At The End

The end of life of so very many sheep is not natural, but human-produced. As example, in 2019 the number of sheep in the world ‘killed for meat’ was 602,319,130. (Data of FAOSTAT of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations given by Wikipedia in its ‘Animal slaughter’ article). Sourcing Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) information, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board slaughtering figures for the year to November 2023 in the UK are Ewes and rams 1,520,018 and Other sheep and lambs 11,157,372. 

Regulation of livestock slaughterhouses exists. The Wikipedia article ‘Slaughterhouse’, discussing ‘International variations’, says ‘The standards and regulations governing slaughterhouses vary considerably around the world.’ Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), speaking on Humane Slaughter, states ‘Every year over 2 million animals are exported live out of the EU’, saying that ‘They are sent to countries where they receive no legal protection at the time of slaughter’. And CIWF continues, ‘It has become apparent that huge numbers of animals in the EU - roughly 18% of all sheep, and 27% of all goats - are not killed in official slaughter houses. This means that their slaughter goes entirely unregulated, and much of this is likely to be inhumane.’ In England are the ‘Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing (England) Regulations 2015’. The executive arrangements for approving and monitoring slaughterhouses are complex in the UK; in England responsibility rests with the Food Standards Agency (FSA). The RSPCA welfare standards Sheep (August 2023) give detailed guidance on slaughter/killing of sheep, ‘to ensure livestock are not caused unnecessary distress or discomfort’.

Slaughterhouses need not only regulation but for regulations to be enforced and adhered to. A particular difficulty is that the process of the slaughterhouse is rarely visible to humans others than the participants - operatives and those with duty to monitor and inspect proceedings. Their attitudes and ethics can condition the calibre of outcome.

Psychologist Melanie Joy portrays that desensitization can occur in a someone whose work is to kill animals. 

She says, 
‘… it’s easy to assume that the people whose job it is to kill animals are sadistic or otherwise psychologically disturbed. Yet while psychological disturbance and even sadism may result from prolonged exposure to violence, they do not necessarily cause individuals to seek out a career in killing. In any violent ideology, those in the business of killing may not be jaded when they start out, but they eventually grow accustomed to violence that once disturbed them. Such acclimation reflects the defence mechanism routinization – routinely performing an action until one becomes desensitized, or numbed, to it.’ (Why Do We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows, 2020)   

It represents a difficult proposition for anyone from ‘outside’ to see what goes on in a slaughterhouse, and more so to shine light on it. From those who have ventured inside can come disturbing reports. 

The organisation Animal Equality, reporting on its investigations, says ‘Slaughterhouses are some of the cruellest places in the world, where every year, billions of farmed animals are subject to unimaginable suffering. These facilities are also some of the most secretive. The animal agriculture industry tries desperately to hide what happens behind their closed doors. However, over the years, Animal Equality has gathered extensive undercover footage which allows us to expose the cruel reality of slaughterhouses to the public.’ 

Among the Animal Equality investigations have been two of 2019. One was ‘an investigation into Mexico’s unregulated, ‘underground’ slaughterhouses, bringing to light the cruel treatment and slaughter of lambs and sheep. The other into a slaughterhouse in North Wales in the UK, Animal Equality describes as follows. ‘The investigation uncovered horrifying scenes of sheep getting painfully trapped in machinery and being beheaded in front of each other. Much of this suffering took place with an official Food Standards Agency inspector present.’ 
(‘Our Investigations Into Slaughterhouses’). 

Another organisation, Animal Aid, ‘has filmed in sixteen British slaughterhouses, finding evidence of lawbreaking in most of them.’ Among findings were: ‘sheep being dragged by their heads, forcibly thrown into the stun room, and picked up by their fleeces and ears’; ‘sheep being decapitated whilst still alive’; ‘sheep being smashed headfirst into pallets, a worker bouncing up and down on the neck of a sheep, and slaughterers hacking away at the throats of conscious sheep with a blunt knife’; fearful sheep… running in circles to evade being stunned’; ‘sheep being handled roughly, with one being thrown over a gate and another falling to the ground after being roughly pushed.’; cutting the throat of a sheep while fully conscious, and a stun-man picking up a sheep by her fleece and neck and hurling her down the slaughter conveyor line …. Another worker grabbed sheep by their throats or fleeces and threw them backwards into the conveyor, often with an audible crash’. 
(‘Humane slaughter in British abattoirs a sham’) 

As Joaquin Phoenix, narrator in the documentary film Earthlings (2005), says in that film ‘… if slaughterhouses had glass walls would not all of us be vegetarians?’.

We should surely all work for the process of the slaughterhouse to become visible, and characterised by care and kindness to sheep, so that life at the - slaughterhouse - end for a sheep is without fear, stress, pain, or suffering. And towards such transparency, open-ness, and good practice as standard, let us heed the reports and images from those who have been able to see how sheep are treated in their slaughter, at the end.