The true fight is not for improved animal welfare standards in transport, but to end the practice altogether. There is no humane way to load a sentient being into a truck to send them off to a death they do not desire.
JESSICA SCOTT-REID: ‘Transport is often an overlooked step along a farmed animal’s journey towards slaughter, yet it can truly be the most torturous… Toronto Pig Save activist, Lori Croonen, who attends regular vigils outside Fearman’s Pork in Burlington, Ontario says “Many are far too weak to come to us, or simply can’t because they are trapped under other pigs, sometimes dead.” When Croonen reaches animals near the openings of the truck, she says, “I gently tell them I love them and give them a few drops of water.” Their breathing is often very laboured, she adds, “their lips are pulled back from their mouth in extreme dehydration, their snouts are inhaling in and out rapidly to suck in as much oxygen as possible, their eyes show pure exhaustion”…
The extreme heat is what prompted another Canadian activist, Anita Krajnc, to also offer water to suffering pigs outside the same slaughterhouse in 2015. Krajnc was famously charged with mischief for her actions, but in 2017 the charges were dropped, in a precedent-setting case (#pigtrial) that has since fuelled the Save Movement across Canada… “If they were dogs people would be appalled at their suffering,” says Croonen, “but because they are pigs, people turn away to not feel responsible for it”…
Amendments were recently made to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s rules for farmed animal transport, after years of activist, media, and political pressure. But the changes, set to come into play by February 2020, fall far short, including unimpressive travel time reductions, before offering food, water and rest, from 48 hours to 36 for cows, from 36 hours to 28 for pigs and chickens, and from 18 hours to 12 for all animals under eight days old… Activists in Europe have long considered these standards to be cruel, and protests against them are ongoing…
There is no humane way to load a sentient being into a truck to send them off to a death they do not desire. While activists in Canada, and beyond, fight for improved welfare standards for farmed animals in transport, the true fight is to end the practice altogether, for the pigs suffering heatstroke in the summer, the chickens freezing to death in the winter, and any animal who happens to arrive at slaughter seemingly unscathed. None deserve to be there’. SOURCE…
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