Veterinarian and specialist in pig behavior, Kees Scheepens, is trying to get the Vion slaughterhouse to handle the pigs better during the heat before they are slaughtered there. He told the talk show KRAAK on Sunday in the Omroep Brabant.
Scheepens has filmed trucks with action group Eyes on Animals in recent warm days in which hundreds of pigs were waiting to be slaughtered. The images show that the animals breathe very quickly, sink through their legs and fall over their peers. They are overcome by the heat and it looks awful. The trucks are parked on the side of the road in Boxtel, close to the slaughterhouse.
Scheepens is a veterinarian and since the late 1990s he has devoted himself to studying pig behavior. He is therefore also known as the pig whisperer. “That’s because of the swine fever in 1997. Then, as a vet, I killed 130,000 pigs. We had to euthanize healthy piglets of three to 17 days. I became a vet to keep animals healthy, not to kill them,” says Scheepens.
“Vion is guilty of animal cruelty because it is.”
“We show too little respect for a living being in how we treat those animals. Vion is guilty of animal abuse, because that is what it is when those pigs are in such heat stress.” And it is completely unnecessary, Scheepens knows. “The solution is so simple. Just drive around with those cars, then the wind will provide cooling.”
The vet doesn’t have a good word for how Vion handles the pigs: “They have an executive pork officer there. a pork manager, but no carcasses come in there, they’re living creatures. Pigs aren’t bricks, they’re living creatures And we have to treat them with respect.”
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