Animal welfare protestors visited two sites in South Holland last week as part of a campaign to end the gassing of pigs.
The Animal Justice Project says it is carrying out a nationwide tour as part of its ‘Turn Off The Gas’ campaign calling for a consultation on using carbon dioxide to kill the animals for food.
Last Wednesday (June 24) its members protested outside the Morrison’s-owned Woodhead Brothers abattoir in Pinchbeck and Pilgrim’s Europe (formerly Dalehead Foods) which, the group says, use gas to kill thousands of pigs a day for pork projects.
Campaigners had hoped to bring a giant mobile pig in a gas chamber but they say police ‘stopped the container from entering Spalding’.
Instead they handed a ‘Last Breath Canister’ to representatives at each site, ‘symbolising the suffering pigs endure during CO₂ gas slaughter’.
A spokesman for The Animal Justice Project said: “They were also shocked to see that pigs were still being transported to the abattoirs in temperatures of almost 30 degrees, with many pigs showing signs of distress from heat, including lethargy and panting.”
Claire Palmer, Director of Animal Justice Project, said: “The Government is preparing to make decisions about the future of pig slaughter, yet most people don’t even know these systems exist.
“For more than 20 years, scientists, animal welfare organisations and government advisers have raised serious concerns about gas chambers. The question now isn’t simply what should replace CO₂, it’s whether gas chambers themselves should continue to be used at all. Different gas, same chamber.
“If people are disturbed by the reality of pigs being gassed to death, the most powerful response is to choose plant-based foods, while supporting farmers to transition away from animal agriculture.”
