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*Warning: this article contains images that some people may find distressing*
The RSPCA has come under renewed scrutiny following a major new investigation that uncovered huge suffering at some of its certified slaughterhouses.
Read more: Why The RSPCA Removed Meat Recipes From Its Website
RSPCA stands for Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It’s the UK’s oldest animal welfare charity, and celebrated its 200th anniversary this year. Animal rights groups have long argued, however, that the RSPCA is not preventing cruelty to all animals in the UK, and that it’s in fact endorsing it. This is because it certifies farms and slaughterhouses with its “RSPCA Assured” label. RSPCA Assured claims that animals are killed in “the most humane way possible.”
In a major slaughterhouse exposé released today, animal advocacy group Animal Rising documented a number of apparent breaches of both RSPCA standards and legal standards for animal welfare. It visited four RSPCA Assured slaughterhouses in the UK. Three of them were in England (in Cornwall, Norfolk, and Staffordshire), while a fourth was in Argyll, Scotland. Animals killed at the slaughterhouses included pigs, sheeps*, cows, and salmon. The RSPCA confirmed to Plant Based News that the three English slaughterhouses have now been suspended from the scheme.
Read more: Celebrities And Vets Call On RSPCA To Ditch Its Farm Assurance Scheme
The reality of UK slaughterhouses
One of the most serious findings of the investigation was ineffective stunning. Under RSPCA guidelines, animals are supposed to be stunned prior to slaughter so that – in theory – they don’t feel pain. Stunning is also required by law under the UK’s Animal Welfare Act (with exception for some religious slaughter).
One method of stunning is electricity. When this method is used, however, there tends to be 15 to 20 second window before the animal wakes up again. Regulation therefore requires the animal to be killed at most 15 seconds afterwards. According to Animal Rising, “many” of the animals observed in the slaughterhouses were killed after the 15 second mark.
Animals were also stunned ineffectively, according to Animal Rising. At the Norfolk slaughterhouse, the electrodes used to stun pigs were often placed incorrectly near their jaws. They were also placed vertically, either above or below the head. Animal Rising calculated that 85 percent of pigs at this slaughterhouse were improperly stunned. At the Staffordshire slaughterhouse, electrodes appeared to be placed too far back on the necks of sheeps and over thick wool. In Argyll, at a salmon slaughterhouse, Animal Rising observed 25 instances of apparent ineffective stunning in a three-hour period. Some animals appeared to be alive while being dismembered.
Other welfare breaches at the slaughterhouses included animals being hit and kicked, excessive electric prod use, rough handling, and sheeps being dragged by their wool.
Cruelty across the board
This slaughterhouse investigation is “part 2” of a much larger exposé of RSPCA Assured by Animal Rising. Earlier this year, it documented huge suffering on dozens of supposedly “high welfare” farms across the country. According to the group, it found suffering on every farm. Chris Packham, the RSPCA’s president, called for an urgent review of the scheme after the investigation was released. The RSPCA conducted a review, and concluded the the scheme was “operating effectively”. Other organizations, including Animal Justice Project, have also uncovered suffering on RSPCA Assured farms.
Animal Rising – alongside celebrities including singer Moby, human rights activist Peter Tatchell, and actor Peter Egan – is calling on the RSPCA to drop RSPCA Assured. “The scheme is a systemic cover-up of animal cruelty that misleads the public via disingenuous marketing,” Rose Patterson, lead investigator at Animal Rising, told Plant Based News. “Our investigations of farms and slaughterhouses have uncovered practices that if carried out on cats and dogs would send people to jail. These double standards at the world’s oldest animal charity have to end.”
The RSPCA claims that its Assured scheme was set up to “improve farmed animal welfare.” But according to Patterson, there is no “kind” way to kill. “No matter how it is framed or regulated, the processes of farming and slaughter inherently prioritize efficiency and profit over the well-being of animals, making cruelty an unavoidable reality,” she said. “There is no such thing as humane slaughter.”
RSPCA responds
In a statement to Plant Based News, an RSPCA spokesperson said: “We are appalled by this extremely distressing footage and RSPCA Assured launched an immediate investigation and has suspended these three slaughterhouses from the scheme. These sites are assured by a number of other accreditation schemes, with different standards and we have alerted the other schemes. We have confirmed that none of the cows and sheep and none of the animals at the Cornwall site featured in the footage were part of the RSPCA Assured scheme. We are concerned some of the allegations made could constitute breaches of the law, so we have also contacted the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which has responsibility for overall enforcement of slaughterhouses.
“RSPCA Assured’s swift action to suspend three slaughterhouses in the wake of this investigation shows we act decisively when standards are breached – protecting and enhancing animal welfare is core to our work. Failure to comply with RSPCA standards and FSA regulations is unacceptable.
“RSPCA Assured provides higher standards of animal welfare. Unfortunately, there is very little legal protection for farmed animals and enforcement is virtually non-existent and we need to unite with other animal protection charities and organisations to call for improved legislation and regulation.
“We are continuing to invest in strengthening the RSPCA Assured scheme, including working towards tripling the amount of unannounced visits annually, a larger investigation team, increased use of technology to consistently monitor standards, and enhanced frontline assessments. We urge other organisations to work with and support us in driving change.”
*While the English language typically refers to multiple sheeps as “sheep,” we use “sheeps” to emphasize their indivuduality
