The images in the following program are very sensitive and may be as disturbing to viewers as they were to us. However, we have to show the truth of animal cruelty.

Kind hearted viewers, welcome to Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. On this episode of our “Stop Animal Cruelty” series, we will be featuring a short documentary produced by the non-profit organization, Vegetarians International Voice for Animals (Viva!).

Viva! was founded in the United Kingdom (UK) in 1994 by Juliet Gellatley. Ms. Gellatley has also established a charity called the Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation which focuses on health and nutrition. Her message to the world is simple and is as follows:

“The most powerful action you can take to end animal suffering, improve your health, protect the environment and bring fairness to the world’s poor is to stop eating meat, dairy and fish. Support us and help Viva! campaign for a better world.”

Viva! has expanded internationally since its inception and now there are Viva! branches in the United States and Poland. The scale of death caused by humans for want of meat is staggering.

It is estimated that in 2003, a full 900 million animal lives were taken in UK slaughterhouses for food.  This number includes 850 million chickens, 2.5 million cows, 15 million sheep, 28 million turkeys, 20 million ducks, and 9.35 million pigs.

This figure does not include the 4.5 billion fish and 2.6 billion shellfish killed for consumption by Britain each year. The estimate also does not include the animals put to death in the course of animal experimentation, the beings that die at the hands of hunters, the fish caught by anglers or the animals that succumb to the horrid conditions on factory farms.

An unimaginable 55 billion animals are heartlessly killed to produce meat each year world-wide. Meat is a product which not only gives us disease and sickness but is also responsible for destroying the environment, polluting and wasting our precious water resources and is the number one cause of global warming.

VIVA! has filmed a short documentary that investigates the slaughter occurring in factory farms in the United Kingdom.

The title of this work is “Sentenced to Death” and the film makes it very clear where meat comes from and how it is produced. “Sentenced to Death” demonstrates that any notion of humane slaughter of animals for food is totally misguided and misplaced.

“Sentenced to Death”

Narrator(m):
In Britain, 900 million animals are slaughtered every year. The method of killing is throat cutting. The law requires that animals are first stunned and that they remain unconscious until death.

A Viva! investigation shows this isn’t happening. There are almost no regulations governing electrical stunning, other than a requirement that the electrodes should span the brain.

This pig was shocked on the cheeks.

There is nothing to say how long the shock should last. For this pig, it was two seconds, but from head to chin.

Our research shows that over one third of pigs are not stunned correctly and every year more than 240,000 fail to lose consciousness.

If the time between stunning and knifing is too long, even pigs who appear to be stunned will regain consciousness while bleeding to death. The time lag between stunning and knifing in over a third of British abattoirs is so long that some pigs come around even before their throats are cut.

It’s not uncommon to see conscious animals on the slaughter line. This almost medieval looking ritual is to loosen and pluck out body hair, a bizarre dance of death.

This is the lairage of one of the smaller slaughterhouses in Britain, which claims, probably rightly, to operate to higher welfare standards than the large automated abattoirs.

Slaughtermen are not on piece work, stunning to knifing times are quicker than many, and there are not the same pressures to keep the production line flowing.

But even here there are obvious problems. The placing of electrodes and short stun times result in pigs who appear to have regained consciousness.

In the case of this animal, there is no doubt. We were asked to stop filming. The pig struggled free from her shackles and fell into the blood pit below.

She was hung back on the line and the process continued as normal. This is probably more gentle than any action this pig experienced throughout her life. Marketing schemes try to sell meat as being welfare friendly.

This surreal picture however is the real face of British meat. There is no reprieve from slaughter because of pregnancy. Animal activists prevented this ewe from being taken to a slaughterhouse lairage and they provided her with straw.

Perhaps fortuitously her lamb didn’t survive and his little body was dragged before her as she was led away to be killed.

An enormous and saddening sum – 55 billion innocent animal lives are ended each year for food. Vegetarians International Voice for Animals (Viva!), a non-profit organization based in Britain, is rallying on behalf of the animals to stop this senseless slaughter. They advocate the vegan, or animal-free diet as the best and fastest solution to end animal suffering.

Viva! has numerous on-going campaigns to raise the public’s awareness of how meat is simply not compatible with compassion or health.

Outreach efforts by Viva! include spreading the truth about the horrors of factory farming, the tremendous cruelty of foie gras, and the merciless and inhumane treatment of pigs raised for food.

Viva! is drawing attention to the farcical myth of the so-called “healthy” white meat and promotes in its stead the meat-free substitutes that are excellent and nutritious for the body.
 
The organization also is informing communities of the benefits of organic vegan farming. These are just a few of the noble activities of Viva!

Let’s now continue with Viva!’s eye-opening documentary “Sentenced to Death.”

Narrator(m):
Reports by human torture victims reveal that animals may suffer extreme pain from electric stunning. The shock may simply paralyze them, preventing them from crying out. Even if stunning does render sheep unconscious, it may last for no more than twenty seconds.

In some abattoirs it’s more than a minute before a sheep’s throat is cut after stunning. That’s one failure of the system.

The law allows just one carotid artery to be severed, which means brain death can take as long as seventy seconds. That’s another failure.

Together, they ensure that many sheep routinely regain consciousness. And that’s what seems to have happened in this case.

The previous footage was of Halal slaughter for Muslims who accept pre-stunning. It’s the same as mainstream slaughter.

But we have to go to Paris to see the other kind of Halal slaughter where sheep have their throats cut without stunning because some Muslims say their religion demands it.

This is the festival of Eid al-Kabir and sheep are brought over from Britain in their thousands for this annual sacrifice. It is illegal to slaughter sheep here in this disused railway shed but France won’t stop it and Britain refuses to end the export of sheep for it.

The people doing the killing have no training and do it with ordinary kitchen knives. While insisting on their religious right to slaughter conscious animals, these people we saw were ignoring Muslim law, which says that animals should be comforted and treated gently.

Two minutes after her throat was cut, this sheep was still struggling. Similar events were attempted in Britain, and Viva! was there to protest and stop them. We also contributed to a change in the law, which now makes these events illegal.

Nevertheless, an exception in UK law allows fully conscious animals to be killed in British abattoirs by people who require no training. It’s just the setting that’s different. It’s supposedly illegal to slaughter cattle within the sight of others.

This steer can see other bullocks hanging on the line bleeding to death and has to be goaded
into the crush. The captive bolt pistol causes massive damage to the skull and a shockwave which stuns the brain.

That’s when it works. Up to 230,000 cattle are ineffectively stunned every year, resulting in almost certain agony.

But then, respect is a rare commodity in this trade. This animal is about to be killed by the Jewish shechita method without stunning and fully conscious. It is entirely legal. It’s claimed he will feel no pain and he will die instantly.

In fact, our film ends before this animal finally collapses from loss of blood. This then is a snapshot of slaughter in Britain in the twenty-first century.

Claims that it’s humane are clearly a deceit.

HOST:
Since you started watching today’s show 1,570,000 animals have been needlessly killed in slaughterhouses around the world, which is 105,000 animals every minute.

There is a way to stop all this death and suffering and that is to adopt a compassionate and healthy, life-affirming vegan diet which is free from all animal products.

It is through the plant-based diet that all life can be protected, including our own. In the UK, and all over the globe, each day more and more people are choosing to stop eating meat as they wish to be in tune with nature and in harmony with our animal co-inhabitants.

Thank you for your sincere company today on Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants.  Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment, right after Noteworthy News.

May humankind adopt the loving plant-based diet so that all beings can live together in peace and happiness.