Ritual/non-stun slaughter

Veterinary practitioners working in slaughterhouses may encounter the practice of ritual slaughter. Dhabihah is the practice prescribed for slaughtering all halal (lawful) animals (goats, sheep, cattle, chickens, etc.) according to Islamic law, and Shechita is the Jewish ritual slaughter of animals for food according to Kashrut, the dietary laws of Judaism. Under both religious rites, slaughter is carried out with a single cut to the live animal’s throat, without prior stunning. The animal suffers loss of consciousness caused by the simultaneous and instantaneous severance of the carotid arteries, generally within seconds, but in the case of cattle, this may take several minutes.

Conditions

There are a number of conditions attached to both practices – Dhabihah and Shechita – including who undertakes the slaughter. Shechita is undertaken by a shochet ubodek (slaughterer and inspector), a Jew of good standing in the community who has undertaken a period of considerable study and training on which animals (species and individual), are Kosher (fit or proper) under Kashrut, and how to prepare and slaughter Kosher animals. Under Islamic law, the butcher must be ‘of the book’, ie. of Muslim, Christian, or Jewish faith. Whereas it was previously a requirement to say the name of ‘Allah’ when slaughtering, it is now acceptable among some Muslim communities, especially when slaughter is being undertaken by a Christian or a Jew, that nothing is said at all.
While Orthodox Jews uphold the prohibition on stunning before slaughter without exception, there is acceptance among Reform and Conservative Jews for pre-stun slaughter. Similarly, a number of Islamic clerics and academics have stated that as head-only electrical stunning does not kill the animal, and is ‘reversible’, it does not make the practice un-Islamic and so is permitted under Islamic law. Nonetheless, non-stun slaughter for religious purposes is still common across the world.

EU perspectives

Veterinary Ireland (the representative organisation for veterinary practitioners in Ireland) welcomed the introduction by the European Union of the Council Regulation (EC) No.1099/2009 on the protection of animals at the time of killing, which came into force on January 1, 2013. However, this legislation continues the EU tradition of allowing for slaughter without prior stunning as prescribed by religious rites and leaving it to each Member State to legislate as to how religious slaughter should be controlled.
Several European countries do not allow derogations from the general requirement of prior stunning. These include Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Slovenia and two of the three regions of Belgium. Switzerland and Lichtenstein require prior stunning except for poultry. Finland has recently passed its Animal Welfare Act 693/2023 and apart from some exceptions for poultry, slaughter without stunning is completely banned. However, an exception is allowed for religiously slaughtered animals where bleeding is started simultaneously with stunning, but only in slaughterhouses in the presence of a veterinary inspector.
That said, in practice, halal meat is produced in Finnish slaughterhouses only from animals which have been stunned before bleeding. Some countries mandate post-cut stunning, including Austria, Estonia, Greece, and Latvia. Religious authorities in many countries have accepted that certain methods of stunning are in accordance with their religious rites and may be performed on animals prior to ritual slaughter, eg. many Muslim authorities accept head-only electrical stunning of animals prior to ritual slaughter.
In a number of Irish slaughterhouses where ritual slaughter of sheep takes place, the sheep are subjected to head-only electrical stunning prior to slaughter. EU legislation allows for slaughter without prior stunning as prescribed by religious rites and leaves it to each Member State to legislate as to how religious slaughter should be controlled.

FVE position paper

In 2002, the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe (FVE) issued its position paper on the Slaughter of Animals without Prior Stunning, in which FVE expressed the opinion that the practice of slaughtering animals without prior stunning is unacceptable under any circumstances. The paper clearly sets out the evidence that slaughter without prior stunning causes the animal avoidable pain, distress and suffering, in direct contravention of animal welfare principles. Veterinary Ireland is a member of FVE and supports and endorses this FVE position. In 2013, FVE issued its position paper on slaughter without stunning and food labelling, which stated that as long as slaughter without stunning is permitted for religious reasons, then any meat or meat products from these sources should be clearly labelled to enable all consumers to make an informed choice based on welfare, ethics, or personal belief when purchasing such products. The document also stresses that it is important to differentiate between ‘religious’ and ‘non-stun’ slaughter, and to focus not on the expression of religious belief, but on the practice of killing by throat-cutting without pre-stunning. FVE therefore advocates that labelling should refer to non-stun slaughter rather than a method of religious slaughter.

Veterinary Ireland policy

Veterinary Ireland supports the statement of the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe (FVE) that ‘the slaughter of animals without prior stunning is unacceptable under any circumstances’ but understands that such slaughter is still legally permissible in Ireland.
As such, the Veterinary Ireland Policy on Welfare of Animals Slaughtered Without Prior Stunning 2019 calls for a number of actions:

1. That the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine engages with local and national religious authorities in order to identify methods of stunning that are acceptable to these religions that will spare the animals all avoidable pain, distress, and suffering, and ensure that these stunning methods are used on all animals slaughtered as prescribed by religious rites.
2. That the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine introduces national rules to ensure the protection of animals slaughtered without prior stunning. These rules must state, at a minimum:

• Slaughterhouses wishing to carry out slaughter according to religious rites must be specifically approved for this purpose by the competent authority, and this approval must be subject to suitable equipment being available.
• An official veterinarian must be present continuously to observe and supervise the slaughtering process.
• Only animals destined for consumption by the religious community concerned should be subjected to slaughter without prior stunning.
• Bovines must not be inverted for the purpose of slaughtering.
• For poultry, the speed of the line must be adjusted to guarantee that each bird can be slaughtered manually.
• The knife used for cutting the animal’s throat must be razor sharp and its length must be at least twice the width of the animal’s neck.
• Animals must not be restrained until the slaughterman is ready to slaughter them.
• The throat cut must be carried out immediately after restraint and must consist of one uninterrupted movement in which both carotid arteries and both jugular veins are cut.
• Animals must be stunned immediately following the cutting of the animal’s throat.
• The wound edges must not come together, and the animal must remain in the restrained position until death ensues.
• All meat derived from animals slaughtered without prior stunning must be clearly labelled as ‘produced from an animal that was not stunned prior to slaughter’.

3. In support and endorsement of the FVE position on this matter, that the EU introduces legislation requiring the labelling of meat to identify if it has come from an animal that was not stunned prior to slaughter.