EXPOSED: Exported Australian cattle butchered alive in Indonesian slaughterhouses
Investigators saw animals blinking after their throats were cut, gasping for air as blood filled their airways. Some suffered this way for up to 12 minutes after being shot with a captive-bolt gun.
PETA: Chilling scenes of abuse of Australian animals have been documented at Indonesian slaughterhouses this year, prompting a fresh set of complaints against Australia’s live-export industry. The footage is a harrowing glimpse into the trade that supplies flesh to dangerous wet markets and skin to the global leather industry. Some of the facilities visited by PETA Asia investigators are even part of the Australian government’s Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System (ESCAS), dispelling all doubt about government inaction.
In the same month that this abuse occurred, Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council (ALEC) CEO Mark Harvey-Sutton expressed his “full confidence in the standards the Australian industry upholds”… ALEC boasts on its website that 95% of Australian cattle in Indonesia are now stunned prior to slaughter. But based on what investigators saw, that’s not the case…
PETA Asia investigators visited seven randomly selected slaughterhouses in Indonesia in April and May 2021. They found steers and bulls being forced into restraint boxes and shot in the head with captive-bolt guns, evidently in an attempt to stun them before their throats were cut. But cattle were often fully aware of what was happening to them. They slammed their bodies against the metal chute that they were trapped in, in a futile attempt to turn around and escape.
Workers repeatedly failed to stun cows properly. Clearly still conscious after being shot in the head, one steer was jabbed 64 times in the face and on his torso with a steel rod in an apparent attempt to force him to stand back up so a worker could shoot him again. His tail was violently twisted again and again, until the worker reported that the bones in it were all broken. In a last-ditch attempt to move him, they yanked on his broken tail 12 times.
Then there were those for whom stunning wasn’t even attempted at all. Some cattle were simply physically restrained before their throats were slit—which, believe it or not, is a killing method approved by the Australian government… Investigators saw animals blinking after their throats were cut, gasping for air as blood filled their airways. Some suffered this way for up to 12 minutes after being shot with a captive-bolt gun…
It’s been a decade since cruelty in the live-export trade to Indonesia was exposed by Animals Australia on national TV in the program Four Corners, after which a traceability program—Export Supply Chain Assurance System—was put in place. The programme hasn’t provided “assurance” of any kind. In fact, it’s been a colossal failure. It was supposed to stop this kind of cruelty, and clearly, it hasn’t. There have been 184 reports of non-compliance (just reports—the number of incidents would be far higher) since it was established…
These are just a tiny percentage of the millions of animal victims of Australia’s live-export trade. Australia exported more than 1.8 million animals in 2020, and the vast majority of them were cattle. It’s been a decade since cruelty in the live-export trade to Indonesia was exposed by Animals Australia on national TV in the program Four Corners, after which a traceability program—Export Supply Chain Assurance System—was put in place.
The programme hasn’t provided “assurance” of any kind. In fact, it’s been a colossal failure. It was supposed to stop this kind of cruelty, and clearly, it hasn’t. There have been 184 reports of non-compliance (just reports—the number of incidents would be far higher) since it was established… PETA Asia investigators found that the skins of some Australian cattle were sold to a fashion brand that exports leather shoes worldwide. SOURCE…
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