|
Animal welfare group petitions FSIS to up humane handling standards
Story Date: 6/7/2013
| |
Source: Tom Johnston, MEATINGPLACE, 6/6/13
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) has submitted a petition to the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service pushing the agency to write stricter regulations around humane handling at slaughter establishments, the nonprofit group said in a news release.
In particular, AWI is asking FSIS to require all such establishments to implement a comprehensive, written animal-handling plan. AWI also wants the agency to address some of the most frequent causes of inhumane handling and slaughter incidents by requiring training for workers and routine testing and maintenance of stunning equipment, and that backup stunning devices be available in both the stunning and holding areas of every slaughter plant.
“The common-sense amendments requested in the AWI petition address these reoccurring causes of inhumane handling and could significantly reduce the amount of needless suffering experienced by animals during slaughter,” AWI President Cathy Liss said.
AWI said its petition is based on its review of more than 1,000 humane slaughter violations at state and federally inspected plants from 2007 through 2012, records that it obtained through more than 100 Freedom of Information Act requests to the USDA and state departments of agriculture.
The group contends that only 35 percent of federally inspected plants — and very few state inspected plants — have developed comprehensive animal handling plans recommended by USDA eight years ago. It notes that USDA currently considers such plans to be at the discretion of individual plants; typically they are not required until after one or more egregious incidents has occurred.
For more stories, go to http://www.meatingplace.com/.
|
|
|
|
