Pigs that are kicked, beaten and treated with an electric spike on their way to the slaughterhouse. Shocking images that animal research group Ongehoord made with a hidden camera show how animals are mistreated at a pig trade in Reusel. The Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) wants to intervene and finds the situation ‘completely unacceptable’.
The company in Reusel ‘collects’ pigs before they are taken to the slaughterhouse. Onheard hung a hidden camera for a few days in October and posted the images online this week. The images show how one of the animals gets a blow with an electric spike and then lies convulsing on the ground for minutes.
According to Ongehoord, a sick mother pig was ‘left to her own devices all night’ and the next morning was kicked, tased with a captive bolt gun on the head and pulled by the tail.
The captive bolt device, an electric spike, may be used ‘at high transmission and under strict conditions’. The device was used ‘structurally and incorrectly’, the NVWA said.
“We see images of animals being kicked and beaten. It’s worthless.”
The NVWA responds after reporting from RTL News about abuses in several pig transports in the Netherlands, including that of the trader in Reusel. “We see images of animals being kicked and beaten. It’s worthless,” says Bjorn Elsebrock of the NVWA.
“Here we see the picture of a sector that does not take its responsibility,” says the NVWA spokesperson. “We will be discussing this closely with the sector. We request all images to use in our enforcement.”
If companies and people who can be seen on the images can be identified, the NVWA will enforce. “Because the behavior shown is not acceptable,” says Elsebrock.
The images of Ongehoord can be experienced as shocking.
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