare during
slaughter. This is how she looks back at the project so far:
“During
the inspections Lesley, Asalet and I carried
out, sadly I had to recognize that nothing had changed when it comes to
the animal welfare situation at the Turkish slaughterhouses since I
went there for my PhD research in 2006. But at nearly every
slaughterhouse we met people who were really willing to learn and we
were able to change at least small things and help the animals at the
spot. We talked with the staff and the slaughterhouse owners
and vets about animal handling, transport, waiting areas, races,
restraint and stunning. We gave practical tips to improve the situation
for the animals easy and cheap. Of course, this work is not always
easy to handle and sometimes you just want to cry or scream at people.
But this way you won’t be able to change anything. So we went on and had
our small and big successes.
The
highlight for me was the meeting with the dean
of Ankara Veterinary University and of course our seminar at Istanbul
Veterinary University. There were so many students, professors, vets,
slaughterhouse owners, people from companies who make slaughter
equipment like restraint boxes and stunning devices and also
stakeholders from Turkey. We were able to spread our knowledge, make
important connections and change the view of at least some people.
I am looking forward to April 2015 when we will visit
Turkish slaughterhouses again and organize another seminar on animal welfare during slaughter.”
