Animal Rights files new complaint against pig slaughterhouse Tielt

According to Animal Rights, inspection reports from the Animal Welfare Service show that there were again violations at the Tielt slaughterhouse between October and December of 2021.

“Pigs were beaten, a lame animal that could not get out of the truck on its own was first sprayed with a water hose before it was incorrectly stunned with the stunning device, there were problems with anesthetic material not working so that the animals were only stunned on the blood carousel. The slaughterhouse did not take its own initiative to shut down the slaughter line and only did so after Animal Welfare took effect,” says Els Van Campenhout, campaign coordinator at Animal Rights.

“Environmental Permit Violation”

Animal Rights also speaks of violations of the environmental permit. “Recent figures that Animal Rights has requested from the FASFC (Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain) show that the slaughterhouse slaughtered hundreds of thousands of pigs illegally in 2021. No fewer than 1,737,629 pigs were slaughtered in 2021, while the environmental permit applies. for 1,500,000 pigs per year, so the slaughterhouse has illegally started their slaughter capacity expansion,” says Van Campenhout.

That is why the organization is now filing another complaint against the slaughterhouse. That happened a few years ago, for the same reason. “The horror continues. We demand its immediate closure.”

Slaughterhouse regrets actions

Last weekend Animal Rights took action on the occasion of the five-year anniversary of the undercover report on the slaughterhouse. The activists gathered in Kortrijk with a moving LED car on which the undercover images were projected on a large screen. On Saturday, March 26, Animal Rights, together with others, will take another action, this time in front of the slaughterhouse itself.

Debra Tielt regrets: “We regret that the action group has distributed old and dated images during the campaign. The images shown in which animals were mistreated date from 2017 and are in no way representative of the current situation in the Exportslachthuis Tielt”, it sounds .

The company admits that it has received some warnings from the Animal Welfare Service since 2019. “Although these are a limited number of warnings, Debra obviously took them seriously. We have always immediately taken the necessary measures to address the issues mentioned. In addition, we would also like to emphasize that these are warnings and not official PVs, which indicates that these are incidents that are possible, but equally well avoided.”

According to the slaughterhouse, the technical defects related to anesthesia have been resolved and the employee who used the equipment in the passageways in an improper way has been sanctioned.