24 Aug 2020
Association develops comprehensive new policy with 67 recommendations to improve welfare of animals at slaughter ahead of upcoming review of regulations in England.
Paul Imrie
Job Title
The BVA has today (24 August) published a comprehensive new policy document that makes 67 recommendations to the Government about improving the welfare of animals at slaughter.
The association’s new policy comes ahead of an upcoming review of England’s Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing regulations (WATOK) by Defra.
The BVA’s new position aims to build on current legislation and best practice, and focuses on the final events in an animal’s life, spanning multiple areas in the slaughter process.
The policy covers:
It also covers its views on effective stunning, data capture and reporting; non-stun slaughter, improved regulation and acceptance of stunning; and consumer education and food labelling.
The updated policy also covers more species and species-specific needs, including fish for the first time.
In this area, the BVA said the UK’s governments should include effective stunning of fin fish, as well as for effective and humane methods of stunning decapods (shrimp, lobsters and crabs), cephalopods (squid and octopus) and wild-caught fish.
BVA senior-vice president Simon Doherty said: “With millions of animals slaughtered each year to provide us with the food we eat, we have a responsibility to provide them with a life worth living and a humane death.
“Our updated position aims to do just that by building on existing legislation and guiding the industry in a direction that better protects the welfare of animals destined for the food chain.”
Mr Doherty (pictured above) added: “Slaughter processes should be designed to minimise avoidable pain, distress, fear and suffering, and this document looks at all of the ways we as vets can work with industry bodies and farm colleagues to improve the legislation already in place.
“Updating our position on the welfare of animals at slaughter has been a long time in the making. This work has been informed by our working group, which drew on a breadth of experience from across the profession, with representatives from BVA specialist divisions, animal welfare organisations, and leading experts and academics.
“From making sure that stunning methods are as effective as possible, to looking at the specific needs of each species, revalidation of training for operators and championing the role of the OV, there is a lot of work to be done, but we look forward to progressing these recommendations and working to improve the welfare of farmed animals across the UK.”
A survey carried out by the Food Standards Agency over one week in 2018 revealed nearly 20 million animals (excluding fish) were slaughtered at 248 operating plants in England and Wales during that period.
In its latest position policy, the BVA is setting out recommendations for a range of stakeholders, including Government, industry, researchers and the veterinary profession. Improvements in the way stunning data is captured and reported features prominently in its recommendations.
