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The Animal Save Movement is a global organisation which holds peaceful vigils outside slaughter houses. The key objective of Animal Save is to ‘bear witness’ to farm animals in their final moments before they enter the slaughter house to be killed. 

 

There are nearly 700 Animal Save groups on five continents, and those attending vigils carry the message that we should have mercy on animals we raise for food, many of whom suffer ceaselessly their entire short lives.  We can only really help the animals by stopping eating them altogether, and adopting a compassionate vegan diet. 

 

Pictures are from Auckland Animal Save’s early morning vigil outside one of New Zealand’s biggest chicken slaughterhouses. 

 

Watch the Video here:

 

Author Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel ‘The Jungle’ created such a public outcry at the time that it led to the Pure Food and Drug Act being passed by Congress.  The reaction of the public to his novel, written to portray the cruel treatment of animals and harsh conditions of workers in Chicago slaughterhouses, surprised and disappointed the author.   ‘I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit the stomach” Sinclair said.

 

More than 100 years later, the work of relentlessly slaughtering living, breathing animals and turning them into cuts of meat is still one of the most harrowing jobs anyone can do. Understandably, it takes a punishing toll on the workers and their families.  For example, there have been a number of studies relating slaughterhouse work to domestic and community violence.   The only way many workers can cope by becoming ‘desensitised’.

 

In this BBC News story a woman who worked in the Industry in the UK gives an insight into what happens between the ‘blood covered walls’ of modern abattoirs. 

  

Quote:

“At the end of the slaughter line there was a huge skip, and it was filled with hundreds of cows’ heads. Each one of them had been flayed, with all of the saleable flesh removed. But one thing was still attached – their eyeballs.

Whenever I walked past that skip, I couldn’t help but feel like I had hundreds of pairs of eyes watching me”. 

In 2020 these places of horror and suffering have no place in any society.  Slaughterhouses need to close now.

 

Read the article here

 

At a popular beach on the upper reaches of coastal Auckland on the second day of the new year, a crowd gathered around an unusual sight: that of a Great White Shark slowly dying on the beach.  The 2.75 female had apparently been netted on purpose (against the Law as the species is fully protected in New Zealand waters), and the fishermen were seen kicking the shark, taking selfies and laughing.    When beachgoers tried to intervene the men ‘became intimidating’.

Although there were attempts by a lifeguard and members of the public to refloat her, she returned to the beach where she died moments later.    Behind the disrespect and abuse shown by some to an individual sentient being, is a sorry story of greed and superstition that permits us to cause great pain and distress to sharks, and endanger their existence in our oceans.   

Great White Sharks are on the World Wildlife Fund’s 10 Most Wanted list.   Trade in their teeth, jaws and fins, as well as commercial fishing, are making them vulnerable.   We kill around 100 million sharks a year, and a great deal of this is to satisfy the demand, mainly in China, for shark fin soup.  Shark fins are a so-called  ‘delicacy’ and are one of the world’s most expensive seafood items.   

Sharks are not ‘seafood’, they are sentient beings.  As such, we can imagine the terrifying experience they endure when they are hauled out of their environment, have their fins sliced off, and then thrown back into the ocean to die slowly from blood loss, stress, or suffocation. 

It is not sharks, but humans, who are the biggest and cruellest predator of them all.  We are  the reason tens of millions of  sharks and trillions of other sea animals are killed every single year.  We are  the reason why there may not be any fish stocks left in the sea at all by 2050. 

If we don’t want to cause the global collapse of marine ecosystems, and the untold suffering of sharks and other fish, then the most effective thing we can do is to stop creating a demand for their flesh, and become vegan. 

Read the article

 

A highlight of the New Zealand Social Calendar is the Boxing Day Races, held at Ellerslie Racecourse in Auckland.

The 160-year institution sports the Queen City’s most colourful fashion, hospitality and entertainment.

Racegoers converge to imbibe food and alcohol, to place a bet on high-octane thoroughbreds, and to outdo each other in the fashion stakes.

 

 

On Boxing Day 2019 they were met with another group of people, also glamorous….

… who were protesting cruelty to racehorses.

 

QUICK FACT ONE:  There is no retirement plan for racehorses.   After winning thousands of dollars for their owners and trainers, when they are no longer profitable they are sold on.  The former equine athletes can pass through multiple owners and often nobody knows what happens to them. 

 

 

QUICK FACT TWO: Racehorses are stabled up to 22 hours every day prior to training, and many of them suffer from boredom.

 

 

QUICK FACT THREE:   90% of racehorses suffer from bleeding in the lungs directly as a result of over-exertion. 

 

QUICK FACT FOUR:  90% of racehorses suffer from stomach ulcers.  This is thought to be brought on as a result both of an unnatural feeding regime, and stress.

 

QUICK FACT FIVE:   Horses are goaded on the racetrack by use of the whip.  Whipping the horses over and over again inflicts physical and psychological pain, and increases the likelihood of injury.  

 

QUICK FACT SIX:  It is estimated that around 2,500 New Zealand unprofitable horses are sent to slaughterhouses every year to be exported as horse meat overseas, or turned into pet food.   This is known as ‘wastage’ in the Industry.

 

Seventeen horses died on New Zealand racetracks in 2019.   

To find out more go to horseracingkills.com

Watch the ABC expose: The Final Race

Photo credits: Christian Huriwai

 

Foie gras, (French: “fat liver”), a delicacy that belongs to the ‘protected cultural and gastronomical heritage of France’, is the liver of a goose or duck that has been fattened by a process of force-feeding. The practice has its roots in ancient Egypt, and was adopted by the Romans and mediaeval Jewry through to modern-day France. The product is produced and consumed worldwide, particularly in Europe, the United States and China.  However, as a result of the campaigns of Animal Rights activists,  awareness about the unbelievable cruelty  that produces foie gras has grown, and more and more restaurants and retailers are withdrawing it from their menus and shelves. 

Read the Mercy for Animals article that reveals the cruel forced gorging of male ducks on a prize-winning French foie gras farm, while female ducks (not used for foie gras) are left to slowly suffocate. 

Excerpt:

‘When the male ducks are several weeks old, they are immobilized in narrow metal cages and force-fed with air pumps. The extreme overfeeding causes the young ducks to gasp for breath and gives them terrible diarrhea. According to L214, the process is so physically traumatizing that 10 times more ducks die during the force-feeding period than under normal conditions’.

See also Mercy for Animals article:

Excerpt:

‘MFA’s undercover investigator documented a culture of cruelty at HVFG, including: Workers violently shoving metal pipes down ducks’ throats, dead ducks — killed by the cruel force-feeding process — callously thrown away into trash bins, birds with open, bleeding wounds left to suffer without proper veterinary care, and fully conscious ducks being shackled upside down and having their throats cut open’.

 

Duck killed through forced feeding at Hudson Valley Farm (see above article)

United States Presidential Contender Cory Booker has a plan to ditch factory farms.   

If implemented, this would be a leap forward towards the end of all animal agriculture.

 

Read the Live Kindly article here.

 

“Fish in aquaculture farms are forced to live in crowded tanks and endure unwanted interactions with other fish, handling by humans, struggles to get food, and sudden changes in lighting, water depth and currents. Just like pigs and chickens, fish in intensive farms live a life of suffering”.

It is time we realised that fish are like every other sentient being, and suffer greatly because of our selfish choices.   The only moral thing to do is to stop all fishing and fish farming. There are cruelty-free fish-free products that have a similar taste and texture to fish. 

Pledge to go Vegan in January 

Read the Animals Australia article here

 

Farmed ducks, like other poultry raised for food, suffer greatly.     As with all intensively farmed animals, ducks in factory farms are deprived of their most basic needs.

 

They would like to be able to fly, forage, choose a mate and live for 15 years or more, but the life they are forced to endure couldn’t be more different.  They  live inside dark, filthy sheds with up to 10,000 other birds, and never feel the warmth of the sun or enjoy swimming. Except for drinking, animals that have evolved to eat, swim, dive, clean and play in rivers, lakes and ponds, have no access to water at all. Without water they cannot preen, their feathers deteriorate, and they can lose body heat.  They need water to cleanse their eyes, and many develop eye itchiness and other eye diseases, and some even become blind. 

  Blind duck in a UK duck farm. Source:  VIVA

Mother Ducks cannot even sit on their own eggs, as the moment they are laid they are taken from under them and placed in incubation chambers. Because they are bred to produce as much meat as possible in the shortest time, the ducklings grow quickly, and reach slaughter weight at around just 7 weeks old.  Even before then some become lame with painful leg deformities their weight gain causes, and standing all day on litter-strewn floors can lead to painful ammonia burns on their skin.   Many fall onto their backs and are not able to right themselves, there is no one to right them, no one cares,  there is virtually no one to care: in one UK based company, the most intensive enterprise of its kind there are as many as 85,000 birds tended by only one person. Consequently these poor creatures die a frightening and protracted death as they struggle in vain to right themselves.

Ducks in despair.  Source upc-online

In the wild ducks are swimming most of the time, eating plankton, seeds, plants, insects and worms, instead of the dry pellets they are fed in the sheds.    On top of all this suffering, they are also neglected and sometimes deliberately abused by sadistic workers.   In 2014 and 2016 employees at two US farms, Reichardt Duck Farm and Culver Dark Farms, were videotaped tormenting ducks to death by bashing them against walls, and ripping off their heads.   They were videoed callously throwing, dropping and roughly handling ducks and ducklings by their heads and wings.  The undercover cameras also showed animals with ripped-off body parts stuck in wire mesh flooring, and birds were seen trapped in manure pits below the floor.

The extract below is from a recent Viva campaign. 

“Modern farming techniques have turned the fluffy Easter duckling image into a sick joke. 19 million ducks were slaughtered in the UK in 2005 (in the mid 1970’s the UK duck population was barely a million). We know what these birds lives are really like because we have investigated several duck units. Twice we visited Manor Farm Ducklings, who then supplied Marks & Spencer. On our first visit, we saw thousands of fluffy, yellow ducklings in stinking, windowless sheds. Some could barely walk and dragged themselves across on their wings. Others had fallen on their backs and were unable to right themselves and this is how they would die – a horrible, stressful death. Many had already lost the battle to live and their little corpses were scattered amongst the straw. One duckling had fallen behind machinery and was hopelessly trapped – calling desperately for a mother who would never come.”

Duck is a traditional French food,  and is especially popular in Chinese cuisine where it is considered a rich delicacy, and most commercial dark farms supply restaurants directly.  When we eat duck, and the flesh of other factory farmed animals, we are causing them continuous suffering.  There is only one way to prevent cruelty to sentient creatures raised for food, and that is to make the commitment to go Vegan. 

 

Take the pledge to go Vegan for the month of January, 2020.

End Animal Slaughter’s Sandra Kyle does solitary slaughterhouse vigils as part of the worldwide Save movement.   In her latest blog she reflects on changes that have taken place  in the last seventy years, and predicts a world without slaughterhouses as an imminent reality. 

 

SLAUGHTERHOUSE VIGIL Land Meats, Whanganui 15 December 2019

 

Today standing at the entrance to Land Meats in Whanganui I found myself thinking of Mrs Gallagher. Mrs Gallagher and the Gallagher family lived a few doors down from us when I was growing up in suburban Auckland in the 1940s and 50s. Mrs Gallagher was short and compact, well-groomed and she always walked with her right forearm in front of her chest, her purse dangling from her elbow. She worked part time somewhere in the city, and every day when she got off the bus she would bustle past our house on her bandy legs to go off home to cook the evening meal of meat and three vegs we all ate in those days, and I would marvel at the aura of certainty that emanated from her. Mrs Gallagher would give you a cheery wave when she saw you, unless she didn’t like you of course, when she would ignore you, or scowl at you, or even give you a tongue lashing. Unlike my own mother, who was weighed down with care and anxiety (but who still put a brave face on it) Mrs Gallagher for me represented the widespread feeling at the time that we lived in the best of all possible worlds. ‘Things are as they are for a purpose, and if they are as they are, then they must be right as they are. God is in Heaven and all is well.’

Even as a child I knew that this was bollocks. Things were not at all right as they were. They were a real mess, just as they are now, and the reason for this, I figured out, is because the humans who create our world are full of selfishness, ignorance, greed, superstition and fear.

In a very real sense we live in better times now than in the 1950s. We are more informed and better educated, our minds are not so narrow and parochial. But Albert Einstein said it truly: ‘We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them’ and the only way to step out of the mess we have created is for us to evolve.

 

Albert Einstein said it truly: ‘We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them’ and the only way to step out of the mess we have created is for us to evolve.

 

To evolve our consciousness is a very tall order, and what’s the notion even doing in a facebook blog anyway? Well, because we need to get our act together as a matter of urgency – look at the state our planet is in! A lot needs to happen. but we can be pragmatic and concentrate our efforts on a couple of fundamental things. One is for individuals and organisations and governments to practice honest self-reflection, and the other is to demonstrate more compassion and empathy in our day to day lives One of the best ways we can do this is to put ourselves in the place of others, in order to feel as they do. In particular, we should try to feel for the other sentient beings we share the planet with, those very same ones we treat so appallingly badly.

Until we cry for the skinny little sparrows hopping over hot asphalt in search of crumbs; until our heart hurts to see sweaty animals locked inside a death truck on a summer’s day, we have not evolved. But we can certainly get there from here, and something we can do immediately to fast-track our evolution, is to make the decision to go vegan.

 

Parcels of animal skins at Land Meats Slaughterhouse, Whanganui, NZ.

 

Take a look at the sea of white mounds I photographed today at the slaughterhouse. Each mound contains the skins of sentient beings who were killed recently at Land Meats. These poor animals were victims of heartless, profit-driven industries, and as animals raised for food, they were denied the same legal protection given to most other animals. Selfishness. Inconsistency. Indifference to suffering and rights. The capitalist machine reduced sentient beings to commodities; meat, bones and skin to be eaten, fed to our pets, used as fertiliser and worn on our backs and feet. The only life they will ever have was stolen from them because we as a species haven’t stopped to reflect what we are doing, and to ask ourselves ‘Is there not a better way?’

It didn’t occur to Mrs Gallagher back in the 1950s, but there IS a better way, and now we have no excuse for ignorance. We have the measure of the manner of the world we live in, and it’s up to us to clean it up.

PS A friend just messaged me to say that she had just eaten an unbelievably delicious vegan trumpet. What Tarnz didn’t know is that I had just eaten not one, but two yummy vegan cornettos! Snap!   Vegan cuisine has come into its own, so by adopting a vegan diet your taste buds are not losing out on anything at all. Vegan is the future of food, this is the plain Truth. Soon I won’t need to make my lonely stand outside slaughterhouses here in Whanganui, and my other Save Movement friends need not do their vigils either, because all slaughterhouses will be shut down.

Mrs Gallagher would never have believed it – but I certainly hope that you do.

The suffocation this week of nearly 200,000 broiler chickens owing to equipment failure in Helensville, New Zealand, is profoundly shocking.  It is especially heartbreaking for those who know what beautiful, sentient chickens routinely go through in commercial poultry operations.   

From the moment they are poured from buckets onto the gigantic shed floor as hatchlings – they have been debeaked without painkillers so they cannot hurt themselves or each other in the extreme frustration of their living conditions – their lives are sheer hell.  Artificially bred for rapid growth that induces lameness and other health issues, living in cramped and artificial conditions,  standing and lying in their own feces and with ammonia burns from resting on waste-strewn litter, a percentage never even reach slaughter weight at 6 weeks old. They die of heart failure, and even starvation if they cannot move to feed. When they are shipped off to the slaughterhouse to have their throats slit they are still infants. Indeed, their cries resemble ‘peep peep peep’, like the babies they still are.  

This monumental injustice against sentient beings is legal in every country where chickens are industrially raised for meat.   Here in New Zealand we have a law that recognises animals as sentient, and yet we keep chickens – and pigs, as well as other animals – in such conditions.  Clearly, the law is a farce.  

In this article End Animal Slaughter contributor LYNLEY TULLOCH puts the recent Helensville trajedy into context, and asks us to make the right ethical and moral choices by leaving animals off our plate and adopting a vegan diet. 

 

 

The recent deaths on 4^th December of between 180,000  and 190,000 chickens in a west Auckland poultry farm was devastating. These birds, housed in a large indoor shed, suffocated due to a power cut and subsequent generator issue. No air was being pumped into the shed, an alarm also failed, and a worker found them all dead in the morning.

It’s distressing for those of us who consider the sentience of animals of high importance;  that is, the recognition that these birds were capable of suffering.

The birds died of asphyxia – which to ancient Greeks meant “without pulse”. It now denotes “suffocation” – death by  oxygen deprivation. This occurred for the chickens as a result of their air supply being cut off. The birds were entrapped in a confined space and there was inadequate oxygen for them to respirate.

These birds have now been interred on a worm farm, ashes to ashes, and bird to worm. A reversal if you will of the natural cycle of birds eating worms . Except most modern day chickens bred for meat will never encounter a worm in their lives, growing up as they do in huge (hopefully ventilated) sheds (unless there is a power cut).

This is a huge failing on the part of the farm. The Hellensville farm supplies to Tegel who has a monopoly on the chicken meat market in New Zealand. Tegal claims on its website that, “when you choose a Tegal product, you can be assured that the utmost care has been taken to ensure we have raised happy and healthy chickens”.  

The incident at the Helensville farm is so clearly in breach of Tegal’s claims that it brings into question anything else they may say.

Animal welfare expert Marcelo Rodriguez Ferrere has been quoted as saying the deaths were “catastrophic”  and ”among the largest number of any stock animal I’ve heard dying en masse”

Would that be outside of the numbers of chickens killed daily in slaughterhouses in New Zealand for meat? Not trying to be funny, but really it depends how you look at it.

Source: Atom Emet.

Probably the vast majority of people in New Zealand most likely care about what animals endure before they are killed for meat. They hope that the animal has had a good life.

But what constitutes a good life and who is defining the parameters? If you think the chicken now sitting stuffed on your table had a good life, think again. Recent reports suggest that free range meat chicken claims fail to stack up. What consumers should know is that there is no official certification system for free range and no auditing for whether chickens have access to the outdoors. In New Zealand there are only codes of welfare which include minimum standards. These, however, are not legally binding and are only set to encourage high standards. There are no penalties for non-compliance.  

Free range is problematic for chickens bred for meat in any case. The rapid growth of these birds, coupled with lameness and large flock size mean that many can never even hobble to the outdoor area (if indeed there is one).

Those who prepare a chicken or two for the Christmas table  all the while lamenting the deaths of the suffocated chickens should look deeper into the practices of meat chicken farms. By buying the chickens and fueling the market, consumers are participating in one of the most depraved industries in New Zealand.

Most chickens raised for meat in New Zealand are housed in large sheds that require the maintenance of an artificial environment to keep them alive. These sheds may be up to 2250 meters squared and hold 40,000 adult birds.  They are hot housed like tomatoes, and they are experiencing a breach of animal rights (at least they would if they had been bequeathed to them). Make no mistake , chickens bred and raised for meat are some of the most exploited and abused animals on the planet, and that is even without been suffocated in a shed.

Many New Zealanders love to eat these chickens. New Zealand raises about 120 million meat chickens every year. According to the Poultry Industry Association, New Zealanders eat around 20 chickens a year, or 37.5 kilograms of chicken meat.

People in New Zealand are generally aware of the concept of good animal welfare. It would shock them to know what many chickens raised for meat go through. These chickens who are called commercial strain broilers have been selectively bred over the years to favour rapid weight gain. They double in size every week. These chickens reach ‘slaughter weight’ at around 5-6 weeks. As a result they are often afflicted with lameness, breast blister and heart failure. They are literally teetering on the verge of structural collapse when they are killed. 

Footage by animal rights group Direct Animal Action of a poultry farm last year revealed horrific suffering. Birds lay prone  on their backs dying and chicks walked around with deformed legs.

But the worst is yet to come. There are well known issues associated with killing birds en masse in modern day slaughter houses. Research published in the International Journal of Poultry Science claims that electrical stunning of birds is not always reliable. In addition, ”when the neck is not properly cut some birds will enter the scalding tank before they are dead and some may display obvious signs of consciousness”

Maybe the suffocated chickens had a merciful death compared to what was to come for them.  If we want to see an end to animal abuse and suffering, there is only one thing to do.  Leave chicken off our plate, and adopt a vegan diet.   

Try a vegan diet for a month.  Sign up for Veganuary 2020.  

The largest and bloodiest animal sacrifice on the planet is currently taking place in a remote corner of Nepal, in defiance of  a 2015 supreme court ruling that the five-yearly bloodbath should not go ahead in 2019.

In a field near the small temple of Bariyapur, thousands of buffalos stand meekly.   Walking among them are animal welfare groups, their hands smeared with mud and blood,  trying to soothe the animals, and giving them a little food and water. Soon some of the 1,000 butchers hired for the month-long festival, mostly drunk and unskilled at slaughter, enter the field and begin to hack at the bulls, cows and calves with their knives and machetes. The air is filled with agonised bellows and cries, and the field is drenched with blood.   By the end of the festival more than half a million animals will have been hacked to death to bring good luck to worshippers of blood-thirsty Gadhimai, a Hindu goddess of power.

This barbaric tradition is an affront to every sane human being.   The whole world needs to bring pressure on Nepal to make sure it does not happen in 2024, nor even again. 

Read Indian writer and activist Rukmini Sekhar’s account of a barbaric religious ritual.

Responding to the recent Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s expose  End Animal Slaughter contributor LYNLEY TULLOCH says we shouldn’t be tongue-tied in speaking out against the abuse of racehorses.

 

The recent Melbourne Cup event, where yet another horse was injured, has highlighted animal welfare concerns. The race, held in November every year, corresponds with a national holiday in Australia. It is a 158-year-old institution, and the cause of rowdy celebration. Yet this year while about 81,000 spectators partied in hats and high-heels, knocking back alcohol, the horses weren’t having so much fun.

 

 

Racehorses are valued primarily for the money they can bring in on race day. And the money is big. The total prize pool for the Melbourne Cup 2019 was A$8,000,000. Horse racing is a 9 billion dollar industry in Australia, and given high status. It is said to be the ‘Sport of Kings’.

One horse named Rostropovich sustained a stress fracture to his pelvis at the 2019 Melbourne Cup and is now lame. He is said to be stable, but I would imagine his future in racing is uncertain. In fact, his entire future on the planet is uncertain. Many ex-racehorses are killed in slaughterhouses in Australia. Behind the partying of major race days is a legacy of animal cruelty.

Five-year-old gelding Rostropovich, who fractured his pelvis at the 2019 Melbourne Cup.   He is responding to treatment, and now bearing weight on all four of his legs.

 

During this year’s Melbourne Cup  runner up jockey New Zealander Michael Walker, was fined $10,000 and banned from seven races for excessive whipping of his horse. His response? “I could bend over right now and let you hit me as hard as you want with those sticks and they don’t hurt.” Right. Well according to RSPCA, they do hurt: “There is no evidence to suggest that whipping does not hurt. Whips can cause bruising and inflammation”.

New Zealand jockey Michael Walker, who was fined $10,000 and banned from seven races for over-whipping his horse Prince of Arran in the 2019 Melbourne Cup.

 

From the cradle to the grave, horse racing is animal abuse. What many people may not know is that there is a high breeding rate and turnover of race horses in Australia. According to the Racing Australia Annual Report, over 14.000 foals are born in the racing industry each year. Another 8 and a half thousand are ‘retired’ from the track. More horses are being bred than are needed so that they have a larger pool of animals to draw from in the hopes of getting a winner. Bidda Jones, RSPCA’s Chief Scientist, calls this ‘searching for a diamond in the straw’.  In fact, only 300 of every 1000 foals born in the racing industry in Australia will ever end up racing.

This means that there is a lot of what is referred to as ‘horse wastage’. It was revealed in October this year through Australia’s ABC’s 7.30 program that thousands of registered racehorses are killed in slaughterhouses (for consumption)  or knackeries (for pet food) each year. This is after they may have earned hundreds of thousands in prize money. A 2008 report commissioned by the RSPCA to examine ”wastage” of Australian thoroughbred horses found 60 per cent of the animals processed at one abattoir originated from the racing industry. The report also indicated that 80 per cent of these horses had suffered neglect before being slaughtered.

The racehorse industry over-breeds to increase the likelihood of producing winners.   Foals who aren’t viable or otherwise don’t make the cut, can be sent at days old to the slaughterhouse.

 

Professor Paul McGreevy , a veterinarian who spoke on the ABC 7.30 program, said that what happens to many of these ‘wastage’ horses is a grey area and that they often meet a grisly death. These horses are sold at sales yards, and brought by the slaughter industry for as little as $70. They are often discarded yearlings who did not make the mark, or older horses with injuries.  Their meat is then shipped to overseas markets in Europe, Russia and Japan. It is marketed for human consumption.

Sakuraniku, (raw horse meat), a Japanese delicacy.

 

During the ABC investigation footage was shown of Meramist Abattoir. The treatment of these beautiful animals is disturbing to watch, as they are kicked and whipped, sworn at and taunted. One horse was dragged out of the transport truck by a rope tied to a tractor. He then collapsed.

Meramist Abattoir, Queensland, where the ABC documentary revealed footage of workers abusing and torturing horses.

 

The disdain that the slaughterhouse workers hold for the horses is deeply distressing. These sensitive animals, full of intelligence and poise, are treated as – in the words of one worker  – ‘f****n maggots’. The workers repeatedly tell the animals they are going to die, indicating pleasure that they have ultimate control over their fate. They are subject to electrocution (anus and genitals included). These traumatized horses must face the end of their lives tortured by sadistic humans.

The extensive ABC investigation claimed that during a 22-day period a total of three hundred thoroughbred racing horses were killed at this slaughter house. These horses were forensically traced to their studs and collectively represent $4.670,770 in prize money. In one year alone over 4000 race horses are killed at Meramist.

The footage from inside the slaughter house was even more deeply disturbing.  One horse was recorded being bolted five times before he lost consciousness. One worker was filmed whooping in enjoyment, stomping and kicking a dying horse in the head. These horses are dying in pain and terror, watching other horses die, while cheerful music echoes from the radio. Just another day at work. It’s haunting.

Footage taken at knackeries also reveal horrific deaths of ex racehorses. They are loaded into a killing pen and shot in the head in front of each other. The videos of horses shaking in fear was particularly hard to watch. They stood there, unable to move, knowing what was going to happen to them, the fear chorusing through their veins.

These harrowing scenes stand in stark and brutal contrast with the party goers’ antics at this year’s Melbourne Cup. Excessive drinking and drunken escapades highlight the utter shallowness of a culture that has its blinkers on (excuse the pun).

Drunken antics at the 2019 Melbourne Cup

 

Australia also ships race horses to Korea, and many are killed there. Footage recently emerged of this slaughter at one of the main horse abattoirs at Nonghyup on Jeju Island in South Korea. In this footage horses were beaten over the head with plastic pipes and chased into the slaughter house.

A third of the racehorses exported from Australia to Korea in the six years between 2013-2019 have since died. Most of them were slaughtered. In Korea, horses are killed for their meat and eaten. Too bad if you have a fancy name like ‘Road to Warrior’ – if you don’t meet the mark , you’re dead meat. Road to Warrior was a four year old gelding from Australia who had been in South Korea for fifteen months. He had only won one race and was sent to slaughter at Nonghyup at just four years of age. Horses can live for up to thirty years.

Australian horse next in line at a Korean slaughterhouse.

Winx’s brother was also killed in Nonghyup. Winx, the mighty mare with a 33-race winning streak dating over four years, was retired this year after winning the Queen Elizabeth Stakes. The Guardian recorded that  “It’s the third time Winx has won the Queen Elizabeth Stakes, netting a cool $2,320,000 in prize money, to end a remarkable career in which the mighty mare went 1,463 days without losing a race.  She was the nation’s darling. Yet her brother Bareul Jeong was not so lucky. His lineage mattered not. He was killed at Nonghyup after developing  a strained ligament.

Race horses also suffer during training and racing. Some horses will die as a result of injuries on the track. Statistics collated by the Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses demonstrate that one horse is killed on an Australian racetrack every three days. With over 30,000 horses in training in Australia, the scale of suffering from training is unimaginable. Earlier this year Melbourne Cup-winning horse trainer Darren Weir was charged with a total of nine offences including three counts of “engaging in the torturing, abusing, overworking and terrifying” of a racehorse and three counts of “causing unreasonable pain or suffering” to a racehorse.

Disgraced horse trainer Darryn Weir, who was charged with animal abuse in February

During racing many horses suffer. They may experience bleeding in the windpipe and lungs (exercise induced pulmonary haemorrhage).  It is common enough to affect up to 50% of all racehorses and is a main cause of horse fatalities.

It is fairly common to see horses with nose bleeds after a race.  Pulmonary haemorrhage occurs after bursts of intense, strenuous exercise.

 

All horses are thrashed by a whip – despite the fact that it does not make them run faster according to a 2011 study by the University of Sydney. Tongue ties are used by many trainers, where the horse’s tongue is secured to the base of his jaw with a tie. This is said to prevent choking or the tongue getting in the way of the bit during training. The RSPCA says it can cause stress, bruising, pain, anxiety and lacerations.

Many racehorses have their tongues tied to give the jockeys more control.  

 

RSPCA’s Bidda Jones has also highlighted other issues with horse racing including single house stabling which disrupts normal feeding patterns and socialization. These horses are treated as nothing more than commodities – to be bought and sold; pushed beyond reasonable limits; injured; hurt and destroyed.

We don’t have our tongues tied and we need to speak out against this suffering. If we don’t speak up against horse racing we are effectively sanctioning this suffering by default. Don’t support the racing industry. Don’t go to races. Don’t bet on horses.

Dr Lynley Tulloch has a PhD in sustainability education and is an animal rights advocate.