Media Release

5th July 2005

Slaughterhouse Programme Applauded by Vegetarians

Viva!, Britain?s leading vegetarian campaigning group, congratulate the BBC?s courage for showing viewers the gory reality of meat production in Slaughterhouse ? The Task of Blood, and is braced for the wave of new vegetarians that it is sure to trigger.

Nearly two and a half million animals are slaughtered in British abattoirs every single day, yet most people who eat meat have never seen the brutal reality of their deaths. In fact many meat-eaters will probably have shied away from the programme because they don?t want to see how animals are killed to make sausages, burgers and nuggets, preferring to believe the ?humane slaughter? myth.

Millions of the one billion animals slaughtered in the UK each year suffer pain and fear when they are improperly stunned before slaughter and may fail to lose consciousness at all, facing a violent and terrifying death. Video footage shot by Viva! inside UK abattoirs shows animals being stunned for as little as 2 seconds and regaining consciousness as they bleed to death. Clearly conscious sheep and pigs are shown struggling violently as they hang from shackles on the slaughter line.

Gabriele Meurer MRCVS, who worked as an official veterinary surgeon in UK abattoirs, saw countless animals regaining consciousness as they bled to death, saying: ?No animal likes to enter the lairage. So they were pushed, beaten and kicked. Electric goads were used practically all the time. A certain number of animals have to be slaughtered each day and so there is no time for animal welfare. Time is money.?

Toni Vernelli, Viva!?s Senior Campaigner, says: ?Slaughterhouse ? The Task of Blood helped challenge the complacency at the heart of Britain?s meat-eating culture. Anyone who found the scenes of slaughter shocking and distressing should wash their hands of this bloody business by going vegetarian?.

For more information contact Toni Vernelli or Justin Kerswell on 0117 944 1000.

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